CTIA promotes Umair Javed to senior vice president-general counsel, succeeding Tom Power, advising until end of year as senior counsel, and expands Vice President-Deputy General Counsel Kathryn Dall’Asta’s role as also chief-corporate affairs and compliance (see 2407240022) ... Fiber-optic company Luna appoints Kevin Ilcisin, co-founder-Juniper Strategies, as president-CEO, effective Aug. 1, succeeding interim CEO Richard Roedel, who also was interim executive chairman and is stepping down after 20 years with company ... Data security company Bedrock Security names co-founders Bruno Kurtic as president-CEO, Pranava Adduri as chief technology officer, and Ganesha Shanmuganathan as chief architect ... IT provider CompQsoft appoints Beth Barnes, ex-Alithya, as chief digital officer ... Emergency communication company AlertMedia appoints Jeff Dean, ex-Databricks, as vice president-global intelligence operations ... Harmonic, broadband and video delivery company, appoints Congruex’s Neel Dev to board ... Aviation broadband company Gogo appoints investor Monte Koch to board.
AT&T CEO John Stankey on Wednesday criticized the Biden administration’s work on making more spectrum available for wireless carriers. During the carrier's release of Q2 results, Stankey apologized for the February AT&T wireless outage, the topic of an FCC report this week (see 2407220034).
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 9-7 decision sided with Consumers' Research following an en banc rehearing of the group's challenge of the FCC's Universal Service Fund contribution methodology. Calling the contribution factor a "misbegotten tax," the court in a Wednesday ruling in docket 22-60008 held that as a "practical matter," the Universal Service Administrative Co. "sets the USF tax" that's "subject only to FCC's rubber stamp" (see 2406180055). In a statement, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the agency will "pursue all available avenues for review."
SmallSat Alliance hires Microsoft’s Angel Smith as executive director, succeeding Steve Nixon, co-founder who remains as strategic adviser ... Digital services firm Orion Innovation appoints Cyrus Lam, ex-CDI, as CFO ... Data recovery company Clumio adds Jillian Souza, ex-BigPanda, as chief people officer and Carol Hague, previously Salesloft, as vice president-marketing ... Family Entertainment Television appoints Christine Carbia, ex-E.W. Scripps, as vice president-national sales ... Technology distribution company Graybar promotes Jason Casey to vice president-distribution operations ... Brillio names Melissa Bethell, previously Bain Capital, to board ... Technology platform company Lightwave Logic appoints consultant Yves LeMaitre, ex-Luna Innovations, to board, effective Aug. 1.
Multiple states are examining ways of directing their public schools to limit students' mobile phone use. Verjeana McCotter-Jacobs, executive director-National School Boards Association (NSBA), told us the growing momentum behind cellphone limits means more and more states will be called upon to address it.
The global outage of Microsoft systems caused by a software update from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike grounded airplanes globally and affected some broadcasters and 911 systems but spared others, reports from multiple companies and state agencies said.
Stop Project 2025 Task Force founder Rep. Jared Huffman of California and 15 additional House Democrats asked FCC Inspector General Fara Damelin and other federal watchdogs Wednesday to investigate “potential ethics violations” by Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr related to his writing the telecom chapter of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto. Carr, seen as the front-runner to lead the FCC if former President Donald Trump wins a second term (see 2407120002), urged in the Project 2025 chapter to roll back Communications Decency Act Section 230 protections for tech companies, deregulate broadband infrastructure and restrict Chinese companies. Trump has disavowed Project 2025 and its proposals.
It seems likely FCC commissioners will approve 3-2 a draft order and Further NPRM allowing schools and libraries to use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. FCC Republicans are expected to issue dissents. Some advocates hope the item will be tweaked to address fixed wireless access and partnerships with nontraditional providers (see 2406270068). Commissioners will vote at their open meeting Thursday.
The FCC Precision Agriculture Task Force will meet in person Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. at FCC headquarters, a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register said (see 2401310010). Attendees will hear updates from working group leadership and discuss the task force's executive summary for its report to the FCC about facilitating broadband deployment on agricultural land.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A California rulemaking on modernizing carrier of last resort rules could inspire similar proceedings elsewhere, state and industry officials signaled at the NARUC conference Monday. The California Public Utilities Commission last month opened a rulemaking that took a fresh look at COLR rules after rejecting regulatory relief for AT&T (see 2406200065).