It’s not clear how workable it is for T-Mobile and Sprint to sell off enough assets to start an additional, fourth national carrier, if that becomes a condition to win DOJ approval for their proposed combination, observers said Thursday. It's not clear whether rumors that Justice wants to preserve four national carriers are real or more of a way for Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim to add to his leverage in negotiations with the two companies.
The 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack might have been a premature attempt by North Korea to exploit an underdeveloped cyber tool, said FBI Cyber Division Deputy Assistant Director Tonya Ugoretz Wednesday. There was financial motivation, but the ransomware didn’t allow attackers to collect any ransom, she said at an Aspen Institute event.
Interests representing ILECs and competitive LECs pressed opposing sides in replies mainly posted Wednesday in FCC docket 18-141 on a USTelecom petition for forbearance from selling unbundled network elements (UNEs) to competing telcos (see 1905140012). Incompas argued the Wireline Bureau "should not rely on unreliable data" in current broadband coverage maps (see 1905230043) in deciding, and that USTelecom "attempts to use the predictions of eventual competition made over two years ago to substitute for proof of actual competition today." Incompas said USTelecom hasn't met the burden of proof under forbearance procedures to demonstrate competitors are providing fiber in significant quantity to justify relief to ILECs from selling UNEs.
The fight over banning Huawei from U.S. 5G networks intensified Wednesday. Huawei asked for summary judgment in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas on the constitutionality of parts of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Robert Strayer, a State Department official, told an American Enterprise Institute forum the risk from Chinese companies is real and can't be eliminated if they're part of a 5G network. President Donald Trump said last week sanctions against Huawei could be part of trade negotiations with China (see 1905240038).
Wisconsin lawmakers tried to push forward a 5G wireless bill over emotional warnings by public health advocates at a livestreamed Wednesday hearing. The Maine House that day passed a shorter small-cells bill that similarly seeks to streamline small-cells deployment by pre-empting local governments in the right of way. Maine bills challenging recent FCC policies on ISP privacy and net neutrality also advanced, while Ohio and New York lawmakers took up bills on ways local governments could help spread broadband.
The biggest challenges to setting up an ATSC 3.0 station are legal rather than technical, said Pearl TV Engineer Dave Folsom Wednesday on a panel. Technical issues are “straightforward,” but programming agreements, sharing arrangements and rights issues generate an “immense amount of legal work” behind the scenes, said Folsom, who oversees Pearl's ATSC pilot project in Phoenix. “The legal piece is going to be by far the long pole in the tent,” said Sasha Javid, chief operating officer for the Spectrum Consortium, at the ASTC event.
Frontier Communications agreed to sell its wireline operations in the northwest U.S. for $1.35 billion to investment firms, including one founded and run by a cable entrepreneur Steve Weed. It continues a trend of asset sales of around that size by telcos throughout the country. More wireline assets in other parts of the country may also be on the block, noted Wells Fargo's Jennifer Fritzsche. She and others noted that some of Frontier's assets now being sold were themselves previously acquired from others.
The digital divide is narrowing "substantially," with Americans without a 25/3 Mbps connection dropping from 26.1 million at the end of 2016 to 21.3 million a year later, the FCC said Wednesday in its 2018 broadband deployment report. But the agency's minority Democratic commissioners dissented, saying the report is built on a shaky foundation of invalid data -- sentiments echoed by some observers. "The rosy picture ... is fundamentally at odds with reality," Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said. The agency withdrew and reworked an earlier draft due to "drastically overstated" deployment data from one ISP (see 1905010205).
Questions are being raised at the FCC on parts of the robocalling declaratory ruling, set for a commissioner vote June 6 (see 1905150041). The biggest questions are about the decision to press forward without seeking comment on what some see as a vague “reasonable analytics” standard for blocking even lawful calls, said lawyers involved in the proceeding. Consumer groups hope the FCC will approve the ruling.
The House and Senate Commerce committees are likely to begin focusing on whether to reauthorize the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, during two upcoming hearings, but those panels will only be a first act in the debate, lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Both committees are expected to have hearings during the first week of June on media market issues, seen as a way to set the stage for the STELA debate (see 1905150062 and 1905210071). Lawmakers' interest in talking about STELA has risen in recent months, particularly after Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., called recertification of the statute a must-pass bill (see 1902270018 and 1903150045). The 2014 STELA renewal expires at the end of 2019.