Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler slammed current Chairman Brendan Carr’s handling of the Skydance/Paramount deal in an op-ed piece published Saturday by The Guardian. Wheeler said he expects the FCC to cease “slow-walking” the deal after CBS agreed last week to a $16 million settlement in President Donald Trump’s personal lawsuit against the network (see 2507020053). By holding up the deal over a news distortion complaint against CBS, Carr exceeded the FCC’s traditional authority, Wheeler said, adding that the chairman “has not been shy” about using FCC authority to achieve political goals. “It is time to unfurl the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner at the Federal Communications Commission,” Wheeler wrote. “What was once an independent, policy-based agency has been transformed into a performance-based agency, using any leverage it can discover or invent to further the Trump Maga message.”
Public interest groups, MVPD groups and low-power TV broadcasters opposed to NAB’s petition for a mandatory ATSC 3.0 transition are “protecting their turf” rather than the public interest, said NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan in a blog post Monday. Kaplan was responding to a June ex parte filing from the Consumer Technology Association, NCTA, ACA Connects, Public Knowledge, the Advanced Television Alliance and the LPTV Broadcasters Association, which said NAB’s request goes against both the public interest and the Trump administration’s push for deregulation (see 2505090060).
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies urged the FCC on Monday to take additional steps to ensure that devices from Chinese companies aren’t sold in the U.S. The agency’s 2022 order preventing the sale of yet-to-be authorized equipment (see 2211230065) has gaps, the group said in a report posted in docket 21-232.
A draft California Public Utilities Commission resolution would align the state's LifeLine with federal Lifeline rules. The resolution will be considered during the commission's Aug. 14 meeting. If adopted, the California LifeLine's annual renewal process would mirror that of the FCC. The state program would risk losing "approximately $1.4 million annually" in federal funding if the change isn't implemented, the draft said. Updating the process would ensure that "all subscribers, regardless of database match status, are held to a consistent standard."
Top OneNav executives met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff about setting more rigorous standards for enhanced 911 location accuracy, according to a filing posted Monday in docket 25-110. The company advocated for the agency to require that E911 location information be accurate within 20 meters at least 68% of the time. OneNav also discussed its arguments that L5 signals from global navigation satellite systems can help improve horizontal accuracy of caller information (see 2506100044). Among those in the meeting were OneNav CEO Steven Poizner, Chief Technology Officer Paul McBurney and acting FCC Chief Engineer Ira Keltz.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau ordered the Hampton Inn and Suites in Renton, Washington, to explain its alleged improper use of a part 90 signal booster that was found to interfere with 806-817 MHz band communications by the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network. “Unauthorized or improper operation of signal boosters creates a danger of interference to important radio communications services, including communications of first responders and violates the Commission’s rules and section 301 of the Communications Act,” said a notice in Monday’s Daily Digest.
The Rural Wireless Association and other groups asked the FCC to examine AT&T’s proposed purchase of 700 MHz and 3.45 GHz licenses from UScellular in the broader context of the U.S. wireless market. The groups met virtually with aides to Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Anna Gomez, according to a filing posted Monday in docket 25-150.
President Donald Trump signed off Friday on the revised budget reconciliation package, previously known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, restoring the FCC’s spectrum auction authority for the first time since it lapsed in March 2023. The measure, which ultimately mirrored the Senate’s version, mandates an 800 MHz spectrum auction pipeline but exempts the 3.1-3.45 GHz and 7.4-8.4 GHz bands from potential reallocation (see 2507030056). The National Emergency Number Association and WISPA separately aired grievances with Congress failing to act on the groups’ policy priorities via reconciliation.
Litigants disagreed on whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas precludes the challenge to an FCC order that lets schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. The U.S. government and attorneys representing Maurine and Matthew Molak filed briefs last week at the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court (case 23-60641), which asked for their perspectives (see 2506180067). The government said the FCC may reverse the order regardless of what the court does.
Lawyers for the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society said Monday that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding the USF was a clean win for the program and the FCC (see 2507020049). By rejecting the challenge -- brought by Consumers’ Research, a right-wing group -- SCOTUS lifted a cloud that has loomed over the USF for years, the lawyers said during an SHLB webinar.