Crafting its to-do list for beefing up cybersecurity in commercial space, one Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center priority may be creating a space cybersecurity maturity model akin to a readiness rating for securing information, Space ISAC Vice President-Operations Erin Miller told us. The ISAC was unveiled this spring and hosted a GPS threats webinar in May. It aims to be fully operational next month at its first board meeting, Miller said.
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
A declaratory ruling prohibiting charging higher 911 fees for VoIP subscribers than for legacy phone services circulated on the 8th floor Wednesday. It would resolve jurisdiction issues over such fees, says the FCC draft Friday on docket 19-44. Also released for the Oct. 25 meeting were a draft cable TV effective competition order for parts of Massachusetts and Hawaii, the 800 MHz rebanding draft order, a draft NPRM for removing broadcast antenna siting rules that don’t appear to have ever been successfully used, a draft order on measuring broadband performance of Connect America Fund recipients and a draft order regarding telecom tariffs (see 1910030061).
Locality pre-emption beefs with the FCC aren't ending soon, with limits on local regulators' 911 VoIP fees and an end to some cable TV rate regulation on October's agenda. Chairman Ajit Pai, previewing the items for the Oct. 25 meeting in his blog Thursday, also said there will be items wrapping up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, as expected (see 1910020030). There's also a media modernization NPRM that appears to concern eliminating broadcast antenna site rules that industry lawyers say have been used barely a handful of times in the past 30 years. Pai said there will be an order on testing procedures and performance measures for carriers receiving support from the USF Connect America Fund program for broadband deployment to high-cost areas and an order addressing two tariff regulations.
FCC allies in Tuesday's federal court decision on the Communications Act Title II rollback order (see 1910010018) consider appeal unlikely. Petitioner allies are less sure. California and Vermont’s litigated net neutrality laws remain on hold, those states’ attorneys generals confirmed Wednesday.
Parties on both sides declared some victory from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision Tuesday on appeals of the FCC 2018 Communications Act Title II broadband service regulation rollback. Backers of the order cheered most of the decision, while critics pointed to the court rejecting pre-emption of state and local regulations. There was partial dissent from Judge Stephen Williams and concurring opinions from Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins. See our bulletins: 1910010016 and 1910010013.
A cable programmer suing Comcast for alleged racial discrimination for not being picked up for carriage is getting support before the Supreme Court from some members of Congress, in docket 18-1171 amicus briefs. Pointing to how the high court's construction of Section 1981 of federal anti-discrimination law could affect interpretation of other anti-discrimination statutes the U.S. enforces or that apply to the federal government, the Solicitor General is asking to take part in Nov. 13 oral argument.
Action on Globalstar asking the FCC to revisit allowing unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices to operate in the 5.1 GHz band, now 16 months old and counting, (see 1805220006) isn't expected soon. At the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19), 5.1 GHz spectrum sharing is on the agenda.
The biggest hurdles to independent programming getting on MVPD platforms are the retransmission consent rules regime and the skyrocketing retrans fees being paid to broadcasters, indie programmers and MVPDs said at a Multicultural Media Caucus Hill briefing Wednesday. Fixes could include the Modern TV Act (HR-3994) and using the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act renewal (STELAR) to change the video marketplace, some said.
Before the FCC starts issuing funds from its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), it needs to have its improved broadband mapping up and running, said Consolidated Communications CEO Bob Udell Monday in a taping for C-SPAN's The Communicators. Udell, who's also USTelecom chairman, said the shapefiles approach the agency adopted in August (see 1908010007) "is critical" to the next allocation of federal funding. He said Consolidated is intent on expanding its fiber network, and cell towers for 5G will drive some of that. The U.S. is at an "inflection point," akin to when the Rural Electrification Act was adopted, that could advance deployment through public and private investment, he said. Consolidated is among the telecom signatories to an agreement with state attorneys general on commitments to fight illegal robocalls (see 1908220060), and Udell said principles in that agreement are being used to guide its suppliers on criteria to implement secure handling of asserted information using tokens and secure telephone identity revisited caller authentication technology. He said trials of that tech are underway and rollout should be done in 2020. With Consolidated largely serving rural markets, he said 5G is less a competitive threat than an opportunity to provide services to wireless operators. Mobile service isn't a strategy for Consolidated in the foreseeable future like it is for Comcast, Charter and Altice, he said, but the company's considering bidding in the citizens broadband radio service spectrum auction, with that spectrum potentially being useful for private LTE networks to serve, for example, an office park lacking good cell coverage. He said Consolidated doesn't use Huawei equipment. He said it "thwart[s] attacks daily. It's a common factor when you operate communications infrastructure." Udell advocated a national privacy rules framework instead of a piecemeal approach state by state.
The proposal on the FCC's Thursday agenda to update and streamline DBS rules comes as that industry's future is increasingly a question mark. An FCC official told us the vote (see 1909050043) is likely 5-0 and the item is seen is a housekeeping matter completing work of aligning DBS registration rules and procedures with other satellite services.