The FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee approved a report Thursday on best practices for implementing and promoting the use of direct video calling from its Direct Video Calling Working Group (see 2304260060). The group also heard from other working group leaders, plus updates from Commissioner Nathan Simington and FCC staff on artificial intelligence accessibility. The meeting was the first in-person meeting in three years.
The Senate Intelligence Committee plans a hearing on AI policies, potentially to address election security issues, Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., told us Wednesday. Election security and public markets are areas that require “immediate urgency,” Warner said. “There’s a group of us thinking about some of those items.” Ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told us he wants to examine what the technology means for national security, defense and cybersecurity.
The Senate's 55-43 confirmation Thursday of Democrat Anna Gomez to the FCC (see 2309070052) will soon end the 2-2 partisan tie at the commission that has lasted more than two years into President Joe Biden's term. Agency watchers and former insiders expect a flurry of activity, with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel issuing and launching long-bottled-up orders and proceedings once Gomez formally becomes a commissioner.
Microsoft announced its support Wednesday for privacy legislation being considered in Pennsylvania. TechNet told a House Commerce Committee hearing that legislators should tweak the bill to mirror a privacy law passed in Connecticut (see 2205110049).
Five major US tech companies are "gatekeepers" subject to the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission said Wednesday. It designated 22 core platform services provided by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft, saying the companies have six months to bring the platform services into compliance with the act. The services involved are social media, intermediation, ads, messaging, video-sharing, browsers, search and operating systems. Several platforms said they will work toward compliance. ByteDance criticized the decision.
Much remains to be seen on what the mapping challenge process will look like as the broadband, equity, access and deployment program unfolds, speakers said during a Broadband Breakfast webcast Wednesday. The experts agreed the states play a critical role. The states get to propose to NTIA their methodology for determining eligibility for BEAD funding, said Tom Reid of Reid Consulting Group: “To me that’s the big, big issue.”
Dish Network got support from public interest groups and the Phoenix Center on its request for an extension, until June 30, to exercise an option to buy 800 MHz licenses from T-Mobile. T-Mobile and parent Deutsche Telekom oppose the extension. Last week, Dish defended its request in a filing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (see 2309010050).
Nearly 300 broadband experts, ISPs, consumer advocates, and business groups urged NTIA to eliminate its letter of credit requirement for the broadband, equity, access and deployment program. The coalition, in a letter Wednesday, raised concerns about how the requirement will affect local providers and competition. Under the current rule, awardees must obtain an LOC for 25% of their award amount.
AT&T still has questions about reporting in The Wall Street Journal this summer that warned of health threats from legacy lead-sheathed telecom cable (see 2307210004) owned by AT&T and other carriers, CEO John Stankey said Wednesday at a Goldman Sachs financial conference. AT&T has done its own investigation and come up with different findings, Stankey said. Meanwhile, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said at the conference his company’s buy of Sprint was likely “the most successful merger in telecom history.”
Senate confirmation of Democratic FCC nominee Anna Gomez is likelier than not to stretch into next week, with the chamber on track to vote on invoking cloture on her Thursday, said Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and other officials in interviews. The Senate's Wednesday schedule didn't include a cloture vote on Gomez that some lobbyists previously thought possible (see 2309050084), though some suggested it could still happen that night.