The U.S. wants more vendors to step up to offer 5G wireless equipment, said Robert Strayer, State Department deputy assistant secretary-cyber and international communications and information policy, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference Wednesday. Much of the discussion focused on China and the risks of Huawei and other Chinese vendors.
The Trump administration didn’t meet a July 22 deadline for completing its long-term National Spectrum Strategy. An Oct. 28, 2018, memo by President Donald Trump set that date for the National Economic Council director and the assistant to the president for national security affairs to submit the strategy. Two government officials told us the White House missed the deadline, but the report is essentially finished and under internal review. It's still unclear how or when it will be publicly released, one official said.
Blockchain technology could potentially enhance data privacy using digital identities, digital currency company Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire told the Senate Banking Committee during a hearing Tuesday. But skeptical University of California-Irvine law professor Mehrsa Baradaran said policymakers should rely on the Federal Reserve to offer digital currency options, rather than allowing industry to become a dominant money-making authority.
The Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee will form a bipartisan, bicameral working group to aid the Copyright Office’s modernization effort and introduce related legislation before year-end, Chairman Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said Tuesday. Ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, are interested in joining, Tillis told us. House members will be invited.
Opposition poured in to an FCC proposal to cap the overall budget for the various USF programs and to combine the budget cap for two mechanisms to fund anchor institutions, in comments posted through Tuesday to docket 06-122. Stakeholders said such a plan would be difficult to implement and contradicts both the USF mission and the current FCC chairman's top priority to close the digital divide (see 1906030059).
An NPRM on the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), proposed by Chairman Ajit Pai for a vote Thursday, could face some questions by FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks. They're concerned because it’s a large program and the FCC has struggled to develop the right data for making more accurate assessments of which areas are unserved or underserved, industry and agency officials said Tuesday. The program would distribute up to $20.4 billion over 10 years.
The cable franchise authority draft order on Thursday's FCC agenda (see 1907110071) is likely to result in a 3-2 commissioner vote, reflecting the political split in Congress over the issue, FCC officials told us. The split was expected, as is litigation (see 1907160035).
Visiting the FCC eighth floor doesn’t have as much of a “dramatic impact” for the targets of enforcement proceedings as it can have in rulemakings, said Enforcement Bureau Chief Rosemary Harold in an FCBA brown-bag session Monday. Harold said she has regular meetings with commissioners and occasionally informs them of bureau proceedings to keep them from being surprised. Targets of enforcement actions only sometimes inform the Enforcement Bureau about eighth-floor visits, she said. “It doesn’t always happen,” Harold said.
The FTC's antitrust probe of Facebook is “a significant step,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told us last week. Ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., lauded the probe, questioning whether Facebook is willing to make changes. For months, lawmakers from both parties have asked whether Silicon Valley competition needs greater scrutiny. Concrete action came last week with DOJ announcing a broad review of the tech industry and the FTC confirming its Facebook investigation (see 1907250049).
With DOJ's justification for approving T-Mobile/Sprint largely hinging on Dish Network's ability to become a national wireless player (see 1907260071), wireless industry watchers tell us that whether Dish can pull that off is a big question mark. "Wireless is a very tough business to get right -- many companies have tried and failed," said wireless analyst Jeff Kagan.