The House Commerce Committee voted 50-1 Wednesday to advance a revised version of the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-979), despite some members’ misgivings about including a shorter sunset period as a compromise with pro-automotive industry lawmakers. HR-979 and its Senate Commerce Committee-advanced companion, S-315, would require the Department of Transportation to mandate that future automobiles include AM radio technology, mostly affecting electric vehicles (see 2502100072). The bill’s supporters unsuccessfully tried to attach it to a December 2024 continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations (see Ref:2412180033]).

As communications evolves, NATO is “at the forefront” of trying to understand new technologies, “testing and experimenting” to see which are “the most impactful,” said Antonio Calderon, chief technology officer of the NATO Communications and Information Agency, during a Mobile World Live webinar Wednesday. Other speakers said 5G means new opportunities for business and government agencies, and companies are experimenting with private networks and network slicing.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr signaled in a podcast interview posted Wednesday that the FCC could act against ABC and parent company Disney if they don't discipline late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments related to the political affiliation of the man arrested in the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. First Amendment attorneys told us that policing the speech of late-show monologues is outside FCC authority.

China is on the verge of eclipsing U.S. leadership and commercial dominance of space, according to the Commercial Space Federation (CSF). The Asian nation is on a campaign "to define norms, capture markets, and build international coalitions across all segments of the space ecosystem,” the group said in a report released Tuesday about China's growing commercial space activity.

Groups opposed to the order giving the FirstNet Authority, and indirectly AT&T, control of the 4.9 GHz band through a nationwide license (see 2410220027) and the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA), which had only a few quibbles with the order, clashed in briefs filed this week at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral argument has yet to be scheduled in the case (docket 24-1363). The FCC approved the order during the last administration with support from current Chairman Brendan Carr (see 2411130027).

A handful of right-leaning groups are pressing strongly for a bipartisan congressional working group to recommend funding USF via the appropriations process as part of a potential legislative revamp of the program, but other stakeholders said they still they favor various expansions of the initiative’s contributions base. Comments to the working group were due late Monday night as part of its recently relaunched bill consultations (see 2508010051). The right-leaning groups also called for the most far-reaching changes to the program’s governance and structure, in some cases seeking to ax the high-cost fund.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Tuesday that he’s generally satisfied with how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is playing out and raised doubts about whether the agency will plow further into the issue. The debate over Section 230 “is still alive,” but given changes by social media companies, Carr is in a “trust-but-verify posture,” he said at a Politico summit focused on AI.

As policymakers look at reforms to the USF, they need to examine why so many people who are eligible for support don’t enroll in Lifeline and other programs, experts said Monday during an event hosted by Georgetown University's Center for Business and Public Policy. The session coincided with Monday's deadline for responding to the congressional USF working group's request for comments and proposals on USF reform.

Forced to abandon its plans for a terrestrial mobile network of its own, EchoStar is pivoting to what CEO Hamid Akhavan calls a "hybrid MVNO" (mobile virtual network operator) model, where its Boost Mobile business will use AT&T's mobile network and SpaceX's direct-to-device capacity.

With NTIA in the 90-day curing stage for states that submitted their revised final BEAD proposals by the Sept. 4 deadline, some broadband access advocates are claiming that the agency is requiring states to conduct another "Best and Final Offer" round based on price caps. They said a spreadsheet obtained by BroadbandMarketer's Doug Adams containing excessive cost thresholds suggests that NTIA will require states to reengage with subgrantees with overly high project costs.