Walmart believes all stakeholders “should engage further to address good faith concerns” about curbing the trafficking of pirate and counterfeit goods through online third-party marketplaces, it said in July 29 comments posted Tuesday in docket DOC-2019-0003. President Donald Trump’s April 3 memorandum directed the Commerce Department to collaborate with other federal agencies on a report due Oct. 30 with recommendations on how to reduce the bad behavior (see 1907300001).
Three Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls -- Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts -- separately called Wednesday for major investments in broadband deployments as part of their release of competing rural-focused policy platforms in Medium blog posts. That's one of the first major forays into telecom policy for any of the Democratic candidates during this campaign cycle. Much of the tech-focused debate thus far focused on the antitrust implications of the growth of major tech companies, including Warren's proposal to break up big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon (see 1904170046 and 1906270010).
Broadcaster disputes with AT&T and Dish will likely wrap up by September, political advertising will be bigger than ever before in 2020, and chipmaker partner Saankhya made its first sale of ATSC 3.0 chips, said Sinclair Broadcast executives on the company’s Q2 earnings call Wednesday. Sinclair’s total revenue for Q2 was $771 million, versus $730 million the prior year, it said in a news release.
The FCC will create grounds for a legal challenge based on the Administrative Procedure Act if Chairman Ajit Pai circulates an order approving the T-Mobile/Sprint/Dish Network deal without seeking additional comment, Rural Wireless Association Counsel Carri Bennet told us. RWA and NTCA formally asked the FCC to seek comment on T-Mobile's DOJ-supported buy of Sprint and the sale of assets to Dish (see 1908050061). FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks also sought another pleading cycle (see 1907260071). Bennet said the transaction itself isn’t subject to the APA, but the Dish license transfers and extensions that are part of the larger deal are. The companies and the FCC declined to comment.
The 2019 nationwide emergency alert system test appeared to go relatively smoothly Wednesday, said emergency alerting officials gauging early results.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the lead at the agency on changes to wireless infrastructure rules, thinks more work on the issue is likely, though Carr told us he has made no decisions. Last year, the FCC approved streamlining orders in September (see 1809260029) and March (see 1803220027). “I do think there’s additional work that the FCC can do,” Carr said: “I haven’t made any final decision at this point in terms of timing or substance.”
Even at only 10 percent, the List 4 Section 301 tariffs due to take effect Sept. 1 on up to $300 billion worth of Chinese imports (see 1908010059) “would have a much larger impact on the U.S. tech sector” than the previous three rounds of 25 percent duties, said an S&P Global Ratings report Monday. The List 4 tariffs would “significantly raise costs for manufacturers and prices for consumers,” much more than current tariffs, it said.
AT&T hasn’t stated a position on T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint, but the company is pushing forward on 5G and ready to pick up customers who will inevitably leave the combined company, said Chief Financial Officer John Stephens at an Oppenheimer conference Tuesday. Stephens said there are many unknowns, including whether the states will prevail in their lawsuit to block the deal (see 1907260071). In 2011, AT&T tried but dropped plans to buy T-Mobile.
A proposed $233,000 forfeiture against Cumulus and some subsidiaries wouldn’t adequately punish the company for violating a 2016 consent decree by allegedly breaking FCC sponsorship ID rules, said FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks -- formerly of the agency’s Enforcement Bureau -- in a dissent on a notice of apparent liability issued Tuesday. The NAL lists $25,000 of that forfeiture specifically as the penalty for violating the consent decree, and that’s not enough, Starks said in a dissenting statement. The proposed forfeiture “does not follow well-established Commission precedent and is not, in my mind, commensurate with the misconduct and violations at issue.” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel concurred on the NAL.
Providers of video relay services for the deaf and hearing impaired want the FCC to quickly grant VRS users immediate access to new equipment during a two-week grace period while their eligibility is being verified, as proposed in a Further NPRM released in mid-May. The agency took comments on the matter through Tuesday in docket 10-51. "Granting users access to VRS during the verification period will further the goals of providing functionally equivalent service to deaf and hard of hearing consumers, more akin to how hearing individuals are able to use their new phones nearly immediately," said Convo Communications.