Industry attorneys expect USF reform and think BEAD efforts will soon speed up, they said in a webinar Thursday hosted by Incompas CEO Chip Pickering. The panel also discussed convergence between wired and wireless broadband and the movement of power away from the FCC in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings against agency authority. “From Incompas’ perspective ... we think a lot will shift to Congress, to the administration and to the states,” said Pickering.
The FCC approved an order and Further NPRM Thursday aimed at squelching “bad labs,” continuing work started in the last administration. Commissioners also decided the agency would look well beyond its initial plans of considering the 12.7 and 42 GHz bands for satellite broadband spectrum. Those items were approved 4-0, as were updated foreign-ownership rules (see 2505010037).
Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., is threatening to block Senate passage of its budget reconciliation package if Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and others include spectrum legislative language that doesn’t exempt the 3.1-3.45 GHz and 7 GHz bands from potential reallocation for commercial use. Rounds’ declaration Wednesday night created another potential roadblock for spectrum legislation to make it into a negotiated reconciliation deal, even as House GOP leaders celebrated the lower chamber's narrow passage Thursday morning of their One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR-1). That measure's spectrum title would restore the FCC’s lapsed auction authority through Sept. 30, 2034, and exempts the lower 3 GHz and 5.9-7.1 (6) GHz bands from reallocation.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’ announcement Thursday that he was attending his last commission meeting (see 2505220013) sparked renewed concerns from his supporters on and off Capitol Hill that President Donald Trump will leave his seat vacant instead of naming a party-affiliated successor. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights led another push just before Starks’ announcement for Senate leaders to delay Republican FCC nominee Olivia Trusty’s confirmation process until the Trump administration commits to keeping the commission staffed with two members not affiliated with the party of the sitting president.
As part of quantum computing company IonQ's planned purchase of Capella Space (see 2505080048), they're asking the FCC to sign off on transfer of Capella's licenses to IonQ. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Wednesday, the companies said the deal also needs NOAA approval. They said Capella has FCC authorizations to launch and operate 15 satellites and has four in orbit now. The Capella acquisition is intended to strengthen IonQ’s position in quantum networking technologies to be used to build the quantum internet and related infrastructure for the space economy, the application said.
The appellate court decision that the FCC's 2024 equal employment opportunity data collection requirement for broadcasters was outside the agency's statutory authority (see 2505190044) makes some proposed FCC actions "inherently suspect," Wilkinson Barker broadcast lawyer David Oxenford wrote Wednesday. The proposed rules regarding the use of AI-generated content in political advertising (see 2407250046) also relied heavily on the agency's supposed public interest authority, Oxenford said. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has talked about holding broadcasters liable for not meeting some public interest standard, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision could suggest that standard doesn't give the FCC authority to establish broadcast codes of conduct, except in areas specifically enumerated by statute, he said. "In light of this decision, there will no doubt be much evaluation of the text of the FCC’s statutory authority to see what rules and what proposals may be on shaky ground."
T-Mobile representatives met with FCC staffers to discuss the difficulty of calculating eligible and supported households for the purposes of fixed wireless access as the agency considers the company’s proposed buy of wireless assets from UScellular. Parts of the filing, posted Wednesday in docket 24-286, were redacted.
Since any FCC action on EchoStar's use of the 2 GHz band could affect the future of open radio access network deployments, more time to comment on the relevant public notices is warranted, a collection of interest groups said Tuesday (docket 25-173). Public Knowledge, the Open Technology Institute at New America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance backed Incompas' call to add 30 days to the comment deadline for the FCC's EchoStar public notices (see 2505190056). The groups said the extra time is also justified because the FCC must consider the effect on EchoStar's Dish Network subscribers if the commission makes it impossible for Dish to expand its 5G network to the point of viability.
Talton again asked the FCC to approve its petition seeking confidential treatment of its request for a waiver of the agency's rules capping the rates for audio and video for incarcerated people (see 2505090012). Talton, which serves U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, responded this week to a filing from Stephen Raher, principal of Amalgamated Policy Research (AMR) and an advocate of lowering calling rates for prisoners and their families.
The FCC opposed a push by incarcerated persons communications services (IPCS) provider Securus to move the appeal of the FCC’s prison-calling order from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to the 5th Circuit (see 2501280053). The FCC questioned the rationale for the move in a brief posted Wednesday (docket 24-8028).