The FCC provided details on its proposal to reshape the rules for the 4.9 GHz band, adopted 3-2 last year, in a draft report and Further NPRM posted Thursday and set for a commissioner vote Sept. 30 (see 2109080081). The item examines sharing the spectrum, while giving public safety priority access similar to FirstNet.
FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel called text telephone (TTY) “outdated” technology for the deaf and hearing impaired and said the agency will push the use of real-time text (RTT) on wireline networks. Rosenworcel, like past chairs, pledged to make disability issues a top focus. “The FCC is committed to meaningful stakeholder engagement, to ensure modern communications, accessibility gaps are both identified and addressed,” she told the Disability Advisory Committee Thursday. The virtual meeting was the first since February (see 1909240058).
The House Commerce Committee seeks $4 billion more for the FCC Emergency Connectivity Fund as part of its portion of the Build Back Better Act budget reconciliation package, the panel said in a summary we obtained Thursday. Commerce intended to have released the full bill text Thursday night, lobbyists told us. The House Science and Education committees were in the process early Thursday evening of marking up their parts of the reconciliation measure, which touch on other tech and telecom matters.
President Joe Biden extended for one year a national emergency that authorizes sanctions against “foreign powers” that try to influence or undermine U.S. elections, the White House said Sept. 7. Although Biden said there is “no evidence” of a foreign power successfully changing the vote tabulations or outcome of a U.S. election, the potential through a history of such attempts and increasingly sophisticated communications technology “continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy” of the U.S. The emergency will be extended through Sept. 12, 2022.
FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the several items that she and her colleagues tentatively will vote on Sept. 30. They include public-safety spectrum and 911 issues, plus paving the way for more robust Wi-Fi and cracking down further on some robocalls, she blogged Wednesday afternoon. The drafts will be released Thursday, a spokesperson told us. Our earlier news bulletin is here.
FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced what she and her colleagues will vote on Sept. 30. They include public-safety spectrum and 911 issues, plus paving the way for more robust Wi-Fi and cracking down further on some robocalls, she blogged Wednesday afternoon. The drafts will be released Thursday, a spokesperson told us.
Two years after comments on the 2018 media ownership quadrennial review, positions haven't changed, agreed station groups, MVPD associations, and diversity and trade organizations. They refreshed the record in FCC docket 18-349 by largely restating previous arguments.
The Commerce Department’s delay in issuing emerging and foundational technology controls may not be hampering U.S. foreign investment reviews as much as some lawmakers have suggested, trade lawyers said. Although the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. doesn’t yet have a clear set of Commerce-defined critical technologies to target, that has not slowed down CFIUS from catching non-notified deals in critical technology sectors, the lawyers said in interviews, especially those involving semiconductors (see 2109010051).
Senate Commerce Committee Democrats are considering proposing $45 billion of the $83.1 billion the chamber allocated to the panel for its portion of the coming budget reconciliation package (see 2108100062) be used for next-generation 911 and broadband. House Commerce Committee leaders, meanwhile, are gearing up for a planned Sept. 13 markup of the panel’s reconciliation priorities. That measure is likely to draw from broadband and NG-911 language in the Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s (Lift) America Act (HR-1848), lobbyists told us.
Smart home company Brilliant is stepping up efforts in the multi-dwelling unit (MDU) space, CEO Aaron Emigh told us Tuesday, from the National Apartment Association’s 2021 Apartmentalize conference in Chicago. The company had the first public unveiling of the Brilliant Command Center, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for managing smart technology at scale in MDUs.