The FCC’s Wireline Bureau released a series of orders on delegated authority Thursday with the goal of making it easier for carriers to move away from legacy copper networks, said a news release and a number of filings. Outdated agency rules “have forced providers to pour resources into maintaining aging and expensive copper line networks instead of investing in the modern, high-speed infrastructure that Americans want and deserve," said Chairman Brendan Carr in the release.
President Donald Trump’s unprecedented firing of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter on Tuesday doesn’t necessarily mean FCC Democrats Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez are next, industry experts said. Starks has already announced plans to leave the agency this spring (see 2503180067). The two FTC Democrats have vowed to fight.
Absent more FCC action on issues such as ownership and facilitating the ATSC 3.0 transition, the broadcast industry is quickly sliding toward a "period of catastrophic decline," FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington said Thursday. "We can't keep on the current trajectory" of stations closing and licenses falling into disuse, he said at a Media Institute event. The trend line on broadcaster bankruptcies is "a little bit like the beginning of a recession."
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. New cases since the last update are marked with a *.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and SpaceX are assessing how to limit RF interference coming from Starlink satellites that causes issues with the Very Large Array (VLA) observatory in New Mexico, according to NRAO Deputy Spectrum Manager Chris De Pree. In addition, NRAO is considering implementing those methods with its additional telescopes and sharing successes with other U.S. observatories.
The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council held its first meeting under new FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday, hearing updates on 6G and from its two other working groups. CSRIC last met in December (see 2412180041).
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges didn’t appear to greatly favor either side in arguments Wednesday on the FCC’s 2018 quadrennial review order, but broadcast industry officials and attorneys said they saw it as a positive sign that the panel apparently embraced the idea that broadcasting is under threat. Aren’t FCC rules intended to promote viewpoint diversity “short-sighted” if they lead to broadcasters going out of business and no longer offering news? asked Judge Duane Benton of FCC attorney James Carr. “Isn’t AM radio dying?” Benton asked at another point. “I hear they’re not even going to put it in new cars.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's administration plans to defend his Tuesday firing of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (see 2503180067). The Trump administration is seeking U.S. Supreme Court reversal of Humphrey's Executor v. U.S., a unanimous 1935 high court decision that set a precedent preventing the president from firing members of commissions like the FTC (see 2503040019). The firings drew swift opposition from congressional Democrats.
Lawyers for the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society were cautiously optimistic Wednesday that their side would prevail at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the FCC and the USF contribution factor in FCC v. Consumers’ Research. But they also expect a divided decision. SCOTUS is to consider the case March 26.
Experts warned Tuesday against a move to hold the next World Radiocommunication Conference in China. During a Technology Policy Institute spectrum webinar, they said holding the 2027 conference there could effectively limit U.S. participation as the world discusses the harmonization of 6G and satellite spectrum.