Telecom and tech continued responding Friday to COVID-19 with actions including moving to telework and canceling or postponing events, or moving them virtual.
States are scrambling to enact price gouging laws in response to online sellers taking advantage of COVID-19 demands. Maryland passed an emergency measure Wednesday, and plans are evolving in Minnesota. Arkansas passed an emergency measure earlier this month.
NAB won’t try resurrecting its COVID-19-canceled Las Vegas show in 2020 but will stage a virtual event called “NAB Show Express,” said CEO Gordon Smith Friday. Nine days earlier, NAB Show organizers said they were "weighing the best potential path forward," including possibly rescheduling the April 18-22 event later in the year (see 2003110036).
Passing 5G and other state telecom bills may be less likely as lawmakers respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, local and industry officials told us last week. One seeming casualty is an industry-backed section in the New York budget to streamline small-cells deployment by pre-empting local governments. Alabama’s small-cells bill is close to the finish line and may pass this spring, said Alabama League of Municipalities Deputy Director Greg Cochran.
Talks on a third economic stimulus bill addressing the effects of COVID-19 appeared likely to drag on into the weekend, with telecom-related provisions likely still in the negotiations mix. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday he considers “inadequate” the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (S-3548) from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Schumer and other Democrats were pushing strongly for the third COVID-19 bill to address pandemic-related infrastructure, including broadband capacity and distance learning resources (see 2003180066), lobbyists told us.
The massive shift of workers and students to their homes due to COVID-19 is gobbling up data transmission availability and challenging employers with their networks optimized for an in-office workforce, network and data experts said in interviews last week. Employers are rapidly ramping up the number of VPN licenses. The issue isn’t expected to reach the point where carriers have to plow additional investments into their networks.
The COVID-19 pandemic comes as Ajit Pai enters what is likely to be the homestretch of his time as FCC chairman. Pai has sketched out an ambitious agenda for the rest of 2020, but no one knows how long the pandemic will last. Industry officials agree it will likely slow work on at least some items due to refocusing on coronavirus-related orders. The crisis offers Pai a chance to write a new legacy, they said.
Telecom and tech continued responding to COVID-19. Actions included moving to telework and the cancellation or postponement of events, or moving them virtual.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr isn't backing down from comments on Twitter earlier in the week criticizing China for spreading false reports that the U.S. is responsible for COVID-19, he told a Broadband Breakfast teleconference Thursday. Carr said more FCC actions on the pandemic are on the way. “We’re going to be in for a tough time,” he warned. So far, networks seem to be holding up, he said.
ATSC is “hatching a plan” to give members a “soapbox for the momentum that’s building into April” for the U.S. deployment of 3.0 products and services in 2020, President Madeleine Noland told us Thursday. “We’re in conversations with other organizations that might want to partner with us on that.”