Eighth-floor officials were working toward a compromise Wednesday that could lead to a unanimous vote for Thursday’s draft kidvid item, FCC officials told us. Commissioner’s offices were negotiating on possible edits that would make the wording more palatable to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. The compromise would involve changing the draft to remove language reaching tentative conclusions, leaving the NPRM closer to the notice of inquiry pushed for by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and advocacy groups.
The FCC will auction off three more high-frequency bands in the second half of 2019, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday as he unveiled the items for an Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting. Pai said the meeting will focus on 5G, with draft rules for the first high-band spectrum auctions targeted for a vote. Pai also tentatively plans votes on a draft order to adopt "one-touch, make-ready" pole attachments and bar state and locality moratoriums on network buildouts, a draft order on broadcast ownership diversification through incubators and a draft notice of inquiry on creating a $100 million telehealth pilot program.
Some aviation interests and allies remain largely unswayed Ligado's proposed power limits on use of the 1526-1536 MHz band (see 1805310069) for a terrestrial broadband service will effectively protect GPS receivers. That 9.8 dBW power level "is a first step" toward certified aviation GPS device protection, but helicopter interference issues remain unaddressed, Garmin said in a docket 11-109 filing posted Tuesday. No, Ligado said, "The substantial analysis and testing in the docket" makes clear its proposed ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) operations wouldn't cause harmful interference.
The FCC's proposed streamlining of authorizations for small satellite operators is raising issues of how best to define who falls in that smallsat category, with satellite interests not coming to a universal consensus. There also was disagreement on inter-satellite link bands. commissioners adopted the streamlining NPRM in April (see 1804170038), with docket 18-86 comments due Monday, replies Aug. 8.
Senate Commerce Committee members Wednesday will weigh two newly discovered computer processor design flaws, one of which a researcher described as “probably one of the worst CPU [central processing unit] bugs ever found” (see 1807060015 and 1801260009).“I don’t think there are any solutions right now for what we’re going to be talking about,” Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., told us when asked about Wednesday’s hearing on Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. “Hopefully, we’ll come up with some solutions. ... Maybe some of the professors can come up with something.”
Dish Network is facing increasing pressure from the FCC to build out its extensive spectrum holdings, with accelerated deadlines looming after missed initial deadlines. In a letter to Dish released Monday evening, Donald Stockdale, Wireless Bureau chief, noted meetings Dish has had, including between Chairman Ajit Pai and Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen. Stockdale asked about the company's next steps.
The FCC should try harder to thaw the separations freeze, two state members of the Joint Board on Separations and the state chair of the Joint Board on Universal Service said in interviews ahead of NARUC's summer meeting. They complained that the federal side of the Joint Board isn’t engaging to update separations factors set more than 30 years ago and first temporarily frozen in 2001. NARUC members plan to vote next week in Scottsdale, Arizona, on asking the FCC to extend the freeze’s 2018 expiration by two years, and other draft resolutions related to the Lifeline national verifier, IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) and a precision agriculture bill pending in Congress (see 1807030052).
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is likely to raise the bar for FCC regulations if confirmed, attorneys said after President Donald Trump nominated the appellate judge Monday evening to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy (see 1807090060). Not only would Kavanaugh be expected to seek to rein in Chevron deference to agency expertise, but he also is seen as a strong advocate of industry First Amendment free-speech rights, based on his lengthy record at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 1807040001). He believes broadband is a Communications Act Title I information service, not a Title II telecom service subject to common-carrier regulation. Some on Capitol Hill and among communications groups oppose the nominee.
Supreme Court prospect Thomas Hardiman has ruled for and against FCC rules governing small business bidding credits in wireless spectrum auctions, but never reversed auction results. The judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2007 reportedly remained in contention to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the high court, along with the D.C. Circuit's Brett Kavanaugh, the 6th Circuit's Raymond Kethledge and the 7th Circuit's Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh has by far the most extensive record on telecom and media law. Kavanaugh -- in dissenting from 2017's USTelecom ruling (here) upholding the FCC's 2015 net neutrality order -- and Kethledge (here) have voiced skepticism about broadly deferring to regulatory agencies on ambiguous statutes under the Chevron doctrine (see 1807040001). President Donald Trump planned to have announced his nominee Monday night.
Satellite and terrestrial interests are lining up on opposite sides over whether increasing interference Globalstar says it's seeing in the 5.1 GHz band is attributable to sharing that band with outdoor Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure operations. That the FCC will act on Globalstar's call for a notice of inquiry on mobile satellite service sharing with U-NII (see 1805220006) has doubters. Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America, told us the FCC isn't likely to reopen the 2014 sharing rules governing the band without more direct evidence of harmful interference.