Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Wednesday announced leaders of the AI Safety Institute. The National Institute for Standards and Technology established the AISI as directed by President Joe Biden in his AI executive order. Elizabeth Kelly, White House National Economic Council special assistant to the president for economic policy, will serve as AISI's director. Chief technology officer is Elham Tabassi, a senior research scientist at NIST. They “will provide the direction and expertise we need to mitigate the risks that come with the development of this generation-defining technology, so that we can harness its potential,” Raimondo said. Raimondo is scheduled to announce members of AISI’s AI Safety Institute Consortium on Thursday. Composed of AI creators, AI users, academics, researchers and civil society organizations, AISIC will support “development and deployment of safe and trustworthy artificial intelligence,” the department said.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen and others from the company met with all FCC commissioners, except Anna Gomez, for discussions focused mostly on spectrum, said a filing posted Wednesday in 20-443 and other dockets. The executives urged that the commission “unleash 500 MHz of spectrum in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band for fixed 5G broadband services,” Dish said: “Substantial evidence in the record shows that fixed 5G services can provide broadband to tens of millions of Americans, while fully protecting existing non-geostationary orbit Fixed-Satellite Service and Direct Broadcast Satellite customers.” In addition, the executives discussed the need for a modernized spectrum screen, a proposed 5G Fund and “the benefits of proposals to maximize the efficiency” of the citizens broadband radio service, among other issues.

The telecom industry pushed back on a Vermont state bill that could shake up state USF contribution and telecom taxation. At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing streamed Wednesday, a wireless industry lobbyist said a proposed shift to connections-based USF contribution mechanism unfairly shifted costs to wireless customers. A New England Connectivity and Telecommunications Association (NECTA) lobbyist, representing the region’s cable industry, condemned a possible $15 annual tax on each pole attachment owned by private communications providers. Community media representatives supported the proposed tax for supporting public, educational and governmental (PEG) channels.

Don't expect supplemental coverage from space to ever provide terrestrial broadband-like service -- there's not a strong business case, multiple operators said Wednesday at the SmallSat Symposium in Silicon Valley. Several questioned the economics of a robust SCS service with a thick data pipeline.

Crowell & Moring names Pillsbury’s Rafi Azim-Khan to lead its digital law practice-Europe ... Nexstar Media Group board adopts new policy that bars the same individual from serving as board chair and CEO, effective only after Chairman-CEO Perry Sook, Nexstar’s founder and currently its third-largest shareholder, leaves Nexstar and the board; Sook’s current employment agreement runs through March 2026 ... Lumen Technologies names Dave Ward, ex-PacketFabric, as chief technology officer … RS Technologies, manufacturer of composite utility poles, taps board member John Higgins, also former MasTec, as CEO, replacing departed George Kirby ... YL Ventures, cybersecurity venture capital firm, adds longtime YL adviser Justin Somaini, former chief information security officer at Unity, SAP, Yahoo and Symantec, as a full-time partner.

NAB radio board adds Jeanna Berge, president of iHeart Media in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Rochester, Minnesota, filling seat vacated by iHeart Media’s Joel McCrea ... Public Service Commission of Wisconsin announces Commissioner Summer Strand as chairperson … Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) names LionHeart Cybersecurity Advisors founder John Godfrey as state’s chief information security officer ... S&P Global promotes Christopher Craig to interim chief financial officer, effective Feb. 12, replacing current CFO Ewout Steenbergen, departing in March ... Velos IoT hires Semtech’s Colin Chew, also ex-Sierra Wireless, as CEO, succeeding Graeme Millar ...DXC Technology moves board member-interim CEO Raul Fernandez, vice chairman-co-owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, to permanent CEO spot ... SBA Communications announces retirement of Jason Silberstein as executive vice president-site leasing, promoting Senior Vice President-Services Donald Day to succeed him and Vice President-Site Development Services Nichole Thomas to replace Day, all effective Aug. 1.

A state bill forcing privatization of a municipal broadband network in Frankfort, Kentucky, could debut shortly, Frankfort Plant Board (FPB) officials said in interviews. FPB is fighting the legislation, which is expected to be written by state Sen. Gex Williams (R). The bill, if and when it's introduced, would be part of a trend of industry attacks on muni broadband, said Gigi Sohn, American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) executive director. Some argue private investment is superior to public broadband, while others believe certain conditions prevent making a true comparison between municipal and private networks. Still others think a municipal network is appropriate only in areas where private companies opt out.

The lower 3 GHz band, a top target for wireless carriers for reallocation for full-power licensed use, remains critical to DOD as well, DOD Chief Information Officer John Sherman said Thursday at NTIA's spectrum policy symposium. The band is one of five targeted for study in the national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048).

FCC action against Fox station WTXF Philadelphia's license would create a “perilous regulatory environment” and expose broadcasters to constant threats against their licenses, Fox said in a letter to the FCC Tuesday. The letter responded to recent filings from former Fox and Disney executive Preston Padden seeking to add to the FCC record filings from an ongoing defamation case against Fox by the Smartmatic voting machine company (see 2401250072). Padden is part of the Media and Democracy Project effort against WTXF’s license renewal. The Smartmatic case and a settlement Fox reached with Dominion voting machine company don’t involve allegations of conduct that violates the FCC’s character policy and neither case includes a final adjudication against Fox, the Fox letter said. The FCC “can and should deny MAD’s petition on the basis that no claim has been pled that is recognized by the Commission’s own precedent or the Communications Act.” A broadcast license renewal proceeding “is not a venue for adjudicating cable network content,” said Fox. The FCC character policy includes provisions where the agency can consider a licensee's egregious misconduct outside the broadcasting context, Padden wrote in an email. Fox countered that if broadcast licenses can be threatened “based solely on unadjudicated allegations made by a third party in an unrelated civil proceeding,” the FCC process could easily be abused “in attempts to silence disfavored speakers across the political spectrum.” Fox added: “Fortunately, MAD’s law is not the law of the Commission or Congress.” In additional comments filed Wednesday, Padden said: "Leaving aside the indisputable fact that Fox News Channel reports and stories ARE broadcast by the Fox Owned Television Stations including WTXF, I respectfully submit that the Murdochs and Fox are simply flat wrong in arguing that their actions in businesses other than the television stations are not relevant to evaluation of their Character for broadcast licensing purposes."

Challenges are rolling into some states charged with distributing billions from NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, officials said during a Broadband Breakfast webinar Wednesday. Several officials said their states will be ready to start processes to dispute unserved or underserved locations as soon as NTIA approves volume one of their BEAD proposals. "A successful challenge process underpins the credibility of any state's entire BEAD program,” Kansas Office of Broadband Development Director Jade Piros de Carvalho said.