Upcoming FCC items on revamping emergency alerting and outage reporting are expected to be approved unanimously at Thursday’s open meeting, while a direct final rule item on eliminating broadcast regulations is likely to draw a dissent from FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, industry and FCC officials told us.
The FCC’s draft NPRM on changing how the agency enforces the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) has led to only one ex parte meeting at the FCC (see 2507170048); however, that doesn’t mean the changes aren’t controversial, industry and agency officials said. They predicted approval when commissioners vote Thursday, but potentially with at least a partial dissent from Commissioner Anna Gomez.
Representatives of the 5G Automotive Association met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty on the group’s concerns about interference caused by out-of-band emissions (OOBE) from very-low-power and potential new geofenced variable-power devices in the 6 GHz band to cellular-vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) operations in the 5.9 GHz band.
Groups representing prisoners and their families on Thursday asked the FCC to rescind a Wireline Bureau order delaying some incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) deadlines until April 1, 2027. The prisoner advocates told us previously that they were weighing their options following the bureau order (see 2507030024).
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday night confirmed reports that he's urging President Donald Trump to pick Democratic nominees to the FCC and FTC in a bid to ease Democrats’ opposition to speeding up confirmations ahead of the August recess. Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and others told us they’re skeptical that the Trump administration will follow through, given that the president didn’t pick minority-party nominees to independent commissions during the first six months of his term and fired sitting members of the FTC and other bodies.
Clearing as much as 60 MHz in the upper C band could happen within 12 months of an FCC order initiating an upper C-band transition, Eutelsat told agency officials. The company recapped its meetings with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's office and with Commissioner Olivia Trusty in a docket 25-59 filing posted Tuesday. Eutelsat said it could get that 60 MHz free through compression and wouldn't need new satellite launches. It alternately could clear as much as 130 MHz within three years of an FCC order, it said, with two additional C-band satellites and all services compressed. Eutelsat urged the FCC to use the 2020 C-band transition framework as the foundation for any further reallocation of upper C-band spectrum. That would include a satellite-operator-led transition, structured financial incentives and reimbursement, it noted. Clearing meaningful additional C-band spectrum would require "significant" financial investment by Eutelsat, and financial incentives "should appropriately align with this effort," the company told the commission.
Representatives of the Utilities Technology Council told FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty "how utilities need access to additional spectrum to support the safe, reliable and secure delivery of essential electric, gas and water services to the public at large,” according to a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-99. The spectrum “needs to provide sufficient capacity to simultaneously support multiple utility voice and data applications, including high resolution video for security, as well as low latency applications such as advanced distribution automation, distributed energy resources management systems and protective relaying systems.” The group also met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
Representatives of the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association met with aides to FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty on the group’s concerns about NextNav’s proposal to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to allow a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services (see 2507170036). “NextNav wishes to subsidize a new PNT solution by converting more than 95% of its current … spectrum to a new, far-higher-power commercial wireless network -- reducing the total amount of spectrum available for tolling licensees from 14 megahertz to 11 megahertz and confining tolling operations to the duplex gap,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 25-110.
The FCC released on Friday the pole attachment item approved by commissioners 3-0 on Thursday (see 2507240048). The final item includes written statements by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty.
Lawmakers and others are accusing the FCC of being involved in corruption and seeking to chill free speech after the agency’s approval of Skydance's $8 billion purchase of Paramount Global and the commission's retention of an open news distortion proceeding against CBS.