The FCC continues getting pressure to provide an exemption for 5G network slicing under proposed net neutrality rules, expected to be unveiled this week (see 2403290057). “The debate surrounding ‘network slicing’ is welcome because it rather convincingly demonstrates the inherently problematic nature of the proposal to impose public utility regulation on Internet service providers in a technologically dynamic marketplace,” Free State Foundation said in a comment Tuesday. Slicing will “help enable more efficient use of wireless networks, while also enabling capabilities and services that will support investment to deploy and add capacity to next-generation wireless networks,” Verizon said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-320: “Placing unnecessary restrictions on this technology could stifle it in its infancy, to the detriment of consumers and our nation’s leadership position in the mobile economy.” Verizon representatives spoke with aides to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comments due May 2, replies May 18, on a February petition seeking launch of a rulemaking that authorizes 5/5 MHz broadband deployments in the 900 MHz band. Petitioners argue that “expanded 5/5 megahertz broadband will support growing demand for wide-area, private, and secure wireless broadband networks for utilities, critical infrastructure, and business enterprise entities, among other benefits,” the bureau said Tuesday. The Enterprise Wireless Alliance, Anterix and electric utilities filed the petition (see 2402290064). “We seek comment generally on the Petition and its request that the Commission provide an option for 5/5 megahertz broadband networks in the 900 MHz band through a voluntary transition process,” the bureau said: “In particular, we seek comment on whether existing rules would be sufficient to protect incumbent narrowband operations from interference, as well as whether those rules would be sufficient to protect operations in adjacent spectrum bands.” Comments should be filed in docket 24-99.
Summit Ridge, which serves as the 3.45 GHz Clearinghouse, updated the FCC on its progress, in a report posted Tuesday in docket 19-348. “Clearinghouse costs, including both accepted hard and soft incumbent clearing expenses and Clearinghouse operating expenses, are as a whole, running close to its initial budget,” the report said. The clearing timeline is delayed some three months “because NBCUniversal has yet to complete its clearing operations and submit its final costs,” the report said. Summit Ridge said there were no disputes so far from new licensees or incumbents.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel re-emphasized the potential impact of affordable connectivity program funding exhaustion in letters Tuesday to Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and other congressional leaders. Cantwell and other lawmakers are eyeing ways they can allocate stopgap funding that would keep ACP running through the rest of FY 2024. Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act minibus spending bill last month without that money (see 2403280001). Rosenworcel warned lawmakers Tuesday that notices from the Universal Service Administrative Co. and ISPs warning participants that April would be the last month of a full ACP subsidy may be sent when many committee members "are at home in their districts and hearing from their constituents about the benefits of the ACP.” She attached data to each letter outlining “the number of enrolled ACP households in each state, territory, and congressional district.” Press reports about ACP participants’ reactions to the program’s potential end “echo" what the commission has heard "from ACP households directly, with many writing the agency to express their distress and fear that ending this program could lead them to lose access to the internet at home,” Rosenworcel said. “In what is perverse, both rural and Tribal communities will likely see new broadband deployment in remote areas” via funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, “but persistent challenges with cost -- absent the ACP -- may limit the ability of this investment to close the digital divide.” The FCC “remains ready to keep this program running, should Congress provide additional funding,” she said: “We have come too far to allow this successful effort to promote internet access for all to end.”
Don't expand space operations in the 2110-2120 MHz portion of the AWS-1 band, wireless interests urged the FCC this week in docket 13-115 reply comments. The agency in September adopted a Further NPRM proposing changes to the Table of Frequency Allocations addressing the use of spectrum by manned and unmanned spacecraft during missions, and seeking comment on new spectrum allocations in certain bands for communications with cargo and crew capsules. Wireless providers have relied on the 2110-2120 MHz band for their networks, and the proposed expansion of satellite uplinks in the band ignores that it was auctioned and licensed to commercial wireless operators subject only to interference from one federal user at one location in California, CTIA said. Expanded use outside of NASA's Deep Space Network research facility would undermine wireless licensees' "investment-backed expectations in acquiring [licenses] and foundational network deployment," it said. CTIA said minus the protections that come with exclusive use licenses, consumers could face service-quality disruptions and there would be less confidence in the auction and regulatory process. AT&T said its use of the 2110-2120 MHz spectrum is constrained only by the need to accept interference from those high-power NASA transmitters. It said additional restrictions on AWS-1 A-Block licensees’ use of the 2110-2120 MHz portion of the band would undermine the auction process and put new terms on licensees post auction. Such a move would also put AWS-1 A-Block licensees at a competitive disadvantage to other AWS-1 licensees, it said. More nonfederal spectrum allocations for launch activities will help relieve lower S-band congestion, SpaceX said. It urged streamlined coordination in the upper S band as a way of supporting launch and space operations while protecting incumbent flight-testing services. It pushed for looking beyond the S and L bands for spectrum for launch and space operations, including for commercial crewed and uncrewed spacecraft. In a separate filing, SpaceX and fellow crewed launch capability companies Vast Space, Sierra Space, Voyager Space Holdings and Starlab Space urged the FCC to make an allocation for future crewed space stations and operations not connected to the International Space Station, which is to be retired in 2030. They said additional bands should be considered for space-to-space communications. The Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council said that before there are any changes to the L and upper S bands, the FCC, NTIA, DOD and the space launch industry should get more experience with the lower S bands being available for nationwide licensing on a secondary basis. It said the FCC also should monitor commercial launch operators' use of the L and upper S bands under the existing framework.
The FCC’s net neutrality order will likely circulate this week (see 2403290057), with a 3-2 vote in favor on April 25, New Street’s Blair Levin said Tuesday. The order will largely restore 2015 rules, he said in a note to investors. “Like its predecessors, this policy debate will generate significant headlines and commentary, [but] is unlikely to generate significant changes in how the ISPs operate, nor material changes in their revenues, margins, or opportunities,” Levin said. “Traditional issues of non-discrimination, as well as the key investor concerns about price regulation and unbundling, will largely be treated as they were in 2015,” he added. Whether the FCC will preempt state action remains a question, though that matters less than in the past, he said. The new issue of how 5G network slicing is treated “puts the wireless companies on one side against the cable industry and certain public interest groups on the other,” Levin said: Another concern, the application of Section 214 of the Communications Act to ISPs, “can create some administrative headaches but is unlikely to be material to investors.” Barbara van Schewick, director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, meanwhile, submitted a paper on throttling rules. “The new Open Internet Order needs to clearly prohibit ISPs from speeding up and slowing down applications and classes of applications,” the paper sent to the FCC says: “Neither the 2015 no-throttling rule nor the proposed no-throttling explicitly prohibited ISPs from speeding up an application or class of applications. … Clarifying this in the Order is critically important.” The paper was posted Tuesday in docket 23-320.
Expect lots of satellite operators in the direct-to-device space using myriad approaches, from reusing terrestrial spectrum, using satellite spectrum or something else altogether, satellite company executives said Tuesday during a SpaceNews webinar. Multiple satellite operators beat the drum for the FCC's supplemental coverage from space (SCS) framework adopted in March (see 2403140050). Other large regulators will follow suit and put forward SCS frameworks, Lynk Global Chief Operating Officer Margo Deckard said. AST SpaceMobile's CEO said something similar to Wall Street this week (see 2404020007).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua a partial victory Tuesday, ruling that the FCC’s definition of critical infrastructure is “overly broad.” However, the three-judge panel rejected arguments that video cameras and video-surveillance equipment the companies manufacture shouldn’t have been placed on the agency’s “covered list” of unsecure gear.
The FCC’s administrative hearing process increasingly results in huge discovery requests that can be expensive for entities with matters before the agency’s administrative law judge and faces an uncertain future due to a host of recent administrative law cases, panelists said during a Federal Communications Bar Association virtual event Tuesday. Discovery is the most time-consuming part of the process, said FCC ALJ Jane Halprin. In addition, the expense of pursuing a lengthy case before the ALJ is sometimes more than many licensees can stomach, said Smithwick and Belendiuk attorney Arthur Belendiuk during a separate panel. “Even if you win, you might lose,” he said.
Industry encouraged the FCC to reconsider a proposal that mandates using broadband serviceable location fabric data to verify compliance with deployment obligations in high-cost USF programs (see 2402130058). Some welcomed using the fabric data later, warning that premature use could disrupt deployment obligations for support recipients of ongoing programs. WTA welcomed the proposal. Reply comments were posted Tuesday in docket 10-90.