FCC Chairman Ajit Pai plans to soon circulate an item on the C-band auction and seek a vote at the next commissioners' meeting, he told Communications Daily in Q&A after Thursday's monthly gathering. "We will be considering an item on the Feb. 28 meeting to go forward with the C band.”
Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman John Kennedy, R-La., Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., filed their Spectrum Management And Reallocation for Taxpayers (Smart) Act Tuesday in a bid to designate the proceeds from a coming auction of bandwidth on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band. Aides to Kennedy and Schatz confirmed the bill’s filing to us ahead of a formal announcement.
The government official who has been running NTIA after its last head left is now leaving herself.
The FTC “effectively removed” Facebook’s independent privacy assessor, Chairman Joe Simons wrote a legislator in a letter we obtained.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wants to spend some $9 billion from the USF over about 10 years for fifth-generation wireless services. At least $1 billion would be for precision agriculture, the agency announced this afternoon.
The U.S. Trade Representative Monday evening listed 63 Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings that may face tariffs of up to 100 percent when imported from France. It's in retaliation for that country’s digital services tax.
State attorneys general lost the only Republican colleague who had joined them in challenging T-Mobile's buy of Sprint. Texas' Ken Paxton's office reached a settlement with T-Mobile that he said Monday morning is "resolving the state’s antitrust claims against the proposed merger."
The FCC and not satellite providers or other private entities will run an auction for the C band, Chairman Ajit Pai confirmed in a series of tweets late this morning. The agency could aim to move those satellite frequencies for 5G use.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., is expected to file this afternoon legislation that would make permanent a far more limited version of the distant-signal compulsory license currently authorized under the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, communications sector officials and lobbyists told us. STELA is the subject of an intensifying reauthorization debate on Capitol Hill, with the House Commerce Committee set to mark up a renewal bill Tuesday.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he will circulate an order for the Nov. 19 commissioners’ meeting that would bar providers from using USF support to buy from suppliers deemed a threat to national security. Pai will also propose that the FCC seek comment on a process to remove and replace such equipment from USF-funded networks.