Conservative groups and the Consumer Technology Association argued in reply comments filed by Friday’s deadline that a mandatory transition to ATSC 3.0, as NAB proposed, would fly in the face of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s deregulatory agenda. In its own comments, NAB argued that a mandate is necessary for broadcast competition, saying it's no different from the DTV transition.
Senate Commerce Committee Republicans released the panel's portion of a budget reconciliation bill Thursday night with language that proposes mandating that the FCC sell at least 800 MHz of reallocated spectrum, as expected (see 2506050064). Some communications industry groups praised the measure, but observers said they expect other stakeholders to criticize it. Lobbyists said they expect that Senate Commerce Democrats will likely vote against the proposal, as party-affiliated House Commerce Committee members did last month when that panel marked up its part (see 2505140062) of what became the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR-1).
Low-power TV (LPTV) broadcasters said in FCC comments that their industry is dying, and ATSC 3.0 won’t be enough to save it. Those comments, in docket 25-168, were in response to HC2’s petition proposing LPTV stations be allowed to switch to 5G broadcast. NAB disagreed, saying 5G broadcast advocates haven’t done enough to show that it won’t cause unacceptable interference.
The FCC’s “bad labs” order and Further NPRM, approved by commissioners 4-0 last week and posted this week, contains a lengthy cost-of-benefit analysis weighing the costs and risks of not moving forward with the rules. FCC officials noted last week that this was the only major change from the draft (see 2505220056), though the agency also added a paragraph on DOJ's concerns. Other changes were mostly cosmetic, based on a side-by-side comparison.
Rate regulation would harm competition in the broadband marketplace and undermine efforts to close the digital divide, said ACA Connects in a new study released Thursday. The study, conducted in partnership with Cartesian, found four "cascading" effects of rate regulation: less investment, less competition, a slowdown in pricing declines and harm spillover.
A new report from the Phoenix Center questions whether 5G has been the huge boon for the U.S. economy that the wireless industry claims. The report, released Wednesday, comes as the Trump administration launches a push to make 600 MHz of midband spectrum available for licensed use (see 2505270045). It disputes findings from a January study released by CTIA that each additional 100 MHz of midband spectrum set aside for carrier use will add $260 billion to the national GDP, generate $390 billion in consumer benefits and create 1.5 million jobs (see 2501230041).
The FCC approved an order and Further NPRM Thursday aimed at squelching “bad labs,” continuing work started in the last administration. Commissioners also decided the agency would look well beyond its initial plans of considering the 12.7 and 42 GHz bands for satellite broadband spectrum. Those items were approved 4-0, as were updated foreign-ownership rules (see 2505010037).
SpaceX is now launching about 2,000 Starlink satellites every 12 months and may exceed that this year, Quilty Space said Wednesday. The company has kept up that deployment rate even as it introduced larger satellite iterations, which didn't fit as well on its Falcon 9 rocket, Quilty said. As the number of satellites on each Falcon 9 launch dropped from 60 to 22, SpaceX's launch rate has increased, the analysis said. It said SpaceX's introduction of direct-to-device Starlink satellites in May 2024 modestly slowed broadband deployment, taking eight months to launch 1,000 broadband satellites. SpaceX has started conducting more Falcon 9 launches with the V2 Mini version of Starlink, which has 22% less mass, so 29 can fit on each Falcon 9, Quilty said: That satellite iteration is likely to be the last generation of Starlinks to fly on the Falcon 9 before SpaceX moves to V3s, which are designed to launch on the company's Starship rocket.
Thirty-eight percent of YouTube's monthly active users worldwide watch traditional TV and film content on the service, Ampere Analysis said Wednesday. Music and music videos are the most popular content type on YouTube, with 56% of monthly active users worldwide consuming music-related content, it said. The growing number of full-length shows and movies being uploaded to YouTube by studios, producers and broadcasters runs the risk of cannibalizing some audiences, it said. But the reach and scale of YouTube opens up new revenue streams via ad-share agreements with the platform, it said.
The rapid decline in submarine cable wholesale bandwidth prices, which had slowed globally due to supply chain and geopolitical issues, is picking up speed again, TeleGeography wrote Tuesday. It said price erosion is accelerating on some key global routes, as high-capacity submarine cables enter service, but remains slow on other subsea cable routes, where systems have been delayed. Wholesale prices for the U.S.-Latin America route are falling briskly due to the imminent launch of the Google-built Firmina cable and upgrades to existing systems, the analysis said.