With the cost of space travel decreasing, regulatory hang-ups are starting to eclipse launch costs as the biggest barrier to commercial space, SpaceX Vice President of Satellite Policy David Goldman said Wednesday. Regulatory challenges are "where the bottleneck is," he said at a space and spectrum conference at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, locked down support Wednesday from a pair of top Armed Services Committee Republicans for the panel’s spectrum budget reconciliation package language after strengthening the original proposal’s exclusion of the 3.1-3.45 GHz and 7.4-8.4 GHz bands from potential FCC auction or other reallocation (see 2506060029). Cruz’s office also reemphasized his view that the revised proposal’s language to encourage states to pause enforcement of AI laws no longer threatens jurisdictions’ eligibility for the enacted $42.5 billion in BEAD funding (see 2506230043) in the face of Democratic assertions to the contrary.
The FCC's 1610-1626.5 MHz band and 2483.5-2500 MHz band licensing framework has been a huge success, and there's no reason to modify it, Globalstar CEO Paul Jacobs told FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, according to a filing posted Tuesday. Globalstar said the FCC should grant its C-3 constellation application (see 2502280001) without conducting a rulemaking on the spectrum bands or initiating a processing round. Allowing a new entrant into its licensed mobile satellite service spectrum "would inevitably cause extensive harmful interference." SpaceX has sought permission to operate in the 1.6/2.4 GHz bands (see 2506120011).
Securus wants the FCC to grant another waiver of a requirement that inmate calling providers bill for video on a per-minute basis, according to a partially redacted ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-62. The FCC granted Securus a waiver in December extending the deadline for the requirement to Sept. 1. “Securus, despite extraordinary effort, will not be able to fully deploy the new video calling platform by that deadline and will thus be seeking an extension of the current waiver through April 1, 2026,” said the filing. The FCC recently granted a similar waiver for TKC Telecom. Securus’ planned video-calling platform to allow the new billing structure requires additional development work, and the company must train staff and correctional employees and educate consumers about the new product, the filing said. Without an extension, “Securus will once again be in a position of either having to offer the service for free and incurring the resulting loss, or shutting down service, depriving consumers of this important communication platform.”
Comments are due July 8 on ACS of Fairbanks’ application to discontinue legacy voice services in Fairbanks, Alaska, said a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The application will be granted automatically on July 24, unless the FCC notifies ACS otherwise.
President Donald Trump would have issued an order ending collective bargaining for the FCC and numerous other federal agencies even if he didn’t have retaliatory motives, the White House said Monday in filings in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The filings were made in the National Treasury Employees Union’s challenge of Trump’s executive order that removed collective bargaining rights at roughly 40 agencies on national security grounds, affecting two-thirds of the federal workforce (see 2506100045). They included a motion for summary judgment, as well as a response to NTEU's own motion for summary judgment.
New satellite entrants struggle in the face of incumbent operators taking up geostationary orbital slots with old satellites that barely operate anymore, said Kimberly Baum, regulatory head for Astranis, at a space and spectrum conference Tuesday at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder. The related challenge of mini payloads on satellites that don't provide commercial service -- but nonetheless get licensed -- can stifle spectrum access for new entrants, she said. She called for the FCC to look at changing how it licenses payloads or older satellites that can't provide commercial services.
The North American Numbering Council said Tuesday that it wouldn't be rechartered after its final meeting that day, and its functions will be absorbed into the FCC. The advisory committee has operated since 1995, and its charter expires Sept. 8.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said Tuesday that it’s “time to have a real conversation and update the 1992 Cable Act,” a revamp that would likely take aim at retransmission consent, must-carry and network non-duplication rules, lobbyists said. The lawmaker announced plans to revisit the statute during a Media Institute event, saying it was part of a broader “modernization” of U.S. media laws, in tandem with the FCC Media Bureau’s move to seek comment on relaxing national broadcast-ownership limits (see 2506200052).
The existence of more precise location data and the value in accurately assessing compliance warrant the FCC granting GCI's request for modification or waiver of the Alaska population-distribution model (see 2504140020), GCI representatives told agency staffers. In a docket 16-271 filing posted Monday to recap a meeting with the Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics, GCI said it expects it will meet its population-based commitments to upgrade service to nearly 140,000 Alaskans, and it seeks accurate measurement of compliance with Alaska Plan commitments. GCI also said it discussed Alaska Plan compliance regarding the relocation of population from the village of Newtok in western Alaska a few miles upriver to Mertarvik.