Ameelio CEO April Feng and others from the company met with aides to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on Ameelio’s incarcerated persons communications service (IPCS) offering. Ameelio “explained that it is a nonprofit provider of IPCS that provides service without charge to incarcerated persons or their families, but rather charges a subscription fee to prisons, jails, and other facilities to provide the services in those institutions,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 23-62. “Ameelio’s fee is based on its costs of providing service to a given facility or facilities for the estimated usage of the service by incarcerated persons in those facilities, rather than a per minute rate that increases with total minutes of use,” and it doesn’t increase “even if actual usage exceeds the estimate.”
The Wireline Bureau has extended several incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) deadlines until April 1, 2027, and the FCC could reevaluate aspects of the 2024 IPCS order, said an order and news release Monday. The new order waived the deadlines for complying with the rate cap, site commission, and per-minute pricing rules adopted in 2024 “to ensure sufficient funding for safety and security tools, while IPCS providers and the facilities they serve address the challenges of implementing these requirements.” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a release that the 2024 order “is leading to negative, unintended consequences” where prisons limit the availability of IPCS, and it “does not allow providers and institutions to properly consider public safety and security interests when facilitating these services.”
Katie McAuliffe, formerly of the Information Technology Industry Council and Americans for Tax Reform, has joined FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s office as a policy adviser, said a news release Monday. McAuliffe “will lead coalitions and external affairs work for the FCC,” it said. McAuliffe was the senior director of telecommunications policy at ITIC and worked on “spectrum policy, connectivity, broadband, privacy, antitrust and competition, internet taxes, future of work, and tech/telecom regulatory reform,” the release said. At Americans for Tax Reform, she was the director of federal policy and executive director of Digital Liberty. McAuliffe has a Master of Mass Communications with a telecommunications policy focus from the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Arts from Virginia Tech. “Katie is an outstanding addition to our team who brings a wealth of policy experience and a distinguished track record of advocating for pro-growth and pro-innovation policies,” said Carr in the release. “I look forward to drawing on her expertise to support the FCC’s work as we continue our work to deliver great results for the American people.”
NTIA now taking a "lowest cost wins" approach in BEAD doesn't necessarily doom fiber applicants, consultant and former FCC Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey wrote Monday. The June 6 policy notice, which directed states to hold another round of bidding to select the lowest-cost option, doesn't mean fixed wireless applicants will prevail over fiber ones around the U.S., she said. Priority projects still win over non-priority ones, with states determining which projects qualify, Mattey said. There won't be cost comparisons between priority and non-priority projects seeking funding for the same geographic area, she said. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act defined a priority broadband project as one that can meet 100/20 Mbps speeds, easily scale over time and meet the connectivity needs of homes, businesses, 5G and other wireless technologies, she noted. While NTIA has decided that it was wrong to presume that only fiber qualified as a priority broadband project, "it would be equally inappropriate for a state broadband office to make a blanket decision that all fixed wireless applications qualify" as priority, Mattey said.
The Consumer Technology Association, CTIA and other groups opposed an FCC proposal to update its “covered list” of unsecure companies to reflect a January finding by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security on connected vehicles (see 2505270059). Commenters said the FCC should let BIS complete its work before considering revising regulations. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has long raised concerns about Chinese involvement in U.S. networks and in March launched a Council for National Security at the agency (see 2503130012).
Sinclair Broadcasting has reached an agreement with the FCC to pay $500,000 to resolve what was originally a $2.6 million forfeiture against the company over children's programming violations and to renew the licenses of numerous stations, said a consent decree Friday. Together with a Media Bureau order dismissing a petition to deny against several Sinclair-controlled stations, the agreement resolved a yearslong holdup in the license renewals of nearly all Sinclair stations. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has pointed to the lack of Sinclair license renewals under the previous FCC as the precedent for his actions against CBS and other networks (see 2502270076).
Social contracts with cable operators could offer "a measured approach" toward easing TV ownership restrictions, according to altafiber and Hawaiian Telecom. In docket 25-133 Friday, they laid out the basics of such social contracts, which involve cable operators getting flexibility in setting rates for regulated product tiers and services, and, in exchange, the cablers agreeing to benefits, including negotiated rates, limited future regulated rate increases and free services to schools and libraries. Earlier in June, altafiber and Hawaiian Telecom pushed in meetings with FCC staff for social contracts for broadcasters in the event of changes to the broadcast-ownership cap, with the contracts including such agreements as reductions in retransmission consent rates that broadcasters charge MVPDs.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously denied a Radio Communications Corp. petition for review of the FCC’s implementation of the 2023 Low Power Protection Act (LPPA), which allowed low-power TV stations fulfilling certain criteria to upgrade to Class A status (see 2411180040). “We are unpersuaded by RCC’s arguments. The FCC’s Order adheres to the best reading of the statute,” said Judge Harry Edwards in the opinion Friday.
Urban rate surveys are due Aug. 15, said the FCC Office of Economics and Analytics and Wireline Bureau in a public notice Friday (docket 10-90). Providers required to complete the online survey, which identifies rates for fixed voice and broadband residential services in urban areas, will be contacted on or around July 7, it said.
The FCC shouldn't accept or receive comments on AST SpaceMobile's plans to use the 700 and 800 MHz bands for supplemental coverage from space services until AST makes public its interference analysis on those bands, T-Mobile said. In a posting Friday (docket 25-201), T-Mobile said AST should also first provide more information about the spectrum it will use and the geographic area that its proposed SCS operations cover, including coverage maps for each block of spectrum it leases.