"Confronting a rising China" is the "foreign-policy challenge of our time," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told the U.S. Institute for Peace Monday. The government of Chinese President Xi Jinping is “making a play for dominance” globally in 5G, artificial intelligence, robotics and biotech, and the Trump administration's China policy is too "shortsighted" to stop it, said the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking member.
The biggest industry question mark going into the Tuesday to Thursday 2019 Radio Show in Dallas is the future of the AM/FM subcaps, said broadcasters, media brokers and broadcast attorneys in interviews. An NAB spokesperson said the trade group doesn’t announce show attendance, but it’s generally 1,500-2000.
Rural broadband providers want the FCC to update or clarify eligibility requirements for applicants in its upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auctions to award up to $20 billion in USF dollars to companies that can deliver high-speed broadband to unserved and underserved parts of rural America (see 1908010060). In comments posted through Monday on docket 19-126, industry groups differed on whether and how to expand the pool of applicants that could receive the federal funding to deliver high-speed internet service to remote communities.
TAMPA -- Municipal relations with carriers are generally better than with the FCC, some local representatives told us Monday. A lawyer for localities and a consultant to them criticized the FCC for tensions. A cable and telecom official from a Washington suburb and a NATOA board member who's a utility-company lawyer said they're getting along OK with wireless-service providers.
A fight's brewing in California over whether a state commission can study broadband affordability. Consumer advocates urged the California Public Utilities Commission last week to keep broadband part of a proposed framework for reviewing affordability of essential services. AT&T, cable and small telecom carriers disagreed, saying federal law stops the state commission from scrutinizing broadband.
A proposed public notice on the 3.5 GHz auction could see questions at the commissioners’ meeting Thursday. Several parties have been at the FCC asking for changes and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks are still reviewing their votes and have questions about how the auction will work in practice, industry and FCC officials said. The most controversial aspect is that the notice would allow bidding in some cases on relatively large cellular market area (CMA) licenses.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., oppose “telecommunications policy provisions” the Senate Appropriations Committee included in its report on the chamber's version of the FY 2020 FCC-FTC budget bill, including language to shape FCC spectrum policy. Senate Appropriations voted unanimously last week to advance the FCC-FTC bill with report language to pressure the FCC to hold a public auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band (see 1909190079). Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt, R-Mo., meanwhile, is sticking by his decision to maintain CPB's annual funding at $445 million in its draft FY 2020 bill (see 1909180058).
The FCC’s fourth court loss on quadrennial updates to media ownership rules (see 1906130052) rolls those updates back and could have consequences for pending and just-completed deals such as Nexstar/Tribune and Apollo/Cox and for future radio deregulation, said broadcast attorneys on both sides of the issue in interviews Monday.
Re-establishing the Office of Technology Assessment seems to have significant lawmaker support, though there are questions of under what agency it should be housed and the proper funding level, said House Commerce member Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., Friday at the Telecommunications Policy Research Institute. He said there's a need for nonpartisan expertise on issues and OTA's disbanding in the 1990s was "a tragedy."
A 2018 anti-sex-trafficking law violates the First Amendment, so a lawsuit against the statute (see 1806290044) should proceed, advocates argued Friday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. DOJ countered that plaintiffs don’t have a reasonable fear of prosecution because the speech doesn’t promote illegal sex activity.