Much remains to be seen on what the mapping challenge process will look like as the broadband, equity, access and deployment program unfolds, speakers said during a Broadband Breakfast webcast Wednesday. The experts agreed the states play a critical role. The states get to propose to NTIA their methodology for determining eligibility for BEAD funding, said Tom Reid of Reid Consulting Group: “To me that’s the big, big issue.”
Dish Network got support from public interest groups and the Phoenix Center on its request for an extension, until June 30, to exercise an option to buy 800 MHz licenses from T-Mobile. T-Mobile and parent Deutsche Telekom oppose the extension. Last week, Dish defended its request in a filing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (see 2309010050).
Nearly 300 broadband experts, ISPs, consumer advocates, and business groups urged NTIA to eliminate its letter of credit requirement for the broadband, equity, access and deployment program. The coalition, in a letter Wednesday, raised concerns about how the requirement will affect local providers and competition. Under the current rule, awardees must obtain an LOC for 25% of their award amount.
AT&T still has questions about reporting in The Wall Street Journal this summer that warned of health threats from legacy lead-sheathed telecom cable (see 2307210004) owned by AT&T and other carriers, CEO John Stankey said Wednesday at a Goldman Sachs financial conference. AT&T has done its own investigation and come up with different findings, Stankey said. Meanwhile, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said at the conference his company’s buy of Sprint was likely “the most successful merger in telecom history.”
Senate confirmation of Democratic FCC nominee Anna Gomez is likelier than not to stretch into next week, with the chamber on track to vote on invoking cloture on her Thursday, said Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and other officials in interviews. The Senate's Wednesday schedule didn't include a cloture vote on Gomez that some lobbyists previously thought possible (see 2309050084), though some suggested it could still happen that night.
Susan Patrick, co-owner of broadcast brokerage Patrick Communications and radio broadcaster Legend Communications, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of filing a false tax return and trying to conceal $9.5 million in earnings from the IRS in returns for the 2012, 2013 and 2014 tax years, said criminal filings (docket 1:23-cr-00254) Aug. 31 in U.S. District Court for Maryland in Baltimore and publicized in a DOJ release.
Industry groups clashed on whether the FCC should extend its current waiver of broadband data collection rules allowing filers to submit information by a non-licensed professional engineer (PE). Competitive Carriers Association and USTelecom sought an extension for an additional three filing cycles, citing workforce issues (see 2308070042). The current waiver is to expire after the next submission deadline Sept. 15. Comments were posted Tuesday in docket 19-195.
Antitrust agencies aren’t obligated to provide extensive guidelines to merging parties about what deals might violate the law, DOJ’s Antitrust Division Chief Economist Susan Athey said Tuesday. Athey agreed with comments from panelists who argued it’s not the job of DOJ or the FTC to help companies avoid antitrust laws. She moderated a panel during the first of three co-agency workshops on the draft merger guidelines (see 2309010067).
Proposals from GOP presidential hopefuls Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to abolish the Commerce Department face long odds of coming to fruition, but space experts told us the calls raise new questions about how that would affect commercial space operations and the operators that the entity currently regulates. Right-leaning groups want a new Republican administration to consider restructuring Commerce’s space regulatory operations. House Communications Subcommittee leaders, meanwhile, believe the chamber can resurrect the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act (HR-1338) to revamp the FCC’s satellite regulatory process.
The Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL) meeting last week endorsed the U.S. position for the upper 6 GHz band, approving “no change” to allow international mobile telecommunications (IMT) in the band at the upcoming World Radio Communication conference, industry officials said. But a few nations sided with China's position of China, which the U.S. opposes, to approve a future agenda item on the topic at the WRC in 2027.