Military training, precision agriculture and immigration enforcement are among possible uses for datacasting using public TV spectrum and ATSC 3.0, America’s Public Television Stations’ summit heard Tuesday. FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly endorsed public TV’s focus on datacasting, in a speech. “You may just be on to something here,” he said. “Please keep me posted.”
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act remains a vital tool for allowing innovation and startups to grow, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told reporters Tuesday, the day after another legislator threatened the tech industry’s liability shield with a legislative proposal (see 2002240051). “It’s just as important now as it was then, and the big guys are always ... looking to have more tools to dominate the little guys,” said Wyden, an author of Section 230. “Our constituency was always for the disruptor, the innovator, the person who is willing to take on the powerful and entrenched interests.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., urged the FCC to “resolve” consideration of Ligado's L-band license modifications. She urged all federal agencies to “come to the table” on reassessing their spectrum needs to help bolster the U.S. position in the race against other countries for dominance in 5G development. FCC proceedings on a C-band auction plan (see 2002250076) and TV white spaces NPRM (see 2002250068) also came up at Tuesday's American Consumer Institute event.
The FCC is expected to approve an NPRM Friday, pushed by Microsoft, which would allow white space devices to operate at higher power levels in less congested areas. There likely won't be major changes from Chairman Ajit Pai's proposals (see 2002060013), industry and FCC officials said in interviews. The biggest change is expected to be inclusion of a footnote, which says channels 36 and 37 issues needs to be addressed separately, they said.
With an FCC vote Friday, more filings posted Tuesday in docket 18-122 as parties made closing arguments for changes to C-band auction rules. Chairman Ajit Pai has been in India with President Donald Trump. Pai is on his way back to the U.S. as planned to deal with late changes, industry and FCC officials told us. The sunshine period barring further lobbying took effect Friday. A key Hill lawmaker on C-band issues said he's resigned to the FCC's approach but will continue to pursue legislation that would institute a competing plan.
The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA) told the FCC the sharing regime in the adjacent citizens broadband radio service band could be a model across the entire 3.1-3.55 GHz range. Other commenters said amateur radio operations should remain in the spectrum. Commissioners approved an NPRM 5-0 at their December meeting (see 1912120063) proposing to remove existing nonfederal secondary and amateur allocations in the 3.1-3.55 GHz band and to relocate incumbent nonfederal operations. Comments posted through Monday in docket 19-348.
PHILADELPHIA -- “You can bring the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” said U.S. District Court of Delaware Judge Eduardo Robreno at oral argument here Monday after a T-Mobile lawyer turned down a Wilmington offer for mediation in a wireless siting dispute. The company sought summary judgment that the city’s zoning board didn’t cite enough evidence to block a T-Mobile rooftop installation in 2016 and violated the FCC’s effective prohibition standard.
America’s Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler isn’t concerned about public TV being level funded in the next federal budget, but in an interview Monday conceded that APTS plans to ask for a funding increase might face difficulties. “I want to manage expectations,” he told the 2020 APTS Public Media Summit.
NAB members readied Monday for Capitol Hill meetings on the industry group’s 2020 legislative priorities, including their position on the FCC’s plans for auctioning spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band and restoring the minority tax certificate program. NAB CEO Gordon Smith and others lauded the group’s recent legislative victories, including Congress scaling back the distant-signal compulsory license during the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization last year (see 1912190068). Matthew Berry, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s chief of staff, continued to tease a potential commission appeal to the Supreme Court of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' Prometheus IV decision.
The potential anticompetitive impact of trademarking domain names created by adding a generic top-level domain (gTLD) such as .com to an otherwise generic terms like "booking" is at issue in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Patent and Trademark Office, backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, seeks a per se rule barring such domain names from being protected. Intellectual property scholars and lawyers and online companies disagree, although some also note anti-competition concerns. Case documents in PTO v. Booking.com (No. 19-46), which is set for argument March 23 (see 2001310027) are here.