Creating a domestic warrant requirement for the FBI’s foreign intelligence surveillance authority would “paralyze” efforts to thwart “fast-moving threats” abroad, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Arizona commissioners questioned state USF accountability as they unanimously declined Tuesday to raise contribution rates. During a livestreamed meeting, commissioners voted 5-0 against staff’s proposed decision to raise state USF charges for 2024 (docket RT-00000H-97-0137). In addition, members unanimously granted a Verizon application to discontinue MCIMetro basic local exchange services to residential and small business customers throughout its service territory on Dec. 31 (docket T-03574A-23-0243).
T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert and AT&T CEO John Stankey had a similar message at the UBS conference Tuesday. Wireless competition in the U.S. is thriving, but the big carriers' investments are rational as they target higher average revenue per user. Stankey also discussed AT&T's open radio access network strategy (see 2312050049).
AT&T is accelerating its move to an open radio access network, agreeing to spend up to $14 billion on a five-year contract with Ericsson. The carrier expects limited cost savings as it adopts ORAN, AT&T CEO John Stankey said during a UBS conference Tuesday. In addition, AT&T announced it will work with other vendors, though the move was widely seen as a loss for Ericsson rival Nokia.
The House Commerce Committee voted 46-0 Tuesday to advance its version of the 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act (HR-5677), clearing the way for floor action on the measure as a stopgap aimed at temporarily restoring parts of the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority. The Senate unanimously cleared original version S-2787 in September amid some lawmakers’ push to jump-start stalled talks on broad spectrum legislation (see 2309220057). The measure would give the FCC authority for 90 days to issue T-Mobile and other winning bidders the licenses they bought in the 2.5 GHz band auction last year (see 2309140051).
Comcast and Altice are pointing to mobile and business services as growth drivers in coming years, with executives citing both in appearances Monday at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference.
U.S. technology is “more important than ever” to national security, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Saturday at the Reagan Defense Forum in California. Raimondo was the first Commerce secretary to address the conference, but said she won’t be the last. The U.S. is serious about blocking China and its military from buying computer chips with advanced AI capabilities, she added.
Industry and consumer groups disagreed on whether updating the FCC's broadband speed benchmarks is necessary (see 2311010062). Some cited ongoing federal broadband deployment programs and private investments and encouraged the FCC to focus its report to Congress regarding the state of broadband on policies that could further facilitate deployment. Comments were posted Friday and Monday in docket 22-270.
Lawmakers are beginning to talk about how to pivot from the House Commerce Committee-approved Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565) text as Capitol Hill continues digesting findings of DOD's study about the potential effects commercial 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band will have on incumbent military systems (see 2311290001), lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., acknowledges the unpublished DOD study’s findings likely mean lawmakers must forgo authorizing an auction of lower 3 GHz spectrum as part of a near-term compromise package.
The U.S. delegation to the World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai has been quiet two weeks into the long-awaited conference. Steve Lang, the State Department official who replaced now-Commissioner Anna Gomez as delegation head, will not hold a news conference until after the WRC concludes Dec. 15, a spokesperson confirmed.