The FCC seeks to dismiss the petition for review filed Dec. 21 by the Insurance Marketing Coalition (see 2312220059) because it is “premature,” and the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals therefore lacks appellate jurisdiction to consider it, said the commission’s motion Friday (docket 23-14125).
Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) officials made their case Friday for assigning the 4.9 GHz band to FirstNet, a proposal that faces objections on numerous fronts. A year ago, commissioners approved 4-0 a long-awaited order and Further NPRM on the band's future, establishing a national band manager governing the leasing process. The FCC also sought comment on rights and responsibilities of the band manager (see 2301180062). The PSSA has asked that a single, national licensee get the spectrum (see 2304240057).
Wiley names partners Megan Brown and Duane Pozza as co-chairs-privacy, cyber and data governance practice … Idaho Public Utilities Commission moves Technical Records Specialist Monica Barrios-Sanchez to secretary … CW Network hires Great American Media’s Erin McIlvain, also former Dish Network, as senior vice president-affiliate distribution and marketing ... Resecurity, cybersecurity solutions provider, names IBM’s Chris Mancuso vice president-global channels and alliances.
Dish Network's call for FCC reconsideration of the limited supplemental coverage from space authorization granted SpaceX is "absurd," SpaceX said Thursday in docket 23-135. In its opposition to Dish's recon petition (see 2401040005), SpaceX said Dish was using "unserious bar-napkin math" to block "a more advanced competitor." It said Dish's worries that the authorization will let SpaceX begin decades of operations under the guise of testing is misguided. For instance, it ignores that SpaceX’s check-out testing "typically is very short in duration, lasting as little as a few minutes per day." In addition, it said there's no reasonable basis to conclude the initial "check-out testing" might cause harmful interference to Dish or other operators.
SpaceX is lobbying the FCC over concerns about the orbital debris draft order, which is on reconsideration on January's agenda (see 2401040064). In a docket 18-313 filing Thursday, SpaceX recapped meetings held with offices of the five commissioners. During those meetings, it said the draft wrongly maintains a case-by-case approach to orbital debris mitigation and preserves the foreign-operator loophole of licensing systems overseas to circumvent U.S. oversight. Moreover, It said the case-by-case approach sets an inconsistent baseline for assessing debris risk. SpaceX said the FCC should clarify that it wants consistent orbital debris mitigation information from all operators regardless of foreign or domestic status or constellation size. The company also renewed its call that conditions put on its second-generation Starlinks be applied equally to all operators in the name of clear expectations and space sustainability promotion (see 2301180049).
ESPN should continue to be exempted from the FCC's audio description rules applicable to the largest national nonbroadcast networks because it provides less than 50 hours per quarter of prime-time programming that is not live or near-live, parent Disney said Thursday in a docket 11-43 exemption request.
Connecticut low-power TV broadcaster Radio Communications wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn an FCC order creating a window for certain LPTV stations to upgrade to Class A status. “Review is required” because the FCC’s implementation of the Low-Power Protection Act “fails to protect, in a very substantial manner," LPTV stations and licenses, and the newly created Class A stations, as Congress required, said a petition for review filed with the D.C. Circuit Jan. 10 and posted Thursday (docket 24-1004). The order, parts of which will take effect Feb. 9, would open a one-year window only for LPTV stations that broadcast a minimum of 18 hours a day, carry three hours per week of local programming and are located in markets of 95,000 households or fewer -- and that already met those requirements 90 days prior to the LPPA's Jan. 5, 2023, approval by Congress. LPTV groups were critical of the LPPA and the subsequent FCC order for allowing only a few stations to convert to Class A (see 2312080043). The petition asks the court to review the order on an expedited basis, stay it, find it unlawful and rule that RCC isn’t precluded from applying for the window, that program content can’t be used to deny Class A licenses and that Class A stations can assert must-carry in their markets. Radio Communications CEO Robert Knapp told us the company plans to ask the court for summary judgment against the FCC.
USCellular representatives met virtually with staff for FCC Commissioners Anna Gomez and Nathan Simington, completing a cycle of meetings with commissioner aides on the carrier’s proposed changes to the proposal for a 5G Fund (see 2401170034). Among the carrier’s suggestions is harmonizing the fund with broadband equity, access and deployment program-deployed fiber “to reduce the costs of building 5G and thus allow 5G Fund support to cover a greater geographic area,” said a filing Thursday in docket 20-32.
National Emergency Number Association representatives met with staff for FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on the group’s i3 standard and an ATIS standard for IP multimedia subsystems. “All known” next-generation 911 systems in the U.S. and Canada are “operating under the i3 specification,” said a filing Wednesday in docket 21-479.
CTIA supports the FCC’s draft 70 and 80 GHz band order revising rules for the spectrum, set for a vote at the FCC’s Jan. 25 meeting (see 2401040064), but it opposes some of the changes Aeronet sought (see 2401120048), said a filing Thursday in docket 20-133. The commission “should maintain the protection for existing services from interference caused by new point-to-point links to endpoints in motion communications, as proposed in the Draft Order, and reject Aeronet’s eleventh hour request that non-federal fixed service receivers alone be left without protection,” CTIA said.