FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appoints Jayne Stancavage, vice president-policy and regulatory affairs, as chair of agency’s World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee and Kimberly Baum, Eutelsat vice president-spectrum engineering and strategy, as vice chair … Perplexity AI company names Emil Michael, former Uber chief business officer; Rich Miner, ex-Google; and Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft CEO-advertising and web services, as strategic advisers … Cirrus Logic announces resignation of Chief Financial Officer Venk Nathamuni, and names Principal Accounting Officer Ulf Habermann interim CFO, effective with Nathamuni’s Friday departure ... AEG Presents promotes Senior Vice President-Venue Operations Nick Spampanato to chief operating officer-venues ... Box adds Epicor Software CEO Steve Murphy to its board, replacing John Park as investor KKR’s board designee ... SIP Forum elects Iconectiv Chief Technology Officer Steve Tang and Numeracle General Counsel Keith Buell to board.
Turion Space is hoping for a February launch for its non-geostationary orbit Droid.002 satellite, it said in an FCC Space Bureau license application posted Friday. The satellite, plus Turion's Droid.001 launched last June, will collect imaging for space situational awareness services, it said.
Arguments that the relative risk of non-geostationary orbit satellites depends solely on their altitude ignore factors like constellation size and satellite mass, Viasat said Friday in docket 24-85. Assessing NGSO regulatory fees based on altitude risk alone "would be the epitome of arbitrariness," Viasat said. An NGSO system's size is "an imprecise proxy for staff work [but] it is at least a rational one," and levying regulatory fees in part based on NGSO constellation size "would ensure that the fee burden more closely aligns with the systems that occupy staff time the most," it said. Meanwhile, Intelsat representatives, meeting with FCC Space Bureau and Office of Managing Director staff, said the proposed 40% hike in regulatory fees that will pay for the creation of the Space Bureau is too big a bite to swallow at once. It urged a five-year phase-in.
Kepler, a backer of SpaceX's call for a rulemaking to open the 1.6./2.4 GHz "Big LEO" band to more operators (see 2405130035), met with FCC Space Bureau staff to push for such a rulemaking, according to a filing Friday. The company said a rulemaking would be a venue for it and other interested parties to provide technical analyses showing the feasibility of sharing in the band.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Friday on a GeoLinks request that it be allowed to give up some local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) licenses in return for others from the commission’s inventory. GeoLinks proposes to use federal funding to serve some 47,000 locations across Arizona, California and Nevada that now lack access to high-speed broadband. The request involves 51 LMDS licenses that GeoLinks holds -- nine A-block and 42 B-block. Under GeoLinks’ proposal, 32 of the licenses would be modified, and 19 relinquished. “GeoLinks’ current LMDS holdings and the Commission’s unassigned LMDS licenses in inventory are both geographically scattered across the country, which has given rise to a fragmented band map that is underdeveloped, difficult to fully utilize, and less attractive to potential market entrants,” GeoLinks said in a March filing. GeoLinks said it would give up more licenses, markets and MHz-POPs than it would receive but consolidate license blocks “gaining contiguous markets that will result in more efficient and economic deployment targeted to rural and underserved areas in GeoLinks’ core service areas.” Comments are due June 17, replies July 2, in docket 24-150.
Incompas supports the FCC’s proposed 5G Fund but agrees with others who argue the agency should wait on making awards until after funding is released for the broadband access, equity and deployment program, a filing posted Friday in docket 20-32 said. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated an order on the fund in March (see 2403200071). Allowing NTIA to complete the BEAD allocation “will give the Commission a better understanding of where gaps in wireless 5G service exist and will help ensure that funding efforts are not duplicated and that USF funding will reach the areas where there is still a funding need,” Incompas said.
Liberty Communications of Puerto Rico told the FCC it's still working with the Universal Service Administrative Co. to "complete the steps necessary to engage in pre-testing performance measures" for USF Bringing Puerto Rico Together Fund Stage 2 recipients (see 2304190063). In a letter Friday (docket 18-143), Liberty said it "continues to have technical difficulties with accessing and uploading data" to USAC's performance measures module and can't begin pretesting for Q2 2024.
NAB, NPR and other opponents of the FCC’s authorization of geotargeted radio used Thursday’s comments deadline to take additional shots at the technology, while proponent GeoBroadcast Solutions said the agency should “keep an open mind.” Two broadcast entities, Press Communications and REC Networks, have called for reconsideration of the agency’s order allowing content origination on FM booster stations. Geotargeted radio will “erode public confidence in FM radio broadcasting” and harm stations “baited into employing the technology,” NAB said in docket 20-401.
Americans “detest” calls they didn’t ask for, but the Insurance Marketing Coalition’s challenge of the FCC’s Dec. 18 order implementing rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to target and eliminate illegal robotexts (see 2312220059) “is not a case about unsolicited calls,” according to the coalition’s opening brief Wednesday (docket 24-10277) in the 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court.
AST SpaceMobile is pressing FCC commissioners for quick action as it seeks a U.S. license. The agency has an amendment from AST SpaceMobile seeking conversion of its pending U.S. market access petition to an application letting it launch and operate under U.S. jurisdiction. In FCC Space Bureau filings this week recapping meetings with aides to Commissioners Nathan Simington and Anna Gomez, AST said it needs quick action. That would then allow routine gateway operations with interference protections at sites where work is already underway. FCC approval also would enable AST to conduct continental U.S. testing once it successfully launches its Block 1 Bluebird satellites into their assigned orbits, it said.