The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) explicitly requires that the FCC "regulate to achieve equal access to broadband" and "authorizes [the] FCC's disparate-impact rules," a consumer advocacy groups said in a joint filing Friday at the 8th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court (see 2401300089). In addition, the groups argued that the major questions doctrine didn't apply in this case.
SpaceX and Omnispace clashed on whether the FCC should stick with a deadline for oppositions and replies to a SpaceX petition seeking reconsideration of the aggregate out-of-band power flux density (PFD) limits that the FCC adopted in March's supplemental coverage from space order (see 2405300044). Oppositions were due Friday. Omnispace asked that the FCC extend the deadline for oppositions and replies, due July 15, each for a week. The proceeding “involves complex issues and detailed technical calculations, including the possibility of ‘significant [radio frequency] problems,’” Omnispace said in a filing last week in docket 23-65: “Complex questions of interference deserve careful consideration by all parties, and additional filing time would allow parties to submit more robust and detailed submissions.” SpaceX noted Friday that the commission accepted the petition for filing three weeks ago and established a pleading cycle two weeks back. But Omnispace “waited until just three days before the filing date to belatedly seek a one-week extension based solely on the fact that July 4 is a holiday,” SpaceX said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency endorsed NAB's proposal for a software-based replacement for emergency alert system equipment, NAB and several broadcasters said in an ex parte meeting last week with Public Safety Bureau staff, according to a filing in docket 15-94. The filing said the replacement would make it easier to improve EAS systems with increased accessibility or multiple languages. NAB proposed the software replacement for physical EAS boxes in December 2022 (see 2306020064). The proposal would be voluntary and able to operate if internet or cloud connectivity is interrupted, the filing said. NAB and the broadcasters -- including iHeartMedia, New York Public Radio and Cox media representatives -- also told the agency they agreed with FEMA objections to an agency proposal to facilitate multilingual EAS alerts with prerecorded templates (see 2404100083). “The costs of the FCC’s approach will outweigh any minor, speculative benefits,” the filing said.
Radio Communications Corporation’s appeal of the FCC’s implementation of the 2023 Low Power Protection Act should be rejected because “Congress meant what it said” when it authored the statute, the FCC told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a final brief Friday. The text of the LPPA is “unambiguous,” the agency argued. The FCC “correctly interpreted the statutory requirement that an eligible station ‘operate in a Designated Market Area with not more than 95,000 television households’ to mean that an eligible station must be located within a Designated Market Area that has no more than 95,000 television households,” the brief said. That “straightforward conclusion” means RCC is ineligible for a Class A license and resolves the case, the FCC said. The LPPA “does not provide unbounded protection for low power stations. Nor can any unexpressed Congressional purpose override the statute’s plain textual commands.” In addition, the FCC said its use of Nielsen DMAs isn't unconstitutional. “Agencies are free to rely on private entities to provide factual information,” the FCC said. “Doing so here at Congress’s direction violated no constitutional principle.” The court doesn’t need to rule on RCC’s objections to LPPA requirements for local programming or on claims that Class A stations are entitled to mandatory cable carriage because RCC isn’t eligible to be a Class A licensee, the brief said. “Largely ignoring the statute’s plain text,” RCC “fundamentally misreads the Low Power Protection Act,” the brief added.
ATIS fired back at an Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials' opposition to the standards group’s petition for reconsideration or clarification of the FCC’s January outage reporting order (see 2406120043). APCO found the petition confusing. “ATIS’ request is clear, and there is adequate notice from an [Administrative Procedure Act] perspective to grant” the relief, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 21-346. ATIS had asked the FCC to clarify the application of its waiver of network outage reporting system filings during disaster information reporting system (DIRS) activations. “Granting ATIS’ request would facilitate service restoration by allowing service providers to focus on repairing and restoring the network, rather than on notifications,” ATIS said: “DIRS was adopted to provide a simplified and consistent process for service providers to report communications infrastructure status and situational awareness information during times of crisis.” In creating DIRS, the commission “acknowledged the need to reduce reporting-related burdens on service providers during major disaster and recovery events,” ATIS said.
The FCC again extended by one year its waiver pausing the phase-out of Lifeline support for voice-only services and increasing minimum service standards for mobile broadband data (see 2307070056). A Wireline Bureau order in docket 11-42 Wednesday noted the "marketplace for affordable broadband services is undergoing significant changes as a result of the end of the affordable connectivity program." The waiver now expires Dec. 1, 2025.
Public Knowledge became the first group to note meetings on a draft FCC notice seeking comment on uniform, industrywide handset unlocking requirements, teed up for a July 18 commissioner vote (see 2406260058). Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld spoke with aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington, according to filings last week in docket 24-186. The group “enthusiastically supports” the proposed notice, PK said. “Consumers have benefited from the Verizon unlocking condition and the overall agreement by carriers to unlock cell phones that are fully paid for.” But PK also asked that the FCC seek comment on whether carrier practices on number porting “either accidentally or by intent -- create barriers to switching.” The group noted the agency hasn’t “systemically examined” number porting practices for 15 years: “Despite the establishment of basic standards, we have heard anecdotal evidence that different carriers require different types of documentation or pin numbers for security purposes, and may have inconsistent practices regarding wait times for assistance that discourage subscribers from transferring their phone contracts.”
Competitive Carriers Association representatives, including President Tim Donovan, met with aides to FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Anna Gomez on the group’s concerns about a proposed 5G Fund. Issues still exist within the broadband data collection mobile challenge process “that make it difficult for smaller providers to submit challenges,” a filing posted Friday in docket 19-195 said. The BDC “requires mobile challenges to be based on outdoor stationary measurements, rather than in-vehicle measurements” and members have reported “the significant burden and potential impossibility” of comprehensive outdoor stationary measurements of mobile service areas compared with drive testing, which “more realistically reflects the mobile nature of mobile service,” CCA said. The exclusive use of outdoor stationary data “would significantly overstate covered areas” leaving “many areas in need excluded from the program,” CCA said. The group said the low proposed funding level is “a significant issue threatening the overall success of the program” and stressed the importance of coordination with the broadband equity, access and deployment program. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated in March an order that would launch a 5G Fund Phase I multi-round reverse auction, making $9 billion available to target 14 million homes and businesses lacking mobile 5G coverage (see 2403200071).
Former President Donald Trump denounced the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 -- some of which FCC Republican Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington wrote -- in a post on Truth Social Friday. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” Carr is listed as principal author of the FCC chapter in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, the book outlining Project 2025’s 180-day plan for a second Trump administration. Simington is credited as a contributor. Neither Simington nor Carr commented.
The FCC Wireline Bureau gave carriers part of the relief they sought on rules addressing SIM swapping and port-out fraud, delaying Monday's compliance deadline. The reprieve, though, isn't as long as CTIA, NCTA and the Competitive Carriers Association wanted (see 2406270028). The bureau found that delay of the rules until March 10, as the groups asked, “would not serve the public interest,” a Friday order said. But the bureau said the requirement won’t kick in until OMB completes its review of the information collection requirements in the rules and the FCC publishes a notice in the Federal Register announcing the compliance date. “This will effectively result in a single synchronized timeframe,” the order said. The review is expected to be completed no earlier than November, the order said. The FCC “gave the industry a half a loaf, which is better than giving them the whole loaf,” Margot Saunders, senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, told us. Saunders said “it’s too bad” the requirements aren’t already in place. “SIM swap and port out frauds cause devastating losses to consumers, especially to low-income consumers who are using prepaid phones, which are more vulnerable,” she said: Consumers often don’t “have the means to launch expensive litigation to recoup their funds. The new regulations impose relatively modest requirements -- which do not seem to be overly complex, or need radical new systems to be developed.” The commission "is not unaware of the complexities of implementing the requirements,” but “we do not find the complexities outlined by Petitioners persuasive to overcome the Commission’s stated concerns regarding the urgency of addressing these types of pernicious fraudulent schemes,” the order said.