COVID-19 forced cancellation of the Oct. 11-14 Cable Tec Expo in Atlanta as a physical show, announced the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Friday. The event will instead be a “virtual experience” next month, “due to the health and safety risks to attendees posed by the public health epidemic,” it said. It blamed the surge in the delta variant and federal travel restrictions on foreign visitors to the U.S., plus employee travel bans at “some corporations." It’s planning to return the 2022 expo to a physical event next September in Philadelphia, it said.
A draft FCC NPRM seeks comment on how to improve access to the E-rate program for eligible tribal entities (see 2109090068).
Comments are due Oct. 12, replies Oct. 25, in RM-11798 on an FCC Wireless Bureau notice seeking to refresh the record on use of the 5030-5091 MHz band by drones (see 2108230034), says Friday's Federal Register.
The FTC will consider withdrawing June 2020 vertical merger guidelines at a meeting Sept. 15, the agency announced Wednesday. The virtual meeting will start at 11 a.m. EDT. According to the tentative agenda, the commission will vote to rescind the 2020 guidelines and December commentary on vertical merger enforcement. Staff will present findings from an FTC study on “large technology platforms’ unreported acquisitions, including an analysis of the structure of deals that customarily fly under enforcers’ radar,” the agency said. Public release is subject to a vote. Commissioners will vote on implementing a process for receiving public input on “rulemaking petitions by external stakeholders.” Members will consider issuing a “policy statement on the importance of protecting the public from privacy breaches by health apps and other connected devices.” The commission will allow public comment after the business portion of the meeting. Registration and comment submissions are due Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT.
No public safety answering points are down or rerouting calls, and just 4.6% of cellsites are listed as out of service in Tuesday’s disaster information reporting system update for Tropical Storm Ida. The area covered by DIRS was reduced to include only some portions of Louisiana, and no counties in Alabama or Mississippi. Some 212,079 cable and wireline subscribers remain out of service in the affected counties, along with two TV stations, eight FM stations, and one AM, the report said.
Cable operators urged California legislators to stop commissioners directing a $6 billion broadband law's money to areas with higher than 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. Legislators defined unserved as under 25/3 Mbps, but “just a month later, the plan is already going off the rails, with the California Public Utilities Commission instead unilaterally deciding to spend these funds in areas that already have internet service,” California Cable and Telecommunications Association President Carolyn McIntyre blogged Friday. Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves tweeted, "Fake News coming out of" CCTA. The commission's middle-mile ruling said the agency would prioritize places that enable last-mile connections to residences unserved by 25/3 Mbps, she said. "Lets [sic] stop wasting time and get to work!" McIntyre last month raised concerns about the CPUC using 100 Mbps to define unserved (see 2108190046).
Replies on an Edison Electric Institute petition for declaratory ruling on pole attachment rates are now due Sept. 10 in docket 17-84, said an FCC Wireline Bureau order posted Thursday granting EEI's motion for an extension (see 2108270060).
AT&T asked the FCC to adopt a spectrum screen for 2.5 GHz-6 GHz. In 2016, AT&T opposed FCC decisions to impose low-band and high-band spectrum screens (see 1607080026). “It makes no sense to maintain them and not apply a similar screen for mid-band spectrum,” the company petitioned Wednesday. “Mid-band licenses are the most important input in any wireless provider’s portfolio of 5G spectrum assets -- and, not coincidentally, are also the most likely to become the subject of anticompetitive foreclosure strategies.” Current rules “do little to prevent” the potential for anti-competitive behavior involving mid-band since “they apply only the highly diluted overall spectrum screen to acquisitions of additional mid-band spectrum, inaccurately treating that spectrum as though it were fungible with other spectrum, while applying more granular scrutiny to acquisitions of spectrum below 1 GHz even though that spectrum actually is fungible with other bands,” AT&T said. Nothing “stops” carriers “from overpaying for yet more mid-band spectrum” because the existing screen “cannot prevent providers with outsized mid-band assets from engaging in a foreclosure strategy designed to keep rivals from obtaining the mid-band assets they need.” So “act through provider-specific review of post-auction long-form license applications, not through ex ante, provider-agnostic caps on spectrum acquired in any given auction." A new screen “is not a cap on how much spectrum any entity can hold,” blogged Executive Vice President-Federal Regulatory Relations Joan Marsh. “It is a filter that the FCC can use to identify spectrum acquisitions that trigger more detailed consideration of the potential for competitive harms.” The petition criticizes the FCC for “not requiring any spectrum divestitures” by T-Mobile in buying Sprint, which “trivialized its overall spectrum screen.” AT&T and T-Mobile trailed Verizon in bidding that ended in February for C-band spectrum (see 2102180041). The FCC, T-Mobile and Verizon didn’t comment.
Industry backed an Alarm Industry Communications Committee request to delay AT&T's Feb. 22 3G data termination sunset, in comments posted Tuesday in FCC docket 21-304 (see 2108200021). AICC "clearly demonstrated the harmful impact" of the planned sunset, said the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. The auto industry "has been constrained in its ability to address or mitigate the impact of the 3G sunset," the group said, adding that it supported AICC's proposed Dec. 31, 2022, deadline. The Alcohol Monitoring Systems and AARP backed a 10-month extension. A "global semiconductor chip shortage" has affected the electronic monitoring industry's 4G transition, AMS said. AARP cited "clear linkages" between the COVID-19 pandemic and "the ability of AICC members to successfully complete the 3G transition." An "abrupt, premature, or disorganized shut-down of this key element of wireless connectivity threatens millions of people that rely on 3G," said Public Knowledge, Access Humboldt, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Center for Rural Strategies and New America's Open Technology Institute. The FCC is "well-positioned to serve as an honest broker that can collect and protect information necessary to make an objective evaluation of the obstacles facing the transition," they said. AT&T disagreed, saying alarm companies are "fully capable of replacing 3G radios" used by customers. The chip shortage "has not kept the major alarm companies from ... winning and activating new customers," it said. A delay would "undercut AT&T’s 5G rollout and overall network performance," it said. AT&T will respond to others' comments in replies due Sept. 14, said a spokesperson.
Amazon’s proposed $8.45 billion MGM buy (see 2105260061) “is not simply a one-off deal for streaming content,” but the latest move in Amazon’s “overarching strategy to create numerous interconnected points of dominance over businesses and consumers,” nearly three dozen organizations wrote FTC Chair Lina Khan and the other commissioners Tuesday, urging them to block the transaction. If the deal goes through, consumers “will be more forcefully pushed into subscribing” to Amazon Prime Video because more content will be exclusive to the service, “rather than being available across many platforms,” said the groups. Amazon also could “destroy rivals to its Fire TV products by denying other streaming platforms access to its content,” they said. Amazon’s control over the intellectual property for MGM content would allow it to “further exert leverage over its e-commerce platform” by forcing competitors “to prioritize Amazon content and product placement within non-Amazon products in exchange for access to content or IP rights,” they said. “We urge the FTC to halt this deal and to continue to investigate Amazon’s broad abuse of its ecosystem.” An Amazon spokesperson declined comment on the letter. He cited past Amazon statements that competition for content is “already intense,” and that the MGM buy “will help to strengthen this competition and provide even more choice to consumers.”