Incompas weighed in Wednesday against “remedies proposed by the government, including a forced divestiture,” in DOJ’s antitrust case against Google’s ad tech business (see 2506110049). The remedies trial “has reinforced the critical principle that successful and innovative companies should be encouraged, not dismantled,” said Incompas CEO Chip Pickering. “True competition in the marketplace, not government-mandated restructuring, is what drives innovation and benefits consumers.” Pickering added that as the trial unfolded, “witnesses explained that the DOJ’s untested proposed remedies would cause harm to the small and medium-sized businesses that depend on affordable ads to reach customers on different mediums.”
Public Knowledge (PK) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) warned that the FCC would violate the Communications Act if it abandons universal service in favor of speeding copper retirement. In a joint filing posted Tuesday, the groups reminded the FCC that in the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act of 2017, Congress found that “maintaining quality voice service to rural America remains essential even in the Internet Age.”
While USTelecom and other industry groups generally supported the FCC’s push to enable faster retirement of copper lines, other organizations raised concerns, especially over the role copper lines have historically played in emergency calling. Comments were due this week in docket 25-208.
The FCC's arguments that its pole attachment regulatory authority extends to utility-owned light poles are legally dubious and practically untenable, utilities said in comments this week in docket 17-84. Commissioners adopted a pole attachments NPRM at the agency's July meeting (see 2507280053), and utilities, as expected, voiced their opposition to the light-pole proposal (see 2508290003). The proceeding also saw no clear consensus about requiring attachers to deploy within 120 days of pole make-ready work being done.
House Communications Subcommittee members traded partisan barbs during a Thursday hearing over a largely GOP-initiated set of broadband permitting bills (see 2509120072) that Democrats claim won’t be effective in speeding up connectivity buildout. Republicans filed many of the 29 bills in past Congresses, including several they previously combined into the controversial American Broadband Deployment Act (see 2305240069). Subpanel Democrats also punctuated the hearing with criticism of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for threats against ABC and parent company Disney that resulted in the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! (see 2509180055).
A broad coalition of associations urged the FCC to move with caution on revamped equipment reauthorization rules in response to a Further NPRM that commissioners approved in May (see 2505220056). The groups joining the filing were the Consumer Technology Association, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, Incompas, the Information Technology Industry Council, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The latest comments posted in docket 25-223 show disagreement on what changes the FCC should make to its approach to its Telecom Act Section 706 reports to Congress (see 2509090010). Among them, USTelecom and CTIA urged the commission to refocus the report to look just at deployment. Commissioners approved a notice of inquiry in August on the preparation of the reports, with an eye on more narrowly focusing them based on the statutory language (see 2508050056).
The FCC hacked away at licensing requirements for satellite and earth stations and slashed an array of broadcast rules in its August meeting Thursday. Four of the five items -- orders on submarine cable licensing and satellite and earth station licensing and NPRMs on improving emergency alerts and reviewing the commission's National Environmental Protection Act rules (see 2508070052) -- were approved unanimously. Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez partially dissented on an order repealing 98 broadcast rules and requirements.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision limiting the scope of environmental reviews in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado is very broad in its impact, said Venable’s Jay Johnson, who represented the coalition in the case. The decision (see 2506180059) doesn’t apply only to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) enforcement in regard to new railroad projects, “this applies to NEPA as a whole,” Johnson said during an Incompas webinar Thursday. “The court made that exceptionally clear.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday night confirmed reports that he's urging President Donald Trump to pick Democratic nominees to the FCC and FTC in a bid to ease Democrats’ opposition to speeding up confirmations ahead of the August recess. Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and others told us they’re skeptical that the Trump administration will follow through, given that the president didn’t pick minority-party nominees to independent commissions during the first six months of his term and fired sitting members of the FTC and other bodies.