The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) approved two final reports Thursday, including one on threats that AI poses to networks. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told CSRIC members that AI has become a top focus for the agency, as it has for the rest of the Trump administration. The second report examines “Connecting Stalled 911 Calls Through Alternative Network Options.”
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., continued Thursday to criticize panel Republicans’ proposed spectrum language for the chamber’s budget reconciliation package (see 2506060029). She argued during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event that the spectrum proposal would leave DOD and aviation stakeholders more vulnerable to China and other malicious actors. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui of California and 30 other chamber Democrats also urged Senate leaders to jettison language from the reconciliation package that would require governments receiving funding from the $42.5 billion BEAD program to pause enforcing state-level AI rules.
The FCC’s revised foreign-sponsored content rules are in effect as of Tuesday, but broadcasters don’t need to comply with the requirements until Dec. 8, said a public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest. “Only new leases and renewals of existing leases entered into on or after the compliance date must comply with the rule modifications,” it said. NAB has challenged the rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and oral argument was held in the case in April (see 2504070019.
Comments are due July 14 on a Further NPRM aimed at spurring greater use of the 37 GHz band, approved by FCC commissioners 4-0 in April (see 2504280032), said a notice for Thursday’s Federal Register. Replies are due July 28 in docket 24-243. Most parts of an accompanying order are effective July 14, said a second Federal Register notice. The FCC sought separate comments on the "Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis."
Technology company AltoNova asked the FCC to consider advances in spatial-intelligence technologies as it develops updated rules for wireless calls and texts to 911. “New geolocation technologies developed by the special-intelligence industry are poised to make transformative changes in horizontal and vertical location of indoor wireless 911 callers and texters,” said a filing this week in docket 07-114. Enhanced-911 location technologies “about to launch will help make the Commission’s longstanding goal of broad deployment of automated dispatchable location technically feasible.”
Verizon and the Rural Wireless Association clashed over whether third-party participants in the T-Mobile/UScellular proceeding should have access to information Verizon wants to keep private. Verizon in particular seeks to block disclosure of any mobile virtual network operator wholesale agreements between Verizon’s affiliates and third parties, including the wholesale agreement between Verizon and Mediacom Communications.
The Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) urged the FCC to consider adding communications equipment and services associated with connected vehicle technologies to the “covered list” of unsecure equipment when it poses a risk to national security. Comments are due June 27 on the finding by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security that the provision of some connected vehicle hardware or software by Chinese- or Russian-controlled entities can pose “an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security and the safety and security of U.S. persons.”
The FCC agreed Wednesday to give Network Tool & Die (NTAD) more time to file data, which was due March 3, as part of the commission’s broadband data collection program. NTAD is a provider of fixed broadband services subject to the BDC filing requirements. The data is now due in 30 days.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Wednesday asked for a record refresh following up on a March 2020 NPRM (see 2003310039). Comment deadlines will come in a Federal Register notice. The bureau also asked whether “any market consolidation affected parties’ positions on the questions in the Notice,” which is part of the FCC’s efforts to “eliminate outdated and unnecessary regulations.”
NTIA and State Department representatives met with FCC staff to talk about tweaking the language regarding international waters in the commission's open proceeding on rewriting submarine cable rules. In a docket 24-524 filing posted Wednesday, NTIA said State clarified the language that it recommended instead of "international waters," since that isn't a term that has meaning under the international law of the sea. The FCC adopted the subsea cable NPRM unanimously in November (see 2411210006).