Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on the Democrats’ 2024 presidential ticket, enters the national stage with a record of pro-rural broadband action but is largely a blank slate on other tech and telecom matters, observers said in interviews. Harris announced Walz as her pick Tuesday after a two-week vetting process in which other governors with stronger broadband policy backgrounds were in contention (see 2407260001). Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, has been a leading congressional advocate for injecting funding into the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program (see 2407150062).
The FCC defended the Wireline Bureau's decision denying LTD Broadband's long-form application for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. LTD, which was the largest winning bidder, sought a reversal of the decision, claiming the FCC improperly denied its entire application. In a Monday reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (docket 24-1017), the commission said it "repeatedly stated that the bureau would perform an in-depth review of long-form applications" to consider the technical and financial information of winning bidders (see 2405090056).
Telecom and banking groups urged that the FCC adopt proposed modifications to its letter of credit (LOC) rules for Universal Service Fund support recipients. Comments were posted Tuesday in docket 10-90 (see 2407030062). The commission proposed modifying LOC rules for its high-cost programs and Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support recipients.
CTIA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce backed AT&T’s challenge of the FCC's fine for data violations, filing amicus briefs in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On a 3-2 vote in April, commissioners imposed fines against the three major wireless carriers for allegedly not safeguarding data on customers' real-time locations years earlier (see 2404290044).
States are using several approaches to prevailing wages in their broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) state plans, we found in our analysis of BEAD volume 2 initial plans. How a state considers prevailing wages in application reviews could possibly affect providers' participation in BEAD (see 2309080027) and 2403060005). NTIA has signed off on 31 BEAD volume 2s so far.
Google has a monopoly over general search services and acted as a monopolist, defending its dominance in violation of U.S. antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday (docket 1:20-cv-03010-APM).
FCC commissioners are expected to approve at Wednesday's open meeting, largely as circulated, a draft NPRM aimed at reducing unwanted AI robocalls. Industry officials active in the proceeding predicted few tweaks based on the limited number of ex parte filings in docket 23-362.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., should bring up kids’ online safety legislation in September, Republican senators told us in interviews after the Senate's overwhelming passage of the measures last week.
The FCC’s draft order that would create an additional alert code for missing and endangered adults will gain unanimous approval during Wednesday’s open meeting, agency officials told us. The item received widespread support from alerting officials, industry trade associations and indigenous groups. The final order is expected to have changed little from the draft version, an FCC official said. While the new alert code will be used for any missing person older than 17 with special needs and circumstances or who is endangered, abducted or kidnapped, it's aimed at addressing the rising problem of missing and murdered indigenous people, the FCC has said. Speaking at an indigenous women’s event Wednesday, Rosenworcel said the item will gain approval and credited Native groups for the proposal. “The action the FCC is taking next week is in direct response to a call sent out by Native communities after enduring a crisis of the missing for far too long,” she said. The code will be “a really powerful tool," said Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media (NPM) and an advocate of the new code.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel vowed she will continue fighting for the commission's net neutrality order following the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that stayed the rules Thursday (see 2408010065). "The American public wants an internet that is fast, open and fair," and Thursday's decision "is a setback, but we will not give up the fight for net neutrality," Rosenworcel said.