The FCC asked for comments, due June 10, on the burden of complying with an information collection regime required under the FCC wireless emergency alerts rules, said a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register. “This modification to an existing collection will require all … providers to file their election regarding participation in the WEA system by submitting the information to an FCC-created and maintained WEA database,” the notice said: “This will refresh … provider WEA-elections that were last required over a decade ago and provide a single source of information on WEA availability.”
The FCC is seeking comment, due June 10, on a requirement that upper microwave flexible use service licensees in the 28 GHz band demonstrate how they are using the band. “Licensees relying on mobile or point-to-multipoint service must show that they are providing reliable signal coverage and service to at least 40 percent of the population within the service area of the licensee, and that they are using facilities to provide service in that area either to customers or for internal use,” said a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register. Licensees relying on point-to-point service “must demonstrate that they have four links operating and providing service, either to customers or for internal use, if the population within the license area is equal to or less than 268,000,” the notice said: If the population within the license area is greater than 268,000, the licensee “must demonstrate it has at least one link in operation and is providing service for each 67,000 [POP] within the license area.”
The FCC asked for comment on how it might “further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees” as part of its wireless enhanced 911 location accuracy requirements. The FCC is seeking Office of Management and Budget approval for an extension of this information collection and will submit the information collection after a 60-day comment period, said a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register.
Dish Wireless filed an amended petition at the FCC seeking eligible telecom carrier status in the federal default states of Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire and North Carolina and in the District of Columbia (see 2302020030). “Designation of DISH Wireless as an ETC will make wireless broadband services more robust and more affordable to low-income consumers,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 09-197. Granting the petition would also “promote the public interest in broadband deployment in underserved areas by better positioning the Company to pursue broadband infrastructure funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other programs,” Dish said.
CTIA representatives warned about potential negative effects from some robotexting rules proposed in comments to a December Further NPRM (see 2312190032). “Reject calls from a handful of non-consumer message senders to dismantle the wireless ecosystem’s existing practices that are stopping billions of spam and scam text messages,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 21-402: “These groups’ support for adoption of a content-neutral and non-discriminatory blocking standard would gut the messaging ecosystem’s multi-layered defenses for consumers.” CTIA said adopting that proposed standard “would remove the best practices that prevent non-consumer message senders from sending text messages that consumers do not want, including campaigns related to illegal substances and content related to sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco.” CTIA representatives spoke with FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Alejandro Roark and others from the bureau.
Requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok is constitutional and would help block Chinese efforts to control U.S. communications networks, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday on the Senate floor. Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., last week said the upper chamber has an opportunity to make progress on bipartisan TikTok-related legislation (see 2404050050). In his speech, McConnell rejected First Amendment arguments against the House-passed divestment proposal. McConnell quoted FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr: “You can use a pen to write salacious anti-American propaganda, and the government can’t censor that content. Nor can it stop Americans from seeking such messages out. But if you use the same pen to pick a lock to steal someone else’s property, the government could prosecute you for illegal conduct.” China “has spent years trying to pick the lock of America’s communications infrastructure,” said McConnell: “This is a matter that deserves Congress’ urgent attention. And I’ll support commonsense, bipartisan steps to take one of Beijing’s favorite tools of coercion and espionage off the table.”
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated for a commissioner vote initial rules allowing drone use of the 5030-5091 MHz band (see 2303100028), the commission said Monday. If approved, the order would allow operators to obtain direct frequency assignments in a portion of the band for non-networked operations, the FCC said. The band is one of the five targeted for study in the national spectrum strategy (see 2403120056). “The FCC must ensure that our spectrum rules meet the current -- and future -- spectrum needs of evolving technologies such as uncrewed aircraft systems [UAS], which can be critical to disaster recovery, first responder rescue efforts, and wildfire management,” Rosenworcel said. The proposal relies on dynamic frequency management systems (DFMSs) “to manage and coordinate access to the spectrum and enable its safe and efficient use,” said a news release: “These DFMSs would provide requesting operators with temporary frequency assignments to support UAS control link communications with a level of reliability suitable for operations in controlled airspace and other safety-critical circumstances.” During an interim period, users could obtain early permission to use the spectrum, coordinating with the FAA and filing an online registration form with the commission. Under the spectrum strategy, the FCC, in coordination with NTIA and the FAA, is to “take near-term action to facilitate limited deployment of UAS in the 5030-5091 MHz band, in advance of future study of the band,” the FCC said. Under the strategy, work on future use of the band is supposed to start next March and be completed in March 2027.
President Joe Biden called out congressional Republicans Saturday for Capitol Hill's failure so far to allocate stopgap funding for the FCC's ailing affordable connectivity program. The funding would keep ACP running through the end of FY 2024. Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package last month without ACP money (see 2403210067). Advocates are eyeing other vehicles for appropriating the funding ahead of ACP's existing allocation running out in May (see 2403280001). “For months, I've called on Congress to extend the program,” but “Republicans in Congress still haven't acted, putting millions of their own constituents in a position where their internet costs could go up -- or they could lose connection altogether,” Biden tweeted. He proposed an additional $6 billion for ACP in an October supplemental domestic Appropriations request (see 2310250075). Republicans "have called the program ‘wasteful,’ and now threaten to cut it,” Biden said: “We can't let that happen” given it has “helped over 23 million households save $30-$75 each per month on their monthly internet bills.” House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., later echoed Biden, tweeting “House Republicans are playing political games and refusing to extend this vital program before it runs out of funding.”
ITU member states at the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference were uninterested in studying the 12.7-13.25 GHz band for international mobile telecommunications, and instead adopted provisions to expand satellite operations there, Intelsat told FCC staffers, according to a docket 22-352 filing Friday. With the 12.7 GHz band intended to provide equitable access to geostationary orbit for ITU member states, any FCC action allowing terrestrial mobile use of the band "would not be aligned with international use and would lack the benefits of international harmonization," Intelsat told representatives of the Wireless and Space bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology.
FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin won’t broaden the scope of a hearing involving Antonio Cesar Guel's apparently fake sale of broadcast stations to include other questionable transactions because she doesn’t want to interfere with possible FCC Media Bureau investigations, said an order in Friday’s Daily Digest (see2402060049). Granting the Enforcement Bureau’s request to enlarge the hearing proceeding against Guel would also not be “efficient,” she said. The initial proceeding concerned Guel's sale of low-power radio and TV stations to his niece Jennifer Juarez, and false statements Guel made to the FCC, including hiding his lack of U.S. citizenship. The EB wanted the proceeding to include other companies -- Mekaddesh Group, Hispanic Family Christian Network and JPX Global -- whose ownership was the focus of contradictory filings at the FCC and SEC from Guel, his daughter and their associates. “It seems that with each filing in this proceeding, the control and operation of the Guel family’s broadcast licenses becomes less clear,” Halprin wrote. She said that keeping the case narrow is consistent with the Media Bureau’s approach when it originally designated the Guel matter for hearing, though it was aware of other possible violations. “These ambiguities, when considered with the numerous FCC violations to which Mr. Guel has already admitted . . . suggest a pattern of obfuscation and noncompliance” that “warrants further exploration,” the order said.