The California Public Utilities Commission again delayed votes on an AT&T enforcement item and another proposal to make a foster youth program permanent. Both were scheduled for Thursday’s meeting, but staff postponed them until the April 18 meeting, said a CPUC hold list Tuesday. CPUC President Alice Reynolds previously asked to address the AT&T item at a Feb. 15 meeting (see 2402150067). It would deny the carrier’s corrective action plan explaining how it will correct failures and improve service after failing to meet the state’s out-of-service repair interval standard in 2021. In addition, the CPUC originally planned a Feb. 15 vote on the foster youth proposal but twice postponed it. Earlier this month, the agency received a dire warning from the foster youth pilot program’s administrator, iFoster (see 2403110042), which said the current draft would create a program “destined to fail.”
321 de minimis
De minimis is a policy described in Section 321, 19 USC 1321. It allows the import of articles duty and tax free, provided their aggregate fair retail value does not exceed $800 in the country from which the articles are imported. Additionally, the articles must be imported by only one person on one day. The previous de minimis threshold was $200, but the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act increased it to $800.
A CTIA executive on Wednesday criticized DOD’s work so far on the potential clearing of parts of the lower 3 GHz band. “We need more spectrum to meet commercial demand” and the federal government holds the most spectrum, said CTIA Senior Vice President-Spectrum Umair Javed during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar on Wednesday. Other panelists praised the Biden administration for releasing a national spectrum strategy (see 2403120006). The strategy includes a co-led NTIA and DOD study of the lower 3 GHz band.
The FCC released the Further NPRM added to an order on a voluntary cyber trust mark program that commissioners approved 5-0 last week (see 2403140034). The final order includes numerous other tweaks to the draft, addressing security and excluding motor vehicles and related equipment. The order and FNPRM were posted in Monday’s “Daily Digest.”
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 Media Alliance and Great Public Schools Now nonprofits, which filed a petition for review challenging portions of the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital discrimination order under the Administrative Procedure Act, seek to intervene on the FCC’s behalf against the 20 industry petitioners who want to set the entire order aside (see 2403140042), said their motion Friday (docket 24-1315) in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the industry petitioners are successful in having the FCC’s digital discrimination rules vacated, communities that nonprofits advocate for -- including disproportionately low-income communities and communities of color -- “will be left with inferior options with limited speeds and increasing prices,” said their motion. This would harm their interests “in advancing equitable broadband access for their members and constituents, who, because of their race, ethnicity, color, income level, religion, or national origin, lack access to quality, affordable broadband,” it said.
The Senate Commerce Committee needs to meet with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the Senate Intelligence Committee before deciding on potentially marking up TikTok-related national security legislation, Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters Thursday (see 2403130039).
A May 13 effectiveness date for the January FCC order requiring that carriers implement location-based routing for calls and real-time texts to 911 (see 2403130028) means the implementation deadline for nationwide carriers is Nov. 13, the Public Safety Bureau clarified Thursday. The deadline for non-nationwide carriers is May 13, 2026. By that second date, all providers must deploy a technology that supports location-based routing for real-time text to 911 originating on their IP-based networks, the bureau said.
An FCC rule requiring mobile service providers to "block texts purporting to be from" North American numbering plan numbers on a reasonable do not originate list that includes "numbers that purport to be from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers" takes effect Sept. 3, said a public notice Wednesday in docket 02-278. Commissioners adopted the item in March 2023 (see 2303170056).
Industry officials expect changes in the cyber trust mark rules, set for a vote Thursday, though the extent is still evolving, said lawyers in the proceeding. One wildcard is whether the FCC will attach a further notice, asking questions about issues including the country of origin of security updates under the program. The item is expected to be approved 5-0, with Commissioner Nathan Simington getting some edits to reflect his initial concerns, officials said.
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.