With the FCC signing off on four of Tomorrow Companies' planned non-geostationary orbit satellites and deferred action on 14 more, Tomorrow is asking the agency's Space Bureau to modify its grant, going to six satellites and allowing the company to move on the remaining 12. The Space Bureau application posted Thursday included updated re-entry casualty risk information; the agency in granting the four weather satellites had deferred action on the 14 pending updated re-entry casualty information (see 2405200049). Tomorrow said it's trying to make redesigns that are part of the updated re-entry casualty information, but they don't appear to be practical to be implemented before the seventh and eighth scheduled missions. It said it anticipates an October launch for its third and fourth satellites, with another 10 launching in Q1 2025.
Given the expected growth in low earth orbit traffic, the FCC's pending 100 object-years metric proposal (see 2405290074), while a good idea, should be reduced to 25 to 50 years, Kall Morris said in docket 18-313 Thursday. It also urged data collection that it said would improve rulemaking. The data would include planned and actual total derelict time on orbit for failed and planned disposals for each object launched and tracked by the operator. It said the FCC also could play a role in fostering collaboration between insurance companies and in-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing operators. Operators' premiums could pay for ISAM services if relocation of a satellite is needed owing to damage or if it exceeded object-year time frames, it added.
Banning early-termination fees (ETF) and requiring prorated refunds would hurt consumers, but should the FCC go that route, it should ban only "unjust or unreasonable" whole-month billing, NCTA and cable operators said Thursday in docket 23-405. Recapping a meeting with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office and Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, the cablers said that approach would "preserve the benefits of reasonable ETFs" and protect consumers from excessively high ETFs. Reasonable ETFs would be transparently disclosed, or cable companies could grant a grace period, letting consumers cancel video service without incurring a fee, they said. Moreover, the record would need further development before supporting extending ETF rules to bundled services, they added. Representatives of Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises also met with the FCC on these items. In December, FCC commissioners 3-2 approved a video service fees NPRM that proposes banning ETFs and requiring prorated refunds when service is canceled (see 2312130019).
The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on a petition to create a more powerful Class-A FM station class known as A-10, a public notice said Thursday. The petition, from Commander Communication, asks the agency to allow existing Class A FM stations to upgrade to the higher power class where they wouldn’t interfere with other co-channel stations. Commander CEO Carl Haynes told us his proposal would follow the existing interference rules and allow many FM stations to be more economically viable and extend reach. “Implementing these proposals will enable stations to better serve the public with a more reliable signal for news and emergency weather notifications,” the petition said. A previous FM power increase proposal, creating a C4 class of FM station, has been stalled at the FCC since 2016. Comments on the A10 petition are due in docket 24-183 on July 22, replies Aug. 21.
The FCC Media Bureau approved a deal for Gray Television to sell two TV stations in Wyoming and Nebraska to Marquee Broadcasting in exchange for Marquee’s FCC-issued construction permit to build a station in Salt Lake City, an order in Thursday’s Daily Digest said. Because the swap includes transferring a Gray station that carries top-four affiliate channels -- KGWN-TV Cheyenne, Wyoming -- the deal falls under the agency’s new 2018 quadrennial order, which requires transactions involving multiple top-four programming streams to be considered on a case-by-case basis. The agency approved the deal because there doesn’t appear to be a commercially viable alternative home for KGWN’s CBS and NBC network affiliations, the order said. “Permitting Marquee to acquire KGWN with its two top-four network affiliations intact” is "in the public interest and would ensure the preservation of local news service and network-affiliated program distribution in the local market,” the order said.
CaptionMate urged the FCC to give smaller providers of IP captioned telephone services a "fair shot at achieving scale" by establishing an emergent rate (see 2406030062). The company said in separate meetings with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks that the cost of an emergent rate "would be exceedingly small and more than offset by even modest reductions to" the automatic speech recognition-only rate of larger providers. CaptionMate also met with the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics, and the Disability Rights Office, per a filing Thursday in docket 03-123.
The Media Institute released an adaptation of remarks previously given by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez at a February luncheon (see 2402200066) as a paper on misinformation in media, a news release said Thursday. The paper, part of the institute’s Madison Project series, is called "Misinformation and the Threat to Our Democracy." In the speech and paper, Gomez said, “Concern about dis- or misinformation is one of the top media issues raised to me in my role as commissioner.” She added, “And it is one where, frankly, regulatory options are limited, as they should be.”
Twenty-nine out of 113 cellsites are down and some police departments have rerouted 911 calls owing to wildfires affecting two counties in New Mexico, a disaster information report system update said Thursday. The fires are mainly affecting Lincoln and Otero counties, so the FCC has activated “DIRS-Lite,” which involves the Public Safety Bureau “obtaining more granular situation-specific information through ongoing direct communications with communications providers,” the report said. The agency is using DIRS-Lite “due to the geographically concentrated impact of the New Mexico wildfires, and the need to gain information that is more precise than county-level.” The report also shows 2,877 wireline customers out of service due to a damaged switch, and that a head-end in Lincoln County serving 172 VoIP customers was damaged. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility deployed nine mobile assets to the area, the report said. The Public Safety Bureau also issued a public notice Thursday detailing contact numbers and emergency communications procedures for the disaster.
The ISP petitioners’ consolidated motion to stay the FCC’s net neutrality order (see 2406110073) “attempts to replay the same legal challenges they ran unsuccessfully in 2015,” said the commission's opposition Tuesday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (dockets 24.7000, 24.3449, 24.3450, 24.3497, 24.3504, 24.3507, 24.3508, 24.3510, 24.3511, 24.3517, 24.3519, 24.3538).
Supporters of the FCC's expired affordable connectivity program acknowledge the Senate Commerce Committee’s impasse (see 2406180067) on the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) may spur a reexamination of alternatives for addressing broadband pricing. This realization comes amid weakening odds that Congress can address ACP funding via a broader package aimed at restoring the FCC's lapsed airwaves sales authority. Lawmakers continue insisting a legislative solution is possible this year even though Senate Commerce’s cancellation of its planned Tuesday markup of S-4207 (see 2406170066) was its fourth pulling of the measure since early May. Other stakeholders are urging a shift to emphasizing nonlegislative solutions.