A Thursday Senate Commerce Committee hearing is likely to highlight stark differences between panel leaders’ competing proposals for a spectrum legislative package, including whether it should mandate sales of specific bands before NTIA completes studies of those frequencies in keeping with the Biden administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2403120006). Lawmakers’ apparent failure to reach a deal allocating additional money for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2403190062) as part of a FY 2024 still-unreleased “minibus” spending package also ratchets up the pressure for a spectrum bill to use future auction revenue to pay for multiple telecom priorities, officials and lobbyists told us.
Calling Internet Archive’s controlled digital lending (CDL) an “industrial infringement program,” four publishers said in a Friday appellee brief (docket 23-1260) in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Appeals Court that IA “obtains physical copies of millions of in-copyright books, scans them without authorization in offshore scanning centers, and distributes the resulting ebooks online, where they can be read in full by anyone in the world without any payment to the copyright owner.”
Direct-to-device (D2D) services enjoy strong demand worldwide, but putting a dollar figure on that potential market is challenging, speakers said Monday at Access Intelligence's Satellite 2024 conference in Washington. Multiple launch providers discussed new rockets coming online. Satellite operators touted the role of satellites closing the digital divide worldwide.
The Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCERT) opposed a wave of filings by public safety groups urging that the FCC consider giving FirstNet control of the 4.9 GHz band (see 2402150058), as promoted by the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (see 2401190067). “Many of these filings are form letters that were, presumably, encouraged by the PSSA, FirstNet, AT&T, and their supporters,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 07-100. FirstNet’s network is “fully owned by AT&T and integrated into its commercial network,” iCERT said. “AT&T’s contract with FirstNet requires it to provide priority access to the spectrum for public safety users but allows AT&T to use the band to serve commercial users as well.” Turning over the band to FirstNet would also be anticompetitive, iCERT contended: “AT&T competes with a variety of national, regional, and local wireless providers to serve both public safety and commercial users. A grant of the PSSA proposal is, effectively, a grant of free spectrum to AT&T.”
FCC commissioners voted 3-2 Thursday, over dissents by Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, to approve the agency's Telecom Act Section 706 report to Congress. The report concluded that broadband isn't deployed in a "reasonable and timely fashion," with about 24 million Americans lacking access to speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps. The two Republicans also dissented at the commissioners' open meeting on a proposed requirement that cable and satellite TV multichannel programming distributors display prominently the aggregate cost of video programming in ads and customer bills.
SpaceX already dominates the U.S. commercial space launch market and many commercial space industry experts expect that trend will continue for the next few years. Its under-development Starship rocket -- able to carry upward of 100 tons of cargo per launch and potentially put satellites in orbit for a fraction of the cost on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket -- could further cement that dominance, launch experts told us.
President Joe Biden extended for one year beyond March 15 a national emergency that authorizes certain sanctions related to Iran. The White House said Iran continues to participate in the "proliferation and development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities," support terrorist groups and otherwise threaten U.S. national security.
The House will vote Wednesday on legislation that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless Chinese parent company ByteDance divests the popular social media app, an aide for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., confirmed Tuesday.
Adam Deutsch, former director for international economics at the National Security Council, recently joined Meta as its sanctions strategy and emerging risks lead, he announced on LinkedIn last week. Deutsch left the National Security Council in 2022 and was most recently a sanctions advisory manager at PayPal.
An FCC draft NPRM proposing an emergency alert system code for missing adults is headed for unanimous approval with few changes at the commissioners' open meeting Thursday, agency and industry officials said (see 2402210066). The proposed Missing and Endangered Persons code (MEP) alert would be used for missing people older than 17 with special needs and circumstances or who are endangered, abducted or kidnapped. It is intended to fill a gap between Amber Alerts used for missing children and seniors' Silver Alerts. MEP would respond to the rising problem of missing and murdered indigenous people, said the draft NPRM. The item has drawn little ex parte activity since last month's circulation.