The nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center asked the FCC Office of Inspector General and the Office of Government Ethics for investigations into why multiple high-ranking FCC officials were allowed to own stock in companies regulated by the agency. Financial disclosures from 2018-2020 show bureau and division chiefs and other 8th-floor officials with interest in stocks of FCC regulatees such as AT&T, Charter and Verizon, plus computer companies such as IBM and Sony that depend on FCC device authorizations. “The ethics officials responsible for enforcement must explain to OIG and the public why they allowed employees to hold stocks in FCC licensed telecommunications and computer companies in apparent violation of the law,” said a CLC complaint sent to the FCC last week. CLC made a similar submission to the OGE Monday.
Texas “cannot continue to wait on Washington, D.C., to protect” state residents’ privacy, said Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R) at a livestreamed hearing Monday. The Texas House Business Committee heard testimony on a privacy bill (HB-4) that Microsoft and other businesses praised as being interoperable with other state laws they like.
The government and some major customers are going to start pushing for more standardization for satellite connectivity providers, constellation executives said Monday at Satellite 2023. Several said an open network architecture and interoperability is the route to tying into mobile networks. However, Mangata Networks CEO Brian Holz said there's never satellite industry agreement on standards, and systems have to be designed instead to be adaptable.
Banning TikTok outright is a better approach than relying on the Commerce Department to take action against the Chinese-owned social media app, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told us last week. Several senators, both Republican and Democrat, told us they're interested in co-sponsoring a bill that favors the latter approach (see 2303080075).
Both Iridium and Lynk target the direct-to-handset universe, but they're seemingly worlds apart on their appraisal of potential market size for the service, with CEOs of the two companies frequently disagreeing during a panel Monday at Satellite 2023. The scant mobile network operator (MNO) investment in such supplemental coverage from space (SCS), and almost no one from the wireless industry attending the panel, is telling, Iridium CEO Matt Desch said.
FCC commissioners are expected to approve a robotexting order and Further NPRM, scheduled for a vote Thursday, though with a few tweaks addressing issues raised by CTIA and others, FCC and industry officials said. Commissioners OK'd a second wireless item, incorporating into agency rules four new and updated standards for equipment testing. That item, which was deleted from the agenda for the meeting, hasn’t been controversial.
The FCC draft ATSC 3.0 report and order circulated to 10th-floor offices would extend the substantially similar and A/322 physical layer requirements indefinitely (see 2303030064), grant NAB requests on multicast hosting in part, and doesn’t take up the matter of a 3.0 task force, FCC and broadcast industry officials told us. The item is expected to lead to a lot of lobbying from industry and negotiating among commissioners, and isn’t expected to be voted soon, industry and FCC officials told us.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are considering recommending either former acting NTIA Administrator Anna Gomez, ex-Wiley, or National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts President Felix Sanchez to replace Gigi Sohn as FCC nominee but haven't finalized those picks yet, communications sector lobbyists told us. Several lawmakers have been readying endorsements for the FCC vacancy amid chatter about potential contenders. Lujan and others are calling for President Joe Biden to quickly renominate Commissioner Geoffrey Starks for a new term (see 2303100050).
A Friday House Communications Subcommittee hearing intended to jump-start negotiations on a comprehensive spectrum legislative package touched on some of those policy issues, but subpanel members used it as a bully pulpit to blast the Senate for failing to prevent the FCC’s frequency auction authority from expiring Thursday, as expected (see 2303090074). The House gaveled out Friday for a recess scheduled to end March 22. Senate leaders and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who disagreed about dueling bills to renew the commission’s mandate (see 2303080081), expect to return to negotiations this week.
A draft further NPRM on expanding audio description requirements to all broadcast markets within 10 years is expected to be unanimously approved at Thursday’s FCC commissioners’ meeting with few changes, said agency and industry officials. The proposed expansion is the most the FCC can do for audio description within the bounds of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said Clark Rachfal, American Council of the Blind director-advocacy and governmental affairs, urging Congress to pass legislation to require audio description for all video. The 10-year phase-in in the NPRM means blind and visually impaired consumers in smaller TV market state capitals such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or Juneau, Alaska, may not have audio-described broadcasts until 2035, he said. “These are not insignificant places within the U.S.,” said Rachfal.