House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., sounded a little less optimistic about the Democrat working group reaching a conclusion on the new NAFTA than he has recently, even as he told reporters “we made some advances today" in a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Oct 30. "The differences continue to narrow." He also said both sides are exhausted.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., saw positive signs for moving forward on legislation to mandate an FCC-led public auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band after all subcommittee Democrats and several Republicans showed a clear preference for such a plan during a Tuesday hearing. The panel also was a forum for castigating the C-Band Alliance's proposal for a private auction of the bandwidth, as expected (see 1910280040). All sides continued to meet with the FCC. Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to propose a private auction plan for a vote at commissioners' Dec. 12 meeting (see 1910100052).

Best Buy customers "want and deserve convenient, fast options to receive our great products, and they want it on their terms,” Chief Supply Chain Officer Rob Bass told last month's Best Buy Investor Update conference (see 1909250043). But speed and convenience weren't the watchwords of our experience Saturday when we tried to get Best Buy to sell us Lenovo’s newly released $1,799 Yoga C940 2-in-1 Ultra HD laptop with Dolby Atmos surround audio and Dolby Vision HDR video. We finally landed a Yoga C940 via in-store pickup at Best Buy’s Union Square location in Manhattan, but not before trekking 30 miles over six hours by car and subway visiting three metro New York Best Buy stores to buy the product, twice leaving the stores empty-handed. Best Buy’s Westbury, Long Island, and Rego Park, Queens, locations each listed two units of the Yoga C940 in stock online and in the stores' inventory system when we arrived, but Blue Shirts and store managers in both locations couldn’t find the merchandise after many minutes searching haphazardly through bins, shelves and nooks. All staffers were apologetic, but were themselves befuddled why they were unable to find our unit when Best Buy’s real-time inventory system still showed two in stock. A manager in Rego Park even attempted to no avail to search the system to see if he could learn where one of the units in inventory had last been spotted. A Rego Park Blue Shirt took our payment for an in-store pickup at Union Square, advising us to go there because the system showed four units in stock there, versus only two at the Chelsea, Manhattan, location. When we arrived in Union Square about 90 minutes later, the pickup wasn’t ready. It took another 15-minute wait to leave the store with our purchase, but only after an astute attendant at the pickup counter intervened to prevent an order picker from giving us an “open box” sample of the Yoga C940 when we had paid full price for a factory-fresh unit. Best Buy's goal "is to make sure our customers have a great experience every time they enter our stores and we apologize it didn’t happen in this case," emailed spokesperson Jeff Shelman Monday. "We have made strides toward improving our customer service, but this experience clearly didn’t meet the expectations we set for ourselves.”

Commerce Department Huawei export restrictions forced semiconductor maker Xilinx to remove all remaining Huawei-related “revenue expectations” from its financial outlook for fiscal 2020 ending in March, CEO Victor Peng said on a fiscal Q2 call Oct. 23. “Considering the continued trade restrictions with Huawei and the uncertainty presented to our business, we believe it is prudent” to “de-risk” the Chinese company from the forecast, Peng said.

Commerce Department export restrictions forced chipmaker Xilinx to remove all remaining Huawei-related “revenue expectations” from its outlook for fiscal 2020 ending in March, said CEO Victor Peng on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. He cited "trade restrictions with Huawei and the uncertainty presented to our business." He hopes "agreement between the U.S. and Chinese governments is reached as soon as possible, so we can resume engaging in a manner consistent with an important customer.” Xilinx got about $50 million revenue from Huawei in the first half ended Sept. 28, the “vast majority in Q1 before the restrictions, he said. Q2 sales in the Xilinx Wired and Wireless Group in which the Huawei business resides were down 8 percent sequentially, said Peng. Xilinx gets about 8 percent of its total revenue from Huawei in a normal year, he said. Though Xilinx “expedited” license applications, it hasn’t landed approvals, he said. Commerce got 200-plus Huawei-related license requests since the Chinese company was added to the agency’s entity list (see 1910230029). Huawei and Commerce didn't comment Thursday. Xilinx determined in Q2 there were some “older products that we could legally continue to ship” to Huawei, said Peng. It turned out that revenue from those products was “essentially negligible,” he said. “After one quarter of seeing that and not seeing any additional license approvals, we have decided that it's just prudent to take all the risk out.”

Commerce Department export restrictions forced chipmaker Xilinx to remove all remaining Huawei-related “revenue expectations” from its outlook for fiscal 2020 ending in March, said CEO Victor Peng on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. He cited "trade restrictions with Huawei and the uncertainty presented to our business." He hopes "agreement between the U.S. and Chinese governments is reached as soon as possible, so we can resume engaging in a manner consistent with an important customer.” Xilinx got about $50 million revenue from Huawei in the first half ended Sept. 28, the “vast majority in Q1 before the restrictions, he said. Q2 sales in the Xilinx Wired and Wireless Group in which the Huawei business resides were down 8 percent sequentially, said Peng. Xilinx gets about 8 percent of its total revenue from Huawei in a normal year, he said. Though Xilinx “expedited” license applications, it hasn’t landed approvals, he said. Commerce got 200-plus Huawei-related license requests since the Chinese company was added to the agency’s entity list (see 1910230029). Huawei and Commerce didn't comment Thursday. Xilinx determined in Q2 there were some “older products that we could legally continue to ship” to Huawei, said Peng. It turned out that revenue from those products was “essentially negligible,” he said. “After one quarter of seeing that and not seeing any additional license approvals, we have decided that it's just prudent to take all the risk out.”

Commerce Department Huawei export restrictions forced semiconductor maker Xilinx to remove all remaining Huawei-related “revenue expectations” from its financial outlook for fiscal 2020 ending in March, said CEO Victor Peng on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday evening. “Considering the continued trade restrictions with Huawei and the uncertainty presented to our business, we believe it is prudent” to “de-risk” the Chinese company from the forecast, said Peng.

Reading Cable Act Section 621, which lets cable operators use easements when constructing networks, in a constrained, technical sense flouts the language and stated purpose of the act and runs contrary to the its legislative history and FCC interpretation. That according to NCTA in a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals amicus brief (in Pacer, docket 19-2442) Tuesday backing defendant-appellee Charter Communications in an appeal by Stephen West, who sued over the addition of fiber cable to a utilities transmission tower on his Indiana land. West, appealing a lower court dismissal, said (in Pacer) reference in 621 to a dedicated easement is to be understood as indicating transfer of a specific property right, and franchises like Charter can't access a private utility easement without the property owner formally deeding the right to use the easement for utilities to the public.

A notice of inquiry for the FCC's annual broadband deployment report was adopted 3-2 Oct. 4 and posted Wednesday afternoon. Comments are due Nov. 22, replies Dec. 9, in docket 19-285. The NOI circulated in July (see 1908090012) and concerns were raised about incorrect data. Now, Democratic commissioners' concerns focused on lack of better data collection methods. The FCC proposed to maintain 25/3 Mbps as the metric for fixed broadband and will take comment on whether another approach is justified.

A notice of inquiry for the FCC's annual broadband deployment report was adopted 3-2 Oct. 4 and posted Wednesday afternoon. Comments are due Nov. 22, replies Dec. 9, in docket 19-285. The NOI circulated in July (see 1908090012) and concerns were raised about incorrect data. Now, Democratic commissioners' concerns focused on lack of better data collection methods. The FCC proposed to maintain 25/3 Mbps as the metric for fixed broadband and will take comment on whether another approach is justified.