Universal Service Administrative Co. sees “good momentum” on the Lifeline national verifier after a rocky start that state regulators criticized last year, USAC Vice President-Lifeline Michelle Garber told NARUC. Garber told Telecom Committee members about progress connecting state databases and refining enrollment and reverification processes.
The goal is to produce a draft bill this year to update the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, said Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Tuesday. “I have low expectations we can get it done in this Congress. But I think we can get a generally accepted baseline and continue to work with the House to move it on a bicameral basis,” he told us before Tuesday’s hearing on DMCA. “It hasn’t been touched since Chumbawamba was topping the charts” in 1998.
Communities unserved by broadband often overlap with those at risk of losing their jobs to displacement by new technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence, panelists told FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks at an event he hosted. Earlier Tuesday, AT&T showcased how U.S. industries will adopt 5G and IoT technologies to increase productivity.
A set of FTC Act Section 6(b) orders to Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft aren't a warning to big tech, though the agency could start a criminal investigation if it finds something problematic in its analysis of their mergers and acquisitions, Chairman Joe Simons said Tuesday. He said the agency will look at "hundreds" of unreported transactions by the companies in 2010-2019 as it tries to decide if deals that fall outside Hart-Scott-Rodino Act reporting requirements nonetheless affect competition, and if those HSR thresholds should change. The FTC announced the 6(b) orders Tuesday (see 2002110020).
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., believes there’s a rapidly decreasing likelihood lawmakers will reach a deal on legislation allocating the proceeds of a coming FCC auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band before or after the commission's planned Feb. 28 vote on Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal (see 2002060057). House Commerce Committee leaders don’t share Wicker’s pessimism. The House-side lawmakers plan further talks this week on a coming bill, which has become their main telecom policy priority (see 2002070044).
State plaintiffs’ arguments T-Mobile would “pursue anticompetitive behavior” after buying Sprint weren't “sufficiently compelling" to block the transaction, wrote U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero for the Southern District of New York. Monday's 173-page decision (in Pacer) was released Tuesday (see 2002100061). He attached no new conditions.
Canalys, which had forecast a 7 percent decline in smartphone shipments from Q4 to Q1 -- and an 8 percent drop in PC shipments -- “dramatically revised” projections to a 40-50 percent drop for smartphones and a 20 percent falloff for PCs based on currently available information on coronavirus impact.
With impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump completed, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker hopes to move bipartisan bills on broadband mapping, net neutrality and Huawei, the Mississippi Republican said in a Monday keynote speech at the NARUC Winter Policy Summit. NARUC President Brandon Presley announced members of a freshly minted broadband task force (see 1911270024).
The House Judiciary Committee will “certainly” address encryption issues, Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., told us last week. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans and Democrats recently suggested Congress could be forced to alter encryption standards if the tech industry doesn’t act (see 1912100039). Asked if House counterparts will address the debate between Apple and DOJ, which continues to push for encryption back doors on smartphone devices, Nadler said, “Maybe. We’re certainly going to be looking at the question of encryption generally.”
PASADENA, Calif. -- A federal judge appeared skeptical Monday of an FCC safe harbor threshold that lets communities charge wireless carriers up to only $270 yearly for each small-cell facility. Municipalities and others are challenging FCC wireless infrastructure orders in a consolidated case at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges’ decision about whether the commission legally pre-empted local authority in the right of way could have broader impact for local authority in telecom (see 2002060056).