ISPs are hopeful that the new Trump administration will focus on streamlining federal permitting once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, experts said Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast webinar.
Two groups are challenging the FCC’s October order giving the FirstNet Authority, and indirectly AT&T, use of the 4.9 GHz band (see 2410220027). The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (CERCI) is challenging the order, while the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) is protesting aspects of it. Both recently filed petitions for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said Wednesday he has “no plans to resign,” an apparent response to talk that he was eyeing a Jan. 20 departure, in tandem with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, when Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr takes the gavel (see 2411210028). Several Senate Commerce Committee Democrats told us earlier Wednesday they were concerned that he would leave early and they were considering joining Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in pushing Starks to stay into the early months of President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration. Punchbowl News first reported Tuesday night that Schumer is urging Starks to stay. Meanwhile, Republican Commissioner Nathan Simington also is facing pressure to delay an early potential exit, but his departure doesn’t appear as imminent.
Public interest and consumer groups replying to an FCC notice of inquiry (see 2411150025) encouraged the agency to launch a more targeted inquiry on data caps and said ISPs haven’t built a case for caps to continue. Industry groups opposed FCC intervention. Reply comments were due Monday in docket 23-199.
NTIA on Tuesday released the first of the band-specific reports called for in the national spectrum strategy (see 2403120056) on the 37 GHz band. Due last month, the report was developed with DOD and recommends a federal and nonfederal co-primary sharing framework for the lower 37 GHz band.
Communications industry executives and former federal officials said during a Practising Law Institute event Tuesday they see a likely GOP-led budget reconciliation package next year as a potential vehicle for legislation that would reinstate the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority. House Commerce Committee leaders and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have repeatedly attempted to reinstate the authority during this Congress only to have their efforts stall (see 2409170066).
FCC Commissioner and incoming Chairman Brendan Carr on Tuesday discussed empowering local broadcasters, moving "aggressively” on USF revisions and opening up the space economy and jumpstarting spectrum policy. Speaking at the Practising Law Institute's 42nd Annual Institute on Telecommunications Policy & Regulation, Carr said he's “really looking forward” to taking the commission's top seat.
Congress should require that the likely next FCC chair, Commissioner Brendan Carr, “commit to protecting free speech and the public interest” because as a sitting commissioner he won't have a Senate confirmation process to lead the agency, and he's “a threat to free speech,” Free Press co-CEO Jessica Gonzalez wrote in an opinion column in The Hill Saturday. Gonzalez highlighted Carr’s public statements on using the FCC news distortion and equal opportunity rules against broadcasters and FCC regulation of social media platforms as evidence that he is a free speech threat. “Talk about Orwellian,” Carr responded in a post on X. “My decision to stand up for the free speech rights of everyday Americans and against the censorship cartel is not the threat, enforced silence is.”
The FCC unanimously approved an order aligning rules for the 24 GHz band with decisions made at the World Radiocommunication Conference held five years ago (WRC-19). Released Monday, the order aligns part 30 of the commission’s rules for mobile operations in the band with Resolution 750 limits adopted at WRC-19 to protect the passive 23.6-24 GHz band from unwanted emissions on time frames adopted at the conference.
Tapped to lead the FCC during the second Trump administration (see 2411170001), FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is expected to be as aggressive as possible on spectrum and wireless siting issues, industry experts said. During President-elect Donald Trump's first administration, then-Chairman Ajit Pai made Carr lead commissioner on wireless siting.