The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on a waiver allowing the creation of a study area for UP Fiber as part of the company’s proposed acquisition of 40 wire centers in 42 exchanges and the associated customers from AT&T’s Michigan Bell. Comments are due Sept. 2, replies Sept. 17 in docket 25-181, said a notice Thursday. The companies said in a May application that the assets in the deal include more than 9,000 miles of copper lines and 1,500 miles of business fiber and network infrastructure providing voice and internet service to more than 9,000 residential and business customers.
A collection of operators hope to start commercial operations on a submarine cable system connecting Boca Raton, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with multiple other Caribbean locations starting in Q4 2027, they said in an FCC application posted Wednesday. The Celia system would also go to Martinique, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Barts, Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, the filing said. The applicants -- Telxius, Antigua Public Utilities Authority, Orange Carriers USA and Servicio di Telecomunicacion di Aruba -- said they would operate the Celia system on a non-common-carrier basis.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., on Thursday filed the Modernization, Accountability and Planning for Broadband Funding Act in a bid to increase oversight of the FCC's broadband funding map. The bill would direct the FCC to conduct a notice of inquiry on the map’s function and the data it displays for maximum usability. The notice would assess whether there need to be updates to the map based on user feedback. The measure would also direct the Government Accountability Office to evaluate whether federal agencies are providing data for the map in compliance with current law and would identify any reporting gaps.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision limiting the scope of environmental reviews in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado is very broad in its impact, said Venable’s Jay Johnson, who represented the coalition in the case. The decision (see 2506180059) doesn’t apply only to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) enforcement in regard to new railroad projects, “this applies to NEPA as a whole,” Johnson said during an Incompas webinar Thursday. “The court made that exceptionally clear.”
The FCC hasn’t experienced a large-scale workforce reduction and can still operate despite a roughly 6% decrease in staff between October and May, Chairman Brendan Carr said in letters to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md. Sent at the beginning of May, the letters were posted Thursday by the FCC. Carr was replying to March letters from Cantwell and Hoyer expressing concern about the effects of staff cuts and the involvement of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the FCC.
Groups representing prisoners and their families on Thursday asked the FCC to rescind a Wireline Bureau order delaying some incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) deadlines until April 1, 2027. The prisoner advocates told us previously that they were weighing their options following the bureau order (see 2507030024).
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) adopted two resolutions at its Summer Policy Summit in Boston this week, calling for enhanced federal-state collaboration on telecom policy, particularly in phone number management and universal service funding. NARUC’s telecom committee passed both Monday, and the full board of directors adopted them Wednesday.
Opponents of T-Mobile’s purchase of wireless assets from UScellular, including spectrum, filed a challenge to an FCC bureau order approving the deal (see 2507110045). They asked the agency to review the decision before it closes, which is expected Friday. Commissioner Anna Gomez said in an email she agreed that commissioners should have been asked to vote on the transaction.
Comments are due Aug. 29 on a proposed swap of seven stations between Gray Television and E.W. Scripps, said a public notice Wednesday. The no-cash deal involves swapping Gray stations in Colorado and Idaho for Scripps stations in Michigan and Louisiana, creating top-four duopolies in multiple markets (see 2507070028). The companies initially anticipated receiving waivers of the top-four prohibition to allow the deal to proceed, but last week the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the rule (see 2507230063). After that ruling, which doesn’t take effect for 90 days, the broadcasters asked the FCC to either wait for the court’s mandate, grant the applications using the anticipated waiver process, or approve the deals without waiting for the court using a temporary waiver. Opposition filings are due Sept. 15, replies Sept. 25.
The FCC Media Bureau has waived the requirement that broadcasters file biennial ownership reports for 18 months, in apparent anticipation of that requirement being eliminated, said a public notice late Tuesday. Multiple commenters in the agency's "Delete" proceeding “urged the Commission to revisit the current biennial ownership filing requirement, which they maintain is a costly and burdensome requirement without a sufficient offsetting public benefit,” the notice said. “With the next filing window approaching, we find there is good cause to waive the biennial ownership report filing requirement.”