OMB approved various information collection requirements that are part of the FCC’s enhanced competition incentive program. Commissioners approved the program 4-0 in 2022 (see 2207140055). The requirements are now in effect, said a notice for Thursday’s Federal Register. Other parts of the rules took effect in October 2022 (see 2209190008).
The Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association urged the FCC to preserve the 4.9 GHz band for public safety, in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-100. The filing includes language similar to that in a recent Fraternal Order of Police filing (see 2402120028). “A fragmented, inconsistent approach, allowing varied uses based on location or licensee, has proven ineffective,” the fire chiefs' filing said: “For two decades, this has led to the band's chronic underutilization due to the absence of a unified strategy and economies of scale, stifling both usage and innovation.”
Witnesses set to testify during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday (see 2402090072) want lawmakers to consider longer-term initiatives for curbing China’s risk to U.S. communications networks. The push for Congress to allocate an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2401240001) will likely receive attention during the hearing, as it has in other recent panels, lobbyists said. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Utility companies, ISPs and advocacy groups sparred over the FCC's proposed revisions to its pole attachment and replacement rules, in comments posted Wednesday in docket 17-84. The FCC should abandon its Further NPRM, adopted in December with a related order and declaratory ruling and instead encourage greater communication between pole owners and attackers, some said (see 2312130044). Others sought greater oversight of the process and urged quick action.
One of the big surprises from the World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai, which ended in December, was the role that fear played in many of the negotiations, Charles Glass, chief of the International Spectrum Policy Division in NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management, said during an FCBA webinar Wednesday.
Public interest and consumer groups urged the FCC take a more aggressive stance on a November Further NPRM about protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud (see 2311150042). CTIA said the commission should “pursue a flexible and risk-based approach” toward customer account security and fraud deterrence. Reply comments were due this week in docket 21-341, and they largely mirror initial comments (see 2401180053).
The proposed $150,000 fine for Mission Broadcasting's alleged retransmission consent negotiation violations (see 2401120069) is unreasonably large, and the violation finding is wrong, Mission said Tuesday. In a docket 22-443 response to the FCC Media Bureau's notice of apparent liability, Mission said the NAL focuses on Nexstar-proposed language for inclusion in an agreement to settle litigation with Comcast, not for a retrans consent agreement. It said the proposed forfeiture is in excess of the bureau's delegated authority and should be $7,500 at most. In addition, Nexstar said the NAL "is procedurally improper, prejudicial, and unsupported by the facts or the law." It added that the NAL claims it doesn't address allegations against Nexstar, but Comcast's allegations concerned Nexstar's conduct as Mission's negotiating representative for WPIX New York. Nexstar said the bureau "impermissibly prejudges" allegations against it that supposedly remain under investigation. Treating the settlement proposal that was quickly rejected as a continuing violation over a period of days is unreasonable and not factually supported, Nexstar said.
The full FCC unanimously denied an appeal from the Albuquerque Board of Education seeking the reversal of a 2023 Media Bureau decision denying the reinstatement of a canceled AM station and FM translator in Los Alamos, New Mexico, said an order Tuesday. Filings from the board were procedurally defective and the board lacks standing in the matter, the Media Bureau ruled, and the commissioners agreed. The licenses for the stations were voluntarily surrendered to the FCC by owner Gillian Sutton and canceled in May 2023, leaving the area with no local AM service. The board asked the agency to reinstate the licenses and assign them to the board on a temporary basis, but it did so in a petition filed two months late. The agency previously ruled third parties without attributable interest in a surrendered station lack standing to seek reinstatement. The item was set for Thursday's commissioners' open meeting, and a deletion notice was released Tuesday.
The FCC's affordable connectivity program is a "true unicorn among public policies," USTelecom President-CEO Jonathan Spalter wrote in a Tuesday blog (see 2402120068). Spalter urged that policymakers consider "rolling the ACP into the Universal Service Fund." This would "bring greater accountability to Big Tech" and "create a stable, permanent source of funding." ACP's future "offers a telling gut check on whether our nation remains committed to our shared goal of connectivity," Spalter said: "Congress abandoning ACP funding a mere two years into its existence would be profoundly disruptive to the country’s digital affordability and equity goals."
Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about proposed net neutrality rules and their potential effect on network slicing. The proposed rules “create friction for innovation, specifically related to network slicing,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-320: “Nokia described the market for slicing, why it is essential at this point in the 5G cycle where returns on investment have lagged, and its critical importance to the business case for 6G.” Slicing will be important to “enabling enterprise cases and providing network solutions for many use cases for which a stand-alone purpose-built network is not feasible,” Nokia said. The Open Technology Institute at New America earlier complained that network slicing shouldn’t be used as an excuse to exempt from the rules any specialized application or service that a mobile carrier delivers (see 2401310046).