FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington told former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon in an appearance on Bannon’s podcast Friday that China is using 5G to surpass the U.S. in industrial automation and that President Donald Trump’s confidence in Chairman Brendan Carr is “fully justified.” Deployment of 5G in China is “not that much consumer” but “lots in the industrial sector, lots of private networking that is just for running particular factories, medical facilities, logistics facilities, et cetera,” Simington said. “People always assume that China was going to be late to automate because they had such a large pool of unskilled, low-wage labor,” but it's “front-running this” and has a rate of robotics adoption seven times what was predicted, Simington said.
Maine legislators debated whether to repeal the state’s ISP privacy law as they compared a trio of comprehensive privacy bills during a Monday hearing of the joint Judiciary Committee (see 2505050025).
NAB’s FCC petition on allowing broadcasters to use software in place of physical emergency alert system (EAS) equipment is “premature,” and granting it would be a “sweeping regulatory shift without the necessary technical, legal, or operational foundation,” said major EAS box manufacturer Digital Alert Systems in comments filed in docket 15-94 by Friday’s deadline. Nearly every other commenter in the docket -- including broadcasters, NCTA and the Society of Broadcast Engineers -- strongly endorsed NAB’s petition.
A petition by major trade associations asking the FCC for a rulemaking on the commission's enforcement procedures, especially in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Jarkesy decision, raises interesting issues for the agency under Chairman Brendan Carr, industry experts told us. The groups on the petition are CTIA, the Competitive Carriers Association, NCTA, USTelecom and the Wireless Infrastructure Association (see 2505010058). Experts said they’re watching closely what the FCC does next.
Supporters of the FCC's July 2024 order allowing schools and libraries to use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services are eyeing several Republican senators they believe could oppose a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval (S.J.Res. 7) to undo the rule, which the chamber is set to begin considering Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told us Monday night he's optimistic the chamber will advance an initial procedural hurdle on the CRA measure.
The FCC should add co-primary space-to-space allocations for intersatellite service (ISS) in the 18 GHz band, NASA and NTIA recommended in a report last week. NASA and NTIA said the FCC also should adopt a Table of Allocations footnote to ensure that space-to-space links in the band for federal systems are limited to communications with a nonfederal network for space relay purposes. The 2023 national spectrum strategy identified 18.1-18.6 GHz as one of five spectrum bands NTIA should study for potential repurposing (see 2311130007). In their report, NASA and NTIA said that with NASA not building additional tracking and data relay satellites, new ISS allocations in the band will provide regulatory certainty that would support the development of commercial services to meet NASA's space-to-space links needs in the future.
T-Mobile told the FCC that it complied with an unlocking requirement that was part of the order a year ago approving its acquisition of Mint Mobile and other assets from Ka’ena (see 2404250047). The redacted filing, posted Friday (docket 23-171), blanks out the number of devices that were unlocked. T-Mobile agreed to unlock “all Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile devices activated on the T-Mobile network both pre- and post-closing.” That concession was less than what public interest and consumer groups sought and not as broad as an earlier Verizon unlocking agreement.
NextNav told the FCC it's working with location and monitoring services (LMS) licensees to address concerns about the company's proposal that the FCC reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services. Initial comments were due last week on the FCC’s broad investigation of the NextNav proposal and other GPS issues (see 2504290042).
The United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry protested Talton’s failure to provide data the ministry needs to comment on a Talton petition seeking a waiver of the commission’s rules capping rates for audio and video for incarcerated people provided to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The FCC Wireline Bureau recently reopened the comment cycle on the petition, with initial comments now due Thursday (see 2504240026).
Alaska's Matanuska Telecom Association has used Alaska Plan funds over the past eight years to improve broadband speeds at roughly 31,000 locations and has increasingly focused on fiber to the home, according to a filing Friday (docket 23-328). It recapped a meeting of MTA and Alaska Telecom Association representatives with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's office. MTA said its fiber focus has led to the upgrade of 9,465 units to 100/20 Mbps, 236% of its original 4,000-unit commitment. It plans to upgrade an additional 3,653 locations this year, it said.