Unconditionally allowing Verizon to acquire Tracfone would hurt competition and fail California’s public interest test, said a California Public Utilities Commission proposed decision Friday. The CPUC may vote Nov. 18 on a proposal by Administrative Law Judge Thomas Glegola to conditionally clear the deal that would affect many low-income customers.
Better FCC broadband maps, receiver standards -- perhaps from industry -- and scaled-back telehealth restrictions were among telecom items sought Friday at a Free State Foundation event. Commissioner Brendan Carr hoped to find out when updated maps will be available, and Republican colleague Nathan Simington again raised the issue of receiver standards. Ex-Commissioner Mike O'Rielly suggested considering factors other than where a company is headquartered in assessing trustworthiness of foreign-made telecom gear. And former Cable Bureau Chief Deborah Lathen wants stakeholders to consider the virtues of permanently scaling back telehealth restrictions.
Industry groups want the FCC to investigate whether emergency broadband benefit providers or households receiving the monthly internet discount are abusing the program through benefit transfers. Some in recent interviews sought FCC guidance.
Amazon supports “expanded government authority” for federal agencies to share “pre-seizure enforcement information with the private sector” to help reverse the explosive growth in e-commerce trafficking of counterfeit goods, Christa Brzozowski, senior manager-public policy, told a Center for Data Innovation webinar Thursday. She’s a former Department of Homeland Security senior official for trade and security policy before joining Amazon last year.
Congressional leaders and telecom policy observers signaled Thursday they expect major cuts to a budget reconciliation package that Democrats have aimed to include connectivity money. Some believe any move to reduce the scope from the $3.5 trillion congressional Democrats envisioned in August could endanger proposed money for the FCC Emergency Connectivity Fund and next-generation 911 (see 2110010001).
Legislation unveiled Thursday would prohibit online platforms from self-preferencing their own products. Modeled after bipartisan legislation in the House, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act will be introduced by Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
The FCC 3.45 GHz auction appears to be in some danger of not closing, which would mean a failed auction, though nothing will be certain for some time, experts said Thursday. The auction stood at $4.25 billion Thursday after the last of four rounds. It moves to five rounds Friday. A week in, the C-band auction had hit $10.5 billion on the way to an $81 billion record. The 3.45 GHz auction has to exceed a $14.77 billion reserve price to close.
There’s no “silver bullet” for resolving the ransomware “crisis,” Brandon Wales, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, told an Axios webinar Wednesday. There’s more the government can and should do “to help arm” U.S. businesses “with the kind of information that will allow them to protect their networks,” he said.
Cable operators need to be vigilant about threats of being overbuilt as tens of billions of federal dollars are poised to be directed toward broadband projects in coming years, said cable lawyer Tom Cohen of Kelley Drye Wednesday at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2021. The broadband infrastructure funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, if passed, would take a year or so to be implemented and could start flowing in 2022 (see 2110120038), he said. That could give incumbents time to get ahead of competition and also think about what unserved areas nearby that could be grabbed, he said.
Congress needs to identify an AI regulatory framework so companies like Facebook can be held accountable for biases and side effects associated with algorithms, said House AI Task Force Chairman Bill Foster, D-Ill., during a hearing Wednesday.