The FCC’s newly reconstituted Technology Advisory Council met for the first time Monday, with a new focus on 6G, directed by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. New TAC Chairman Dean Brenner, a former Qualcomm executive, said TAC’s work is more important than ever due to the reliance on broadband since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago. The first meeting was initially expected in October (see 2107230039).
Broadcasters have evolved to no longer depend on automotive ads for revenue, said several broadcast executives on company quarterly earnings calls last week. The executives also discussed ATSC 3.0 projections, their M&A outlook and the continued rise of sports betting. “Back in the day, when auto sneezed, broadcasters got a cold,” said Gray Television co-CEO Hilton Howell. That’s no longer the case, he said. “We’ve become less reliant on auto,” said Sinclair Chief Operating Officer Rob Weisbord. Auto ads are likely to rebound but will never be as central to broadcaster balance sheets, said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook.
Despite a growing need for clarity on liability of commercial space operations, no answers are coming soon, said speakers at an American Bar Association air and space law forum Friday in Washington. The nascent on-orbit servicing industry is having trouble getting traction because of that lack of clarity over liability and attribution, such as who ultimately bears financial responsibility for a mishap or cleanup in space, said Chris Kunstadter, AXA XL global space head.
Senate maneuvering on newly named Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, FCC nominee Gigi Sohn and FTC nominee Alvaro Bedoya is expected to draw many telecom and tech policy stakeholders’ attention in the coming weeks. President Joe Biden nominated Jackson, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit judge, Friday to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Jackson has little record on communications law matters but has played a larger role on administrative tech-focused legal matters, legal experts said.
Opponents are debating the legacy of a 2018 anti-sex trafficking law as the Senate prepares to take up a similar Section 230-related measure in the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act (see 2202100071). Courts, meanwhile, continue to iron out case law on Communications Decency Act liability protections.
Regulatory reviews of Apollo's buying Lumen ILEC assets are moving forward in the states. Virginia State Corporation Commission staff plans to recommend approval soon, said Hearing Examiner Ann Berkebile at an evidentiary hearing livestreamed Thursday. The companies expect to finish getting state approvals in the first half of this year, they told the FCC this week.
Public interest advocates urged states to start planning now if they haven’t already for NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, during a Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition webinar Thursday on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s broadband funding. Panelists also said NTIA should take a technology- and provider-neutral approach to setting eligibility requirements for the middle mile and other programs.
Dish Network's mobile 5G network is up and running in Las Vegas, albeit with mixed results, and the company will easily meet its June goal of reaching 20% of the U.S. population, executives said Thursday, announcing its 2021 year-end results. "When it works, it works pretty well," Chairman Charlie Ergen said. He said network optimization and working with handset manufacturers to ensure Dish frequencies are in their hardware are still to be done before broad commercial launch, plus fixing of some regulatory issues like Enhanced 911 access.
The FCC got some support for use of an ascending-clock auction for the 2.5 GHz band, the only imminent auction of spectrum for 5G, in comments filed at the FCC, mostly posted Thursday. AT&T and groups concerned about bidding by the smallest players, prefer a single-round, sealed-bid auction. The agency is trying to start and end the sale before its auction authority expires Sept. 30.
The FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee approved reports Thursday on real-time text (RTT) on wireline networks and telecommunications relay services on videoconferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex. All FCC meetings have used a video platform since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic almost two years ago.