Pearl TV and the broadcast members of the ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA) are using encryption standards to box out independent device makers, and those standards should be made public, said DVR gateway device maker SiliconDust in an FCC filing Tuesday. It responded to a Pearl TV submission last week that attacked SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun device as containing parts from a company affiliated with Chinese chipmaker Huawei (see 2507180047). The FCC rules against including Huawei technology don’t apply to devices like the HDHomeRun because it doesn’t originate voice, data, graphics or video telecommunications, SiliconDust said. The company “does not provide sensitive technology to Chinese companies. The insinuation by Pearl is shameful.”
EchoStar, parent of Dish Network, said the FCC should use the same designated entity rules in the reauction of AWS-3 that it employed in the original 2014 auction (see 2504020017), according to a filing Tuesday in docket 25-70. EchoStar representatives met with aides to Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty. The agency is slated to vote on auction rules Thursday. Many of the licenses for sale were returned to the FCC by Dish. “If EchoStar will owe deficiency payments as part of the reauction, then the reauction should proceed under the same designated-entity rules as Auction 97,” the company said. “Doing so would avoid impermissible retroactivity and violating EchoStar’s due process rights while encouraging greater participation.”
The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee voted 9-6 along party lines Monday night to advance its FY 2026 budget bill, which proposes to maintain the FCC’s annual funding at $390.2 million (see 2507210064). The measure includes a set of riders that would bar the agency from using money to enforce certain policies that originated during the Biden administration and have been in Republicans’ crosshairs, including its 2024 digital discrimination order. House Appropriations previously included some of the riders in its FY 2025 funding bill, which didn’t get a floor vote (see 2406050067). House and Senate Republicans also bowed Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval last year that aimed to roll back the 2024 order (see 2403140070).
Consumers’ Research said the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should look more closely at an issue raised in the dissent and a footnote in the majority opinion of the Supreme Court’s decision in June upholding the legality of the USF. The FCC and DOJ last week asked the 5th Circuit not to require further briefing but close the case (see 2507170063).
Industry commenters broadly supported a CTIA petition asking the FCC to extend a temporary waiver that allows use of the interim volume control testing method for hearing-aid compatibility (HAC) compliance (see 2507020051). Groups representing consumers said any additional waiver must be limited and come with “safeguards and guardrails.” The current waiver expires Sept. 29.
The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY 2026 budget bill, which the subpanel planned to mark up Monday evening, would maintain the FCC’s annual funding level and bar the agency from using money to enforce certain policies that originated during the Biden administration and have been in Republicans’ crosshairs.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, postponed the panel’s Thursday markup of its FY 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee funding bill after Democrats successfully attached an amendment that would bar using federal money to relocate the FBI’s headquarters to anywhere other than the previously approved location in Greenbelt, Maryland. Senate Appropriations initially voted 21-6 to advance the bill, which will include annual funding for NTIA and other Commerce Department agencies. The total later narrowed after the panel voted 15-14 to attach the FBI amendment. Collins then said she was calling a “long recess” that postponed action on the measure.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. New cases are marked with a *.
Leaders of two 911 advocacy groups in Tuesday interviews offered slightly diverging plans for pushing Congress to address funding for next-generation 911 tech upgrades. Republican lawmakers decided against allocating any future spectrum auction revenue for that purpose in the budget reconciliation package both chambers passed last week (see 2507030056). President Donald Trump signed the measure Friday, authorizing an 800 MHz spectrum auction pipeline through Sept. 30, 2034 (see 2507070045). A Hill briefing Tuesday with the NG9-1-1 Institute and Intrado on emergency communications issues barely touched on the funding issue.