Witnesses set to testify during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday (see 2402090072) want lawmakers to consider longer-term initiatives for curbing China’s risk to U.S. communications networks. The push for Congress to allocate an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2401240001) will likely receive attention during the hearing, as it has in other recent panels, lobbyists said. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

NOAA'S Office of Space Commerce (OSC) expects it will have some form of a civil and commercial space situational awareness (SSA) service available by year's end, according to OSC Director Richard DalBello. DOD is in the midst of a phased handover of civil and commercial SSA oversight to OSC, stemming from the White House's 2018 space policy directive on space traffic management (see 21806180028). Designed to be slow and deliberate, that transition will be complete within five years, DalBello said Wednesday in a Washington Space Business Roundtable talk.

Utility companies, ISPs and advocacy groups sparred over the FCC's proposed revisions to its pole attachment and replacement rules, in comments posted Wednesday in docket 17-84. The FCC should abandon its Further NPRM, adopted in December with a related order and declaratory ruling and instead encourage greater communication between pole owners and attackers, some said (see 2312130044). Others sought greater oversight of the process and urged quick action.

One of the big surprises from the World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai, which ended in December, was the role that fear played in many of the negotiations, Charles Glass, chief of the International Spectrum Policy Division in NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management, said during an FCBA webinar Wednesday.

Public interest and consumer groups urged the FCC take a more aggressive stance on a November Further NPRM about protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud (see 2311150042). CTIA said the commission should “pursue a flexible and risk-based approach” toward customer account security and fraud deterrence. Reply comments were due this week in docket 21-341, and they largely mirror initial comments (see 2401180053).

The FTC’s proposed rules for moderating fake online reviews are overly broad and carry liability risks that will result in platforms censoring legitimate reviews on sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp, the Interactive Advertising Bureau said Tuesday.

An FCC draft NPRM seeking comment on using scripted templates to facilitate multilingual emergency alert system messages is expected to change little from the original draft and be approved unanimously, agency officials told us. By eliminating the difficulty of translating the messages, “this model potentially should make issuing multilingual EAS alerts simpler and more accessible for alert originators,” the draft said. Many proposals in the draft item could severely burden MVPDs and broadcasters, according to NCTA and alerting industry officials. The item is on the agenda for the commissioners' open meeting on Thursday.

Industry is calling on the FCC to revise a robocall item, set for a commissioner vote Thursday, which codifies some robocall and robotexting rules while asking about applying protections in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to communications from wireless carriers to their own subscribers (see 2401250068). Industry officials told us they’re not certain the FCC will make the changes they seek, though they expect tweaks.

Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act (HR-6929) GOP co-sponsor Rep. Marc Molinaro of New York acknowledged Tuesday that Republican opponents of stopgap funding for ACP are an impediment, but one the bill’s backers can overcome. HR-6929 and Senate companion S-3565 would allocate $7 billion for ACP, keeping it alive through FY 2024 (see 2401100056). The FCC froze ACP enrollments last week in keeping with procedures for winding down the program absent more federal funding.

The FTC has plans for adding psychologists and pediatricians to its staff to help on issues related to social media use and child mental health, Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said Monday. The agency wants to emulate the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority, which has interdisciplinary teams within the organization, he said during State of the Net conference. The agency plans to add the specialists in the fall, he said. Based on social science research, three things are driving “teen mental health” concerns online, he said: social media content, extended engagement tools and features that enable user harassment.