The satellite industry and allies raised red flags about the draft orbital debris order on April 23's FCC members' meeting agenda (see 2004010063). Operators lobbied for changes or deferring decisions. They cited higher costs, in docket 18-313 Tuesday.
Matt Daneman
Matt Daneman, Senior Editor, covers pay TV, cable broadband, satellite, and video issues and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications in 2015 after more than 15 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where he covered business among other issues. He also was a correspondent for USA Today. You can follow Daneman on Twitter: @mdaneman
With the FCC expected to soon circulate a Ligado approval order (see 2004100060), NTIA and various federal agencies are making another push to stop the momentum. The military estimated the funding and time needed to replace military GPS receivers potentially affected by Ligado's L-band plans is in the billions of dollars and decades. Given the general pushback from agencies on every move to open up more spectrum for 5G and the lack of a unified spectrum policy, Chairman Ajit Pai's moving forward here makes sense, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld.
Following limited waiver of kids' TV programming preemption rescheduling, the FCC could get other requests for broadcast rules waivers or changes in the face of the pandemic, experts told us late last week. The agency got kudos from the children's programming advocacy universe and the White House for Thursday's waiver.
An order approving Ligado's requested license modifications is about to go on circulation, potentially early this week, stakeholders and agency officials told us Friday. They said the order would include conditions such as Ligado-sought power and emissions levels and the company's government GPS replacement proposal, plus network monitoring and operational requirements. The FCC didn't comment. The agency's under pressure from legislators to approve the company's planned low-power terrestrial L-band broadband (see 2002250083). NTIA didn't recommend approval, and DOD and other agencies opposed approval (see 1912090011).
Executive branch agencies recommended the FCC revoke China Telecom's U.S. authorizations for international telecom services. DOJ, which led the review, said the agencies found "substantial and unacceptable national security and law enforcement risks," including Chinese government malicious cyber activity targeting the U.S., and concerns China Telecom -- a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese government-owned telecom company -- is vulnerable to China's "exploitation, influence, and control." It said China Telecom made inaccurate statements to U.S. authorities about recordkeeping and made inaccurate public representations of cybersecurity practices. The 71-page redacted recommendation filed with the International Bureau said China Telecom "will be forced to comply with Chinese government requests without sufficient legal procedures subject to independent judicial oversight." It also said the company's U.S. operations are a route for Chinese state-sponsored actors "to engage in economic espionage and disrupt and misroute U.S. communications traffic." The "security of our government and professional communications, as well as of our most private data, depends on our use of trusted partners from nations that share our values and our aspirations for humanity," said Assistant Attorney General-National Security John Demers. DOJ said the recommendation was by it and the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, State, Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative. The FCC and China Telecom didn't comment.
Streaming video providers are slowing down video transmissions to free up bandwidth when U.S. ISP networks are jammed, we heard this and last week. More content providers likely dialed back their HD video quality during the pandemic, said Streaming Video Alliance (SVA) Executive Director Jason Thibeault. An FCC official doesn't anticipate requesting streaming video operators throttle bit rates like Europe has (see 2003240032). For our past report about increasing demand on networks, see here.
FCC-proposed Media Bureau reorganization (see 2003300052) will likely be approved on circulation before the May meeting, an agency official said in an interview this week. That and other officials said the reorganization is an administrative formality, combining the Engineering Division with the Industry Analysis Division, after last year's creation of the Office of Economics and Analytics resulted in IAD economists and analysts moving to OEA. Employees' roles won't change, but the two MB divisions have some natural symmetry in who they report to, we were told. The agency emailed us that the changes would "integrat[e] MB’s technical expertise with its adjudicatory matters and policy making proceedings. The consolidation would serve the public interest and improve the Commission’s operations to streamline the organization of the Media Bureau." Fewer MB personnel post-OEA creation is emblematic of longer-term staffing trends. The agency's FY 2020 budget request estimated 133 full-time equivalents for the bureau. Two years before, it was 153, and in 2013, it was 181.
While the Commerce Department had suggested the FCC pause its orbital debris rules update (see 1904080033), there's no time to wait, according to the 119-page draft order the commission released Thursday in advance of the April 23 meeting. The April agenda also has media items on increasing video description requirements and relaxing interference restrictions for low-power FM.
Updated orbital debris rules for satellite operators and possibly expanding video description requirements to other markets will be among the topics on April 23's FCC agenda, Chairman Ajit Pai blogged Wednesday. The items are expected to be released Thursday. Pai will also seek a vote on Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band and on a 5G Fund for Rural America (see 2004010065).
5G and weather stakeholders should talk so there's better understanding of issues like fifth-generation installation density, how quickly those terrestrial transmission signals fall off outside their main channels and how those will affect passive weather monitoring via satellite, Aerospace Corp. Senior Project Leader David Lubar said on a webinar Tuesday. Of millimeter wave bands used for weather observation, 23.6-24 GHz and 36-37 GHz are adjacent to bands to be used for 5G, he said. Passive earth and atmospheric sensing can't be done using alternate bands, he said. Passive measurements wouldn't know the signal levels being detected aren't correct, corrupting the weather data, he said. It's not clear how out-of-band emissions (OOBE), especially unidentified contamination, might affect meteorological products, he said. A radio receiver and satellite-based radiometer work differently, so receiver protection techniques aren't applicable to satellites, he said. The 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference limits on 5G base stations in the 24 GHz band will be adopted by most nations, though Europe didn't consider them stringent enough and moved forward by several years the phase-in of those limits, he said. Rather than OOBE limits, a possible solution could be time-sharing of the spectrum, Lubar said.