Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. Lawsuits added since the last update are marked with an *.
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.
China-based Hikvision USA provided the FCC with additional information about its proposed plan for compliance with agency rules (see 2308070047). Questions were posed during an August meeting with staff from the FCC Public Safety Bureau, Office of Engineering and Office of General Counsel, said a filing this week in docket 21-232. “Hikvision does not market, sell, or distribute component parts to the U.S. market,” the company said: “Nor does it intentionally make available Hikvision-manufactured component parts for inclusion in products marketed, sold, or distributed in the United States.” Hikvision said Hangzhou Hikvision Technology “or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates, such as Ezviz or HikRobot, contracts directly” with original equipment manufacturers. It’s Hikvision’s understanding “that the OEM entity will apply for and obtain the applicable equipment authorization from the Commission,” the filing said.
Summit Ridge, the 3.45 GHz Clearinghouse, told the FCC it’s still waiting for NBCUniversal to complete its “relocation activity” and submit final invoices. “Total Clearinghouse costs and clearing costs are running very close to their original estimated costs,” Summit Ridge said in a report filed Monday in docket 19-348. “However, due to costs that the Clearinghouse will incur while it continues its operations, the longer the Clearinghouse exists in operations, the less likely it is that the Clearinghouse will be able to stay within its initial budget,” the firm said. Summit Ridge made similar points in its last quarterly report in July (see 2407030063).
The FCC Enforcement Bureau released on Monday data on traceback records requested from the Traceback Consortium on artificial or prerecorded voice calls where the consortium “identified an originating, gateway, or non-responsive provider.” The data covers April 1 to June 30 and lists hundreds of incidents. It doesn’t include records “where (1) the legality of the relevant call was disputed by the provider and resolved by the Traceback Consortium in favor of the provider; (2) the traceback was initiated in error; (3) the terminating provider could not identify the relevant call; or (4) the Traceback Consortium determined the call was untraceable,” the EB said.
FCC commissioners on Thursday approved an order expanding the range of accessibility features that must be included in videoconferencing platforms (see 2409040053). In addition, multiple commissioners at the open meeting said allowing non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service downlinks in the 17.2-17.8 GHz bandwidth should be a sizable boon to U.S. competitiveness in commercial space.
ATLANTA -- The U.S. is taking an increasingly hard line against all connected Chinese and Russian devices, not just those from particular manufacturers such as Huawei, cybersecurity expert Clete Johnson told attendees at SCTE's annual TechExpo Wednesday. Meanwhile, cable providers at TechExpo discussed why it's imperative that there is better convergence in wireline and mobile services.
“Shoveling more spectrum” into the pool of available frequencies for unlicensed use won’t necessarily mean faster Wi-Fi speeds, Richard Bennett, High Tech Forum founder, said during a Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy webcast Wednesday. Bennett, who worked on the initial Wi-Fi standard, also questioned whether 6 GHz is taking off as a Wi-Fi band. It's expected he will lay out his arguments in a paper next week.
The California Public Utilities Commission again delayed voting on allowing people without social security numbers to apply for state LifeLine support (docket R.20-02-008). Staff pushed the item to the Oct. 17 meeting, said a hold list released Tuesday. The CPUC postponed the vote twice before; it was originally on the Aug. 22 meeting’s agenda. The last revised draft responded to various privacy concerns (see 2409120047). The CPUC still plans to vote Thursday on federally funded last-mile broadband grants and adopting rules for NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment program.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
The White House is focused on 6G and wants the U.S. to lead the world, Caitlin Clarke, special assistant to President Joe Biden, said during the 6G Symposium Tuesday in Washington. “We need to think about where we need to be now, before the technology is in place -- we cannot catch up,” Clarke said. Other speakers warned that the U.S. is falling behind (see 2409230053).