Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., led filing of the Supporting National Security with Spectrum Act Friday as an alternative vehicle for allocating an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program after congressional leaders didn't agree to include the funding in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending bill (see 2403210067). Congress inched closer Friday to passing the minibus, which also didn't include stopgap funding for the FCC's ailing affordable connectivity program despite a strong push by the initiative's backers (see 2402210073).
A combined $1.8 million proposed forfeiture for Nexstar and sidecar operation Mission broadcasting over Mission’s station WPIX New York will likely create uncertainty about similar arrangements that other broadcasters use, though attorneys and the FCC say Thursday’s notice of apparent liability is narrowly targeted. “We stress that the decision we reach today is limited to the facts before us and the relationship between Nexstar, Mission, and WPIX,” said the NAL. On the other hand, “If you’re a broadcaster with a sidecar, you’re saying ‘uh oh,’” said Holland & Knight attorney Charles Naftalin. Nexstar said it will dispute the enforcement action “vigorously.”
Recent House legislation attempting to force ByteDance to divest TikTok raises constitutional issues and doesn’t address broader privacy concerns, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters Thursday, creating a bipartisan roadblock in the upper chamber.
The ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates associations seek leave to intervene in support of the four petitions for review consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that challenge the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act (see 2403050075), said their unopposed joint motion Friday.
State enforcers of net neutrality report no legal actions against ISPs more than five years after the laws took effect. A Communications Daily public records request showed that Washington state’s attorney general's office received 21 complaints related to net neutrality since enacting its first law in March 2018, but most were resolved informally. Half the states with such laws told us they hadn’t received complaints.
Dish Wireless wanted to do something unprecedented: design, build and deploy the world’s “first of its kind 5G network” in only three years using the public cloud, Eben Albertyn, Dish Wireless executive vice president-chief technology officer, said during an RCR virtual conference Thursday. Several experts mentioned the growing security and other challenges facing carriers in a virtualized-network world.
The FCC is moving toward requiring georouting of mobile calls made to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office Thursday circulating on the 10th floor a draft NPRM proposing a georouting rule. Mental health interests applauded the move. "This is something we've been pushing for pretty much since the law that created 988 passed" in 2020, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Chief Advocacy Officer Hannah Wesolowski told us. The text of the draft NPRM wasn't released.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Thursday she hopes to soon file legislation on a five-year renewal of the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority without language authorizing sales of specific bands, despite Republican criticism during a Thursday hearing about omitting an airwaves pipeline. Senate Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., emphasized their 2024 Spectrum Pipeline Act (S-3909) as an antidote to concerns about the Biden spectrum strategy, as expected (see 2403200001). The hearing also revealed clear divisions among panel Republicans about continuing to explore 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, which has drawn opposition from DOD and top Capitol Hill allies (see 2403200061).
A draft order on circulation that would update the FCC’s foreign-sponsored content rules in response to a July 2022 U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling against the agency could be interpreted to require that entities buying political issue ads must first show broadcasters they aren’t foreign agents, broadcast and FCC officials told us. That language could change before the item is approved, although when it will be voted on is unclear, FCC and industry officials said. The draft item “just creates more questions,” said Gray Television Senior Vice President Robert Folliard.
“Consumers shouldn’t have to pay higher prices because companies break the law,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference Thursday announcing the bipartisan antitrust suit (docket 2:24-cv-04055) against Apple brought by DOJ and the AGs of 15 states and the District of Columbia. DOJ alleges in USA v. Apple that the tech giant has consolidated its monopoly power “not by making its own products better but by making other products worse.”