The Senate should bring the Intelligence Committee’s surveillance bill to the floor but allow those seeking an FBI warrant requirement to file an amendment, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., told reporters last week (see 2312140052).
The FCC’s controversial data breach notification rules included several changes from the draft. The rules were adopted at the December open meeting over Commissioners Brendan Carr's and Nathan Simington's dissents (see 2312130019). Republican lawmakers are weighing a response to the rules, which they see as sidestepping a 2017 Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval that rescinded similar regulations as part of the commission's 2016 ISP privacy order (see 2312200001). The order was posted in Friday’s Daily Digest.
It's possible some states will miss Wednesday's filing deadline for NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, Incompas CEO Chip Pickering said Thursday in an interview. However, he said he remains optimistic about the BEAD program’s future. “It will have some failures, a lot of success, and overall, it will move the country ahead.”
A Warner Bros. Discovery/Paramount Global combination will likely receive regulatory approval but could encounter challenges at the FCC or DOJ, said industry analysts, reacting to rumors Warner is eyeing a purchase of Paramount.
Lead Republican lawmakers’ recent charge that the FCC was “deeply misleading” about the affordable connectivity program’s efficacy (see 2312150068) has solidified perceptions on and off Capitol Hill that it will be extremely difficult to reach a deal allocating additional money before the initiative's funding runs out next year, lobbyists and observers told us. Estimates peg ACP as likely to exhaust its initial $14.2 billion tranche from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act during the first half of 2024 (see 2309210060). The White House is pushing for Congress to appropriate an additional $6 billion to fully fund the program through the end of 2024 (see 2310250075).
The FCC’s draft 2018 quadrennial review order had just two votes as of Wednesday evening, which could mean it won’t win approval in time to meet the Dec. 27 deadline that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set (see 2309290056), according to FCC and industry officials. The item hasn’t undergone many changes since it was circulated. It would extend prohibitions on new top-four combinations to multicast and low-power TV stations and maintain rules limiting local radio ownership.
Altice urged the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to quickly OK a settlement resolving the board’s service quality probe. The settlement has Altice pledging to spend $11 million on its network and making other broadband adoption, network resiliency and customer service commitments. “It’s an important settlement” for local governments, said Best Best attorney Gerard Lederer, who represented Piscataway, New Jersey, in the proceeding.
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities unanimously agreed Wednesday to submit to NTIA both volumes of the state’s initial proposal for the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. Meanwhile, with the filing deadline one week away, Wisconsin submitted its plan Wednesday and California signaled it will follow soon. Also, at the livestreamed New Jersey BPU meeting, commissioners voted 4-0 to kick off the statewide franchise renewal process for Altice’s Cablevision.
Republican lawmakers are eyeing further action in opposition to FCC data breach notification rules (see 2312130019), but what form this will take is unclear, Capitol Hill aides and lobbyists told us. GOP leaders say the rules sidestep a 2017 Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval that rescinded similar regulations as part of the commission's 2016 ISP privacy order (see 1704030054). Republican FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington raised the CRA in their dissents as the commission approved the rules last week 3-2.
USTelecom and CTIA told the FCC its members already use AI to combat unwanted robocalls. Both groups counseled that regulators adopt a flexible approach but said scammers also use AI. Comments in response to a November notice of inquiry (see 2311160028) were due Monday and posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 23-362.