Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is eyeing legislation as a potential way to speed the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction, among other actions to improve connectivity amid COVID-19. The committee plans a Wednesday hearing to examine the "state of broadband" during the epidemic and related legislative proposals. Other senators also filed broadband-centric bills Thursday.
Country of origin cases
Antitrust authorities cleared the way for Providence Equity Partners to acquire Outfront Media entities. An FTC early termination notice dated Monday and released Tuesday ended the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period. Providence “will lead the purchase of $400 million in newly issued convertible preferred stock together with funds managed by Ares Management Corporation,” said the original announcement. The FTC issued a separate notice for Ares.
Allow FM translators to originate programming, along with enacting GeoBroadcast Solutions’ zoned broadcast coverage proposal, 27 broadcasters urged the FCC, in a filing posted in RM-11854 Tuesday. The Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination include Miller Communications, Cromwell Group and Fingerlakes Radio Group. An NPRM on the zoned broadcast coverage request (see 2005040044) should also concern allowing content origination for AM broadcasters that use FM translators, the filing said. The NPRM should examine how FM translator interference coverage contours are applied and create a new call-sign convention for translators that originate content, the broadcasters said. “If GeoBroadcast Solutions origination of limited separate programming on same-channel booster stations is acceptable as a regulatory matter, then so should be the origination of limited separate programming on FM translator stations.”
Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy names Hillary Brill, Georgetown University, interim executive director, and Jennifer Sturiale, from Harvard Law School, program director for tech law and policy academic programs ... GuidePost Strategies adds Zack Roday, ex-House Commerce Committee (see this section, May 4) as senior adviser ... Amazon Web Services Vice President-Distinguished Engineer Tim Bray resigns, citing “dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers”; company declined to comment ... Strategy Analytics moves Edouard Bouffenie to senior analyst-media and intelligent home practice.
The new FCC seal was inspired by both the original seal and those of other federal agencies, said FCC IT Project manager Umasankar Arumugam, the new seal’s designer (see 2004300060). Arumugam works for NCI Information Systems, a contractor for the agency. “I wanted to represent all of the current communication technologies in the seal and make the design a little more contemporary, while still borrowing elements from the legacy seal, such as the sky and land concepts represented by satellite and towers,” he emailed: The typography's serif font “is both formal and can evoke a sense of trust, making it ideal for an authoritative seal.” Arumugam worked on the seal during his free time, has designed user experiences for several FCC systems, and worked on Broadband.gov and the FCC Accessibility Clearinghouse, an FCC spokesperson told us.
The Copyright Office extended through July 10 COVID-19-related timing provision adjustments (see 2004010049). The adjustments were originally to expire May 12. It's for “certain registration claims, notices of termination, and section 115 notices of intention and statements of account,” the CO said Friday.
Duplicates of customs broker records may be stored on servers outside the U.S. as long as the originals are stored on U.S. servers, Customs and Border Protection said. The March 10 ruling was disclosed by a stakeholder last week and confirmed to us by the recipient. The ruling requested by Craig Seelig at WiseTech Global examined WiseTech's use of a foreign server in Australia as a secondary site. The primary site would be in the U.S. CBP requires that for broker records stored on a server, the server must be located in the customs territory of the U.S., the agency replied. “This is where CBP has jurisdiction to issue a summons and inspect records.” There’s “no rule applicable to duplicate records,” the agency said. “It seems logical then that once the recordkeeping regulations are met, including 19 C.F.R. § 111.23(a), requiring that records be retained at any location within the customs territory of the United States, that duplicates of these records may be maintained outside the territory of the United States." Grunfeld Desiderio lawyer Alan Klestadt, who told a webinar of the ruling, said that, with a coming update to customs broker regulations, more cloud-based recordkeeping could come to be OK’d.
The FCC wants refreshed comments from a 2016 "Team Telecom" NPRM on timely executive branch review of deals involving foreign ownership, said a public notice Monday. The NPRM sought comment on what types of applications should be referred to the executive branch, what information should be included on an application that could help with the review, how applicants would certify compliance with mitigation, and how quickly the executive branch would complete reviews (see 1606030025). Commissioners of both parties backed the PN.
The threat of large fines in European and California privacy law focused the tech industry’s attention on compliance, FTC Chairman Joe Simons said Friday. His remarks to the American Bar Association came the day after U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly approved the agency’s $5 billion privacy settlement with Facebook (see 1912050061).
The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee’s Spectrum Strategy Governance Subcommittee plans to release this summer a report on potential major changes to federal oversight of spectrum (see 2001270046), members said Wednesday. One focus remains combining the FCC and NTIA. The meeting was delayed 30-plus minutes as members struggled to get online during the group’s first meeting in the COVID-19 era.