Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

An NPRM on emergency alerting and an order on sharing outage report information with state and local agencies are expected to be approved with few changes at the FCC commissioners' meeting Wednesday, likely unanimously, according to industry officials.

"Reassert" leadership on accessibility issues, a coalition of deaf and hard of hearing advocates asked FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, per a filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-213. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf, Gallaudet University Technology Access Program, Hearing Loss Association of America, American Council of the Blind, American Federation for the Blind, Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic at Colorado Law, and Georgetown Communications & Technology Law Clinic participated in the meeting. Several pending rulemakings and petitions should be "revisited and restarted" where the commission can "engage in proactive monitoring, develop remedies that offer meaningful incentives, and overhaul its consumer complaint process to be more user-friendly," the groups said. Develop standards as the FCC considers shifting to automatic speech recognition from IP captioned telephone services, they said: "Although human-assisted captioning has its imperfections, the ability to switch between the two forms of caption generation mitigates some of these issues for consumers."

State and local officials backed Connecticut broadband regulations proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont (D) that would require universal buildout while updating infrastructure rules. But telecom industry officials opposed HB-6442 as regressive overreach, at the livestreamed Joint Energy and Technology Committee hearing Tuesday. Anticipating federal net neutrality action, some Connecticut lawmakers questioned the need for SB-4. Telecom lawyers disagreed in recent interviews on how other states will be affected by last month’s ruling by U.S. District Court in Sacramento allowing California’s law to take effect.

The House appears poised to agree later this week to Senate-passed changes to the American Rescue Plan Act COVID-19 budget reconciliation package, which includes emergency broadband and CPB funding. The Senate passed its amended version of HR-1319 Saturday 50-49 after a protracted floor battle in which Republicans proposed but ultimately didn’t seek votes on almost two dozen telecom amendments, as expected (see 2103030063). Telecom-focused Capitol Hill Republicans, meanwhile, pressed the FCC to explain why it now believes improved broadband coverage data maps won’t be available until at least late 2022 (see 2102170052).

Meetings make states hopeful about closer FCC rapport under President Joe Biden, said officials from NARUC and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates in recent interviews. Local officials seek a louder voice at the federal agency. “The relationship between state commissions and the FCC over the last four years” under then-President Donald Trump was “less than an example of cooperative federalism,” said NARUC President Paul Kjellander. FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel reacted favorably to states' hopes.

"Incredible" proceeds of the C-band auction "changed the game somewhat" in federal spectrum management, greasing the path for more federal agency participation in sharing or relocation, FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington said Thursday in a Lincoln Network talk. The $81.2 billion in auction proceeds (see 2102180041) show how valuable some spectrum is to commercial operators, making it clear there will be ample funds available for spectrum relocation fund (SRF) uses and "mitigating somewhat" the pain of federal relocation from those bands, he said.

In an apparent win for carriers, acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is proposing a standard auction for the 3.45-3.55 GHz band, offering the big license sizes favored by national providers. The auction would start Oct. 5 and use an ascending clock format. The FCC also released its open radio access network notice of inquiry and public safety items for the March 17 commissioners’ meeting.

Congressional committees will likely continue doing much work online until the conclusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers and experts told us. It's less clear how Capitol Hill plans to return to normal, given concerns about security after the Jan. 6 insurrection (see 2101060057). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week she plans to create an “outside, independent 9/11-type Commission” to study the insurrection’s causes and security lapses on Capitol grounds. The Senate Homeland Security and Rules committees are also doing oversight of Hill security.

The FCC approved 4-0 an NPRM proposing revised rules for a program to pay for the replacement of equipment from Huawei and ZTE in U.S. networks, as expected (see 2102110053), at the commissioners' meeting Wednesday. Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel stressed that even more than the previous administration, she's emphasizing coordination with other parts of the federal government in her approach to supply chain risks. Commissioner Brendan Carr said the U.S. must stay tough on China.

The Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment will recommend the FCC support a bill on minority tax certificates, advocate for more interagency cooperation to assist libraries in providing digital services and make accessible information for newcomers to broadcasting, according to reports from the ACDDE’s working groups at the current iteration’s second-to-last virtual meeting Thursday. The committee’s charter expires in July, and the last meeting, where final recommendations will be voted on, is June 24.