Expect more cable providers, particularly smaller ones, to follow Wideopenwest's model and drop linear video service in the near future, cable executives and observers told us. WOW said Monday it will begin transitioning its residential video subscribers to YouTube TV subscriptions starting this summer.
There are wireless/satellite schisms as the FCC tries to put together a framework for supplemental coverage from space (SCS) service. The divisions are over whether a preexisting arrangement with a terrestrial mobile operator should be a prerequisite, per docket 23-65 comments that were due Friday. The wireless industry is pushing for SCS applications to be handled by waivers, calling a rules regime premature. Multiple commenters called for streamlining the blanket earth station licensing framework. The SCS NPRM was adopted 4-0 in March (see 2303160009).
Direct broadcast satellite (DBS) and non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) interests, aren't cheering, but are relatively pleased with the 12 GHz draft order and accompanying Further NPRM on the FCC's May agenda (see 2304270077). With the threat of opening the 12.2-12.7 GHz swath of the band to mobile service forestalled, focus will turn to the expected fight over fixed use or unlicensed use, we were told. Multichannel video and data distribution service interests (MVDDS) seeking to open the band to 5G said they're also pleased (see 2305020032). We were told 4-0 approval of the draft order is likely.
In preparation for possible interference to GPS from terrestrial L-band use, DOT wants to augment its current processes for identifying and responding, the agency said at the National Space-Based Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board meeting Wednesday.
This spring's proxy season includes multiple shareholder votes on tech, media and telecom (TMT) companies' reliance on China, plus an array of proposed disclosures of lobbying activities. The China proposals have garnered little investor support.
Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign pledge to bring the FCC, FTC and other independent regulatory agencies under executive branch control would likely involve expanding Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs review of proposed rules to those agencies, administrative law OIRA experts told us. The White House has the statutory and constitutional ability to do so, but it would be a political fight, they said. Former FCC officials and others consider the proposal more likely bluster than something that could be easily achieved if Trump is reelected president. The FCC and FTC didn't comment.
Charter Communications is now the nation's largest rural broadband provider and builder, President Chris Winfrey said Friday as the company announced Q1 earnings. He said rural construction helped Charter add 76,000 internet customers in the quarter, during which the company also activated 44,000 subsidized rural passings. He said the 2023 goal is buildouts to 300,000 additional rural passings.
Commercial space startups' access to capital is increasingly a challenge, GVF event panelists said Thursday. Financing costs for debt capital are substantially higher than a year ago, and equity investors have higher expectations, said Noel Rimalovski, managing partner at investment bank GH Partners. Financing deals are still getting done, but investors are focusing far more heavily on business fundamentals like having revenue now, he said. Echoed, Akshay Patel, PJT Partners Strategic Advisory Group managing director, the bar investors have for considering a company is "quite high." He said it has become hard to get investors' attention to equity investing when the debt market is more attractive right now.
NAB's attempt to get the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to force the FCC to move on its 2018 quadrennial review isn't likely to result in new media ownership rules coming out of the agency soon in large part due to the 2-2 commissioner deadlock, broadcast experts told us. NAB's suit Monday seeks a writ of mandamus compelling the commission to complete the 2018 review within 90 days of a court decision. The NAB legal action was expected (see 2303290065). The FCC didn't comment.
While satellite operators heavily lobbied the FCC regarding a proposed sunset of interference protections of non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service systems (see 2304120023), the commission's decision to go that route isn't likely to end up challenged in court, we are told. The order and accompanying Further NPRM, approved 4-0 at the agency's April meeting (see 2304200039), was released Friday. A lawyer representing a company involved in the NGSO FSS sharing proceeding said satellite operators opposed to the 10-year sunset recognize there's a low likelihood of success in a court challenge, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is highly deferential to the agency on spectrum management issues. The court also has held that the agency can alter the rules regulating a licensee's license, the lawyer said. He said the agency generally has made clear a lot of its licensing decisions are conditioned on future rule-making. He said it's more likely that satellite operators could petition the FCC to reconsider, as the stakes are lower. Per our side-by-side comparison, the approved order axes several sentences from the draft laying out how a degraded throughput methodology analysis should be done to demonstrate a later-round system won't interfere with an earlier-round system. Instead, the approved order says that while the agency is adopting a degraded throughput methodology, it "recognize[s] that certain details of its implementation may benefit from further comment." The Further NPRM seeks comment on various technical details, and much of that language that was in the draft order -- such as laying out three steps for a degraded throughput analysis -- are now in the FNPRM, with the agency seeking comment on the proposed process. When discussing information sharing during good-faith coordination, the approved order adds a sentence stating that if earlier round systems don't share some non-public information "later round systems may have to make assumptions regarding the operations of earlier round systems in order to plan operations and submit a compatibility showing." The accompanying Further NPRM adds a paragraph of questions regarding post-sunset criteria, such as whether spectrum splitting should be the default procedure between systems after the sunsetting of interference protection in order to facilitate coordination. The agency said it also seeks comment on how well a default spectrum splitting process fits in the post-sunset environment. "What does co-equal mean when there are established operators on a co-equal basis with newer entrants?," it asks. The questions were prompted by OneWeb, the FCC said.