Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue told Senate Commerce Committee members he backs efforts to add dedicated broadband funding to a final infrastructure bill, amid ongoing debate about whether Congress can agree on a funding mechanism. Committee members spent significant time during a Wednesday hearing with Perdue and other cabinet secretaries on President Donald Trump's infrastructure legislative proposal debating funding, as lawmakers have done repeatedly. Trump's plan, released last month, proposes $50 billion in federal funding for rural infrastructure projects allocated via state block grants that could be spent for broadband. Democrats strongly pushed for direct broadband funding (see 1802120001, 1802140052, 1802140064 and 1803010050).
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., plans to combine the Music Modernization Act (MMA) (HR-4706) from Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society (Classics) Act (HR-3301) and the Allocation for Music Producers (AMP) Act (HR-881) into one legislative package to be introduced Friday. That’s according to a senior House Republican aide and an industry official.
Sinclair’s plan to use a divestiture trust and spin off unspecified stations in buying Tribune isn’t that unusual, but the degree to which it relies on sidecar operations is more than expected, media brokers, deal opponents and broadcast attorneys told us. An amended divestiture plan submitted last week (see 1803070050) may indicate FCC officials also have or had reservations about Sinclair’s proposals, lawyers said. The plan was filed after a meeting called by the Media Bureau. Some sources saw it as Sinclair working with the agency to fine tune its plans, but others said the meeting could be seen as an indication the first divestiture plan wasn’t acceptable. Sinclair didn’t comment.
The new 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) is quietly working to build support among automakers for cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology, as an alternative to dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) in the 5.9 GHz band. Ford has been the leading auto company behind the C-V2X push, and others are interested, industry officials said. BMW Group and Daimler North America sent representatives to a January meeting at the FCC on behalf of the 5GAA. General Motors, in particular, remains a DSRC advocate.
Autonomous vehicles will make American roads safer and less congested, government officials, industry representatives and academics said Tuesday. Speaking at an event in Washington hosted by Arizona State University, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Assistant Policy Counsel-Chamber Technology Engagement Center Jordan Crenshaw said 94 percent of motor vehicle accidents are caused by human error. Maricopa Association of Governments Transportation Director Eric Anderson said crashes undercut the capacity of the Phoenix area’s transportation system. Anderson said he began “drinking the Kool-Aid” two years ago and is excited about the safety and infrastructure benefits of autonomous vehicles. Phoenix can reduce its need for roadway capacity expansion by planning for the technology, he said.
Broadcast attorneys would like the FCC’s monthly media deregulation effort to tackle kids' video rules, quarterly issues and program lists and ownership reports, an FCBA event was told Tuesday. Those issues would likely receive more pushback than the “low-hanging fruit” regulations targeted so far, they conceded. Increased flexibility for the filing requirements for such rules would be “helpful,” said Covington & Burling's Ann Bobeck.
ICANN gave European data protection authorities (DPAs) a proposed model for complying with the EU general data protection regulation, President Göran Marby said Monday. Unanswered questions remain, and ICANN needs "firm advice" from privacy chiefs and governments before moving ahead, he said at ICANN's meeting this week in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where NTIA Administrator David Redl also sought access to information in the group's database of website registrants. Stakeholders disagreed over making registrant email addresses public, the role of the Governmental Advisory Committee and how entities that will be able to access nonpublic registration data should be accredited. GAC members said Tuesday they're worried about lack of a required temporary system for dealing with access to nonpublic data before a formal accreditation system is implemented.
North American Portability Management and iconectiv pushed their plan for a contingency rollback to incumbent local number portability administrator Neustar if a cutover to iconectiv's new systems results in a catastrophic failure. The "core elements of the standing contingency rollback plan either have been tested or are simply service providers (or their service bureaus) submitting porting transactions to Neustar in the same manner as they would have done had a cutover never occurred," said a NAPM/iconectiv filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 09-109. They offered to discuss new testing with Neustar, which has objected to the plan, and urged the incumbent to participate in the contingency rollback.
A Tuesday Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on broadband provisions in President Donald Trump's infrastructure legislative proposal discussed how the plan would deal with streamlining broadband-related regulations and funding to encourage deployments. Senators reserved their strongest criticisms for the state of connectivity data collection and mapping. All three issues were among those expected to be covered (see 1803120054). Secretaries of Transportation Elaine Chao, Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Commerce Wilbur Ross are among those expected to testify at a Wednesday Senate Commerce Committee hearing that also could involve broadband provisions in Trump's plan.
Before C-band is opened for terrestrial use, other satellite operators currently not using the spectrum should have an opportunity to stake a claim for use for their own services, since it's allocated for satellite, ViaSat CEO Mark Dankberg said in an interview Tuesday at Satellite 2018. He said ViaSat and other satellite operators will make that case to the FCC. Intelsat and SES -- the major satcom users of C-band -- are pushing a plan for clearing and sharing parts of the band (see 1802090016).