The FCC’s June rules for foreign-sponsored content violate the Administrative Procedure Act because the agency didn’t provide notice of plans for expanding the 2021 rules to cover political ads and public service announcements, said NAB in a petition for review filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The 2024 order was a response to a D.C. Circuit ruling in favor of an NAB-backed challenge to portions of the FCC's 2021 foreign-sponsored content rules. The FCC “did not even attempt to provide a rationale for changing course,” to go after PSAs and issue ads, NAB said in the filing, which echoes arguments Commissioners Nathan Simington and Brendan Carr raised in dissents back in May. “Adopting rule changes nobody could have reasonably anticipated is a textbook example of unfair surprise,” Carr wrote at the time.
Fred Moorefield, who long oversaw spectrum policy at DOD, last week pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to engage in dogfighting and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. He faces up to five years in prison. Moorefield, 63, left DOD 11 months ago after the charges were announced (see 2310030058).
The same attorney can't represent multiple parties in the hearing proceeding on the TV and radio licenses of Antonio Guel and the Hispanic Christian Community Network, ruled FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in an order posted Friday (see 2408280048). Broadcast attorney Dan Alpert’s “proposed simultaneous representation of all three deponents is fundamentally at odds with ‘the proper dispatch of business and the ends of justice,’” said the order. Alpert had sought to represent Guel, his daughter Maria Guel and niece Jennifer Juarez in the case but faced arguments from the FCC Enforcement Bureau that this would be a conflict of interest. The hearing proceeding is based in part on allegations that Antonio Guel pretended to sell his stations to Juarez while actually retaining control of them, and conflicting filings in the case show Maria Guel and Antonio Guel as heading up multiple companies involved in the matter. “With each filing in this proceeding, the control and operation of the Guel family’s broadcast licenses becomes less clear,” said the order. “It is therefore not only foreseeable but likely that there will be incongruity in the testimony of Mr. Guel, Ms. Juarez, and Ms. Guel.” Halprin’s ruling allows Alpert to continue representing Antonio Guel in the case, but bars him from representing Maria Guel or Juarez. The order gives Maria Gual and Juarez 45 days to obtain new counsel.
AM and FM broadcasters shouldn’t make FY 2024 regulatory fee payments into the FCC’s commission registration system (CORES) due to an issue with the way the system classifies stations, according to an FCC spokesperson and a disclaimer posted in CORES. “The FCC is continuing to do its due diligence to reevaluate the population count information for AM and FM broadcasters for FY 2024 regulatory fees,” the spokesperson said. “We expect to have this situation resolved early next week.” Regulatory fees are due Sept. 26.
Southern Ohio Communications Services (SOCS) asked the FCC for a six-month extension of an Oct. 6 deadline to remove Huawei and ZTE components from its network under the FCC’s rip-and-replace program. SOCS “has worked diligently” to complete the removal, replacement and disposal of “covered” equipment in its network, said a filing last week in docket 18-89. However, some of its ZTE gear “has not yet been disposed of,” the ISP said: Most is in storage waiting for disposal and the only remaining component still attached to the network is a single ZTE router, SOCS said: “SOCS has purchased the replacement equipment for this item and is now waiting for the vendor to install it.”
Consumers' Research objected again to the FCC's proposed quarterly USF contribution factor for Q4 2024. The group said in comments posted Friday in docket 96-45 that the FCC should reject the proposed 35.8% contribution factor and let Congress "fund universal service via a standard tax appropriation." The group challenged the USF contribution mechanism in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted a stay of its ruling in favor of Consumers' Research pending the FCC's petition for a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court last month (see 2408270030).
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals misread the 1996 Telecom Act when it ruled that the federal statute doesn't preempt the New York Affordable Broadband Act, TechFreedom said in an amicus brief Friday at the U.S. Supreme Court, which supported ISP associations seeking SCOTUS review. The 2021 state law required $15 monthly plans with 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds for qualifying low-income households. The 2nd Circuit upheld the law based on Title I regulation of broadband a day after the FCC reclassified it as Title II, a decision that the 6th Circuit later stayed. "New York was not free to ignore the deregulatory aims Congress codified in Title I,” the think tank argued in its brief. "Congress wants Title I information services to flourish under a light-touch regulatory regime. New York’s law imposing rate regulations on broadband is conflict-preempted, and a divided panel of the Second Circuit erred in holding otherwise." The 2nd Circuit incorrectly assumed that "because there is express preemptive authority in Title II, there can be no implied preemptive authority in Title I,” said TechFreedom. “There is no rule by which preemption may be implied when Congress elects to regulate, but must be express when Congress elects not to regulate.” It added that allowing New York to treat broadband like common carriage would permit the state to treat any Title I information service, including email and text messaging, the same way.
Representatives of Alaska’s GCI asked the FCC not to wait until the end of Alaska Plan commitments in 2026 before revising the commission’s approach to 5G in the 49th state. “New requirements to deploy 5G technology cannot simply be appended to the current Alaska Plan commitments,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 23-328. 5G deployments have “different engineering and core network requirements” than older technology, GCI said: Hitting higher throughput speeds anticipated for 5G “results in a smaller coverage area than the lower throughput speeds for 4G, meaning that a provider may need to construct more towers to provide 5G service to the number of population reflected in its existing Alaska Plan commitments -- construction that has not been planned and was not considered in negotiating the original Alaska Plan commitments.” The GCI representatives met with staff from the Wireless and Wireline bureaus and Office of Economics and Analytics.
In the wake of Hurricane Francine, the FCC Wireless Bureau on Friday approved Google's request for a waiver of rules that require environmental sensing capability systems to protect federal incumbents in the citizens broadband radio service band from harmful interference. Francine has weakened to a tropical depression, according to NOAA. However, “the risk of heavy rainfall and flooding will continue across large portions of the Southeast through Saturday,” the bureau said. Google’s request for a waiver was also posted Friday.
Incompas, Consumer Reports and Public Knowledge urged the FCC to ignore the Competitive Carriers Association’s request for a 15-day delay in the deadline for filing reply comments on proposed handset unlocking rules. The FCC heard little agreement this week in initial comments (see 2409100048). Absent extension, replies are due Sept. 23. “Given the importance of this proceeding” delaying the proceeding would be “harmful to consumers and competitive providers,” the three groups said in a filing posted Friday in docket 24-186: “This proceeding does not have an overwhelming number of comments or technical components to review, which makes the record here manageable to respond to by the current reply comment deadline.” T-Mobile, CCA’s largest member, supported the extension. “The proposed rule would have a significant impact on wireless providers’ business operations and impact important Commission policy objectives concerning digital equity and national security,” T-Mobile said. The “modest” extension that CCA is seeking “would facilitate a more robust round of reply comments that will allow the Commission to make a better-informed decision considering the potential significant impact of its proposed rules,” the carrier said. CCA said the FCC “should ensure all interested parties have sufficient time to meaningfully participate in this proceeding and extend the reply comment deadline to ensure the development of a fulsome and robust record.” If granted, the new deadline would be Oct. 8. Meanwhile, T-Mobile representatives met this week with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks to raise legal objections to the proposed rules, the same questions that have permeated many FCC proceedings in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Two years ago, SCOTUS elaborated on a new major questions test for weighing agency decisions in West Virginia v. EPA (see 2206300066). “While well-meaning, the proposed rule would hamper carriers’ ability to offer installment plans -- thereby harming competition and consumer choice, particularly for low-income consumers,” T-Mobile said: “Furthermore, the Commission fails to point to specific statutory authorization for an unlocking mandate," which "would have profound economic consequences, thus raising a ‘major question’ that would require clear statutory authority from Congress.”