An amateur radio operator in Germany is petitioning the FCC to deny AST SpaceMobile's request to conduct telemetry, tracking and control operations in 430-440 MHz. In a petition posted Tuesday (docket 25-201), Mario Lorenz said the band is allocated in Europe to amateur radio on a co-primary basis and heavily used. Under ITU rules, the FCC would have to find that AST’s proposed use is incapable of causing harmful interference to international radio service, including amateur radio, but the record doesn't support that finding, said Lorenz.
Consumer Technology Association members are incentivized to oppose NAB’s proposed mandatory ATSC 3.0 transition because they own free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels, Pearl TV told acting FCC Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone and Media Bureau staff in an ex parte meeting last week, according to a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. “TV manufacturers that own FAST channels today are competing with broadcasters for advertisers and viewers; consequently, it is not surprising that they too are incentivized to stifle broadcast innovation,” said the filing. Pearl also pushed back on arguments from the American Television Alliance that the agency lacks authority to require a transition to 3.0 that would involve broadcast spectrum being used primarily for datacasting and nonbroadcast activities. “Of course the Commission has authority after providing notice-and-comment to sunset one of its rules,” the filing said. “It seems hard to imagine that a party in 2025 could seriously doubt the Commission’s authority to sunset one of its rules.”
The FCC Wireline Bureau announced an updated Lifeline minimum service standard for fixed broadband data usage, said a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. Beginning Dec. 1 and continuing until Dec. 1, 2026, the Lifeline minimum service standard for fixed broadband data usage will be 1280 GB per month, the PN said. The standards for mobile voice telephony and mobile broadband will remain unchanged, the PN said. The PN also said that the budget for federal universal service support for the Lifeline program for 2026 will be $2.97 billion. The budget was $2.89 billion in 2025.
CTIA President Ajit Pai met with new FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty to discuss spectrum issues, particularly the upcoming AWS-3 reauction and a proposed auction of the upper C-band. CTIA made similar arguments in a recent meeting with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr (see 2507110023). The FCC has regained auction authority following enactment of the reconciliation package (see 2507070045).
GCI counsel spoke with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to explain the carrier’s request for clarification on the agency’s Alaska Connect Fund (ACF) order (see 2501310053). GCI urged the FCC to adopt the adjustments it proposes "to ensure that the ACF continues to improve and expand mobile coverage in Alaska’s rural communities,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-328.
The proposed 18-month deadline for nationwide providers to implement 988 text georouting might be sufficient, but the FCC Wireline Bureau needs to be able to waive or stay such deadlines, CTIA said. In docket 18-336 Tuesday, CTIA said the agency also should direct the bureau, as part of its consultations with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and the Department of Health and Human Services, to remain apprised of the development and implementation of text-to-988 georouting solutions and standards. July's FCC meeting will see the commissioners voting on a text-to-988 georouting requirement (see 2507030049).
Members of the Connected Devices for America Coalition, in a meeting with FCC staff, opposed NextNav’s proposal that the agency reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “high-quality, terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services (see 2503030023). The proposal “would upend a successful light-touch regulatory regime for the enrichment of a single company,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 25-110. NextNav doesn’t “propose to use the licenses it bought with the service conditions mandated by the FCC but instead seeks to upend the reasonable investment-backed expectations of other users of the band,” the coalition said. “In contrast to the approach NextNav has taken for the last 30 years, many others have seized the opportunity in the Lower 900 MHz Band and turned it into a workhorse band for American unlicensed innovation.”
AT&T is hoping to discontinue legacy plain old telephone service for 21,000 customers in areas of 17 states, it told the FCC in a discontinuance application Tuesday. It said it anticipates discontinuing residential local service and business local exchange access line service on or after June 30, 2026, in the affected areas. The carrier said the customers would have AT&T Phone-Advanced and AT&T Phone for Business-Advanced service available as a replacement service. It said wireless service, including from rival Verizon, is available in the affected areas, as are competitive voice offerings via cable, fiber, fixed wireless and satellite technologies. It said the 17 states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Four carriers have elected to move their business data services offerings to incentive regulation, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The carriers are Amelia Telephone and New Castle Telephone, both in Virginia; Chillicothe Telephone in Ohio; and Union River Telephone in Maine. The shift went into effect July 1.
The Trump administration is more focused on the Caribbean region than previous administrations, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at a meeting of the trade association for telecom operators across that region. “We are putting our region, the Americas, first” and “we are doing so through actions, not just words,” he said. Carr’s remarks were posted Tuesday. Carr noted that the last FCC chairman to address CANTO was Ajit Pai in 2018.