The FCC made limited changes to an NPRM on foreign-ownership rules, as agency officials indicated at last week's meeting, where commissioners approved the item 4-0 (see 2505220056). The FCC posted the NPRM on Tuesday.
The FCC questioning the progress of EchoStar's 5G network deployment (see 2505120074) could set the stage for a clash with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios, analyst Tim McDonald wrote Thursday in a blog post. Kratsios could interpret the FCC action as a direct challenge to his strategy of promoting and protecting emerging technologies in which the U.S. could be preeminent, McDonald said. While the FCC might see what it's doing as providing market certainty by enforcing its rules, he added, OSTP very well could view the FCC action as jeopardizing the idea that EchoStar's open radio access network deployment shows that the U.S. can build telecom infrastructure without Chinese vendors.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on Thursday called the FCC’s actions against regulated companies that force them to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs “sinister.” She was particularly critical of the Wireline Bureau’s order last week approving Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier (see 2505160050) after Verizon agreed to get rid of DEI programs, which she said were “meant to increase fairness in hiring in the workforce.”
President Donald Trump’s recent firings at the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board were illegal based on congressional intent and the Constitution, a federal judge ruled Wednesday (see 2502250052). Fired PCLOB members Travis LeBlanc and Ed Felten sued Trump, the PCLOB, PCLOB board member Beth Williams, PCLOB Executive Director Jenny Fitzpatrick and White House Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel Trent Morse in February. Fired FTC Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya are seeking an expedited decision and reinstatement from the same court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (see 2504110049). The firings of LeBlanc and Felton were illegal “because although the plain text of the PCLOB’s organic statute does not include an express textual removal restriction, the Board’s structure and function clearly indicate that Congress intended to create such a restriction on the President’s removal power,” wrote U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.
Verizon, which last year urged the FCC to impose broadband handset unlocking rules on wireless carriers, is now asking the commission to zero out the unlocking commitment it adopted as a condition of approving the company’s purchase of Tracfone.
Incompas is asking to add 30 days to what it called an "extremely short comment deadline" for public notices related to EchoStar's 5G network buildout and spectrum use. The notices raise "important and complex policy questions ... pertaining to the rights of licensees to their spectrum and the Commission’s authority to impinge upon those rights," it said in a time-extension motion posted Monday (docket 25-173). Both public notices -- about whether EchoStar is using the 2 GHz band for mobile satellite service consistent with its authorizations and about a proposed reconsideration of EchoStar's extended 5G network buildout deadlines -- have an initial comment deadline of May 27 (see 2505130003).
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said Friday at a policy forum that removing all minority-party commissioners would weaken the agency’s ability to defend its rules in court. “The Communications Act doesn't just require three commissioners for quorum,” she told the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Tech Freedom audience. “It requires that there will be one member of a minority party, and that, in and of itself, could weaken whatever defense that a future FCC may have if there is no such single minority party member.” The agency also wouldn’t be able to present evidence that it had considered dissenting opinions, making it harder for a one-party FCC to present itself as an expert agency, said Gomez and Tech Freedom President Berin Szoka.
ARRL, which represents amateur radio operators, opposed NextNav’s proposal to use lower 900 MHz spectrum for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) in reply comments on an FCC notice of inquiry (see 2505140017). Comments were posted this week in docket 25-110. “Many billions of unlicensed devices are in use to provide hundreds of applications and functionalities to the American public," and the numbers continue to grow, ARRL said: “These devices coexist with amateur radio operations in the 902-928 MHz band but they as well as amateur radio operations would be displaced if a 5G-like PNT service was authorized to use this spectrum.”
The White House’s pattern of removing dissenting officials from independent agencies is “vividly illustrative” of the administration’s fear and weakness, said FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez in a speech for The Media Institute Thursday. “Even when this administration holds so much power, it cannot tolerate disagreement or dissent,” Gomez said. “And if I’m removed from my seat on the commission, let it be said plainly: It wasn’t because I failed to do my job. It’s because I insisted on doing it." Congress has always intended for the FCC to be independent, she noted. During the creation of the FCC's predecessor Federal Radio Commission, Congress considered giving power over the airwaves to the commerce secretary, she said. That idea was struck down “specifically because Congress feared that a single individual, subject to political will, would possess too much control” over radio.
Bandwidth demand worldwide continues to climb, but that growth is slowing, TeleGeography analyst Alan Mauldin blogged this week. He said increasing bandwidth demand "seemed unstoppable for a long time," up 45% year over year in 2020. But in 2024 the growth was 29%, he said, with the biggest increase in Africa and the lowest in the relatively mature U.S./Canada. Despite the slowing annual growth rate, demand tripled between 2020 and 2024, surpassing 6.4 petabits per second, he said.