By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-25-20 Turns out Jan. 19 will be an inauguration day of sorts – inaugurating the Supreme Court's first consideration of an appeal of the FCC's media ownership rule deregulation. It will be the fourth oral argument of the January session, with one hour of argument scheduled, though that could [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-24-20 The FCC is seeking comment on a National Association of Broadcasters petition to clarify the application of the FCC's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) rules to multicast streams. Those are the extra channels broadcasters got in the switch to digital. As the Media Bureau framed the issue in issuing [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-19-20 In a win for Big Tech, the FCC is proposing to allow them to market and sell 5G devices before the FCC approves them. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has circulated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to that effect for a vote at the December public meeting. Consumer [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-19-20 The FCC plans to vote next month on the framework for preventing the use of suspect tech in U.S. networks and ripping and replacing existing suspect tech, including a process for identifying which tech to expel. The FCC has already formally designated Huawei and ZTE as suspect tech [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-19-20 In a victory for cable broadband operators and computer companies, the FCC has voted to free up the lower 45 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band for wireless broadband while transitioning the remaining upper 30 MHz to the latest iteration of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, and cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-18-20 The Ensuring Network Security Act and the Beat China by Harnessing Important, National Airwaves (CHINA) for 5G Act of 2020 were both reported favorably out of the Senate Commerce Committee by voice vote, which essentially means unanimously. They now move to the Senate for a full vote, and [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-18-20 The FCC was getting kudos from WiFi fans and stakeholders for its unanimous decision Wednesday (Nov. 18) to open up 45 MHz of midband spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed use. Those included the cable operators for whom WiFi hot-spots are their primary mobile broadband play. “We [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-17-20 The FCC has weighed in with the Supreme Court in defense of its order deregulating local broadcast ownership and in opposition to a lower court's invalidation of that order. The crux of the FCC's argument is that the lower court repeatedly prevented the commission from repealing or modifying [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-17-20 The House has passed three bipartisan bills to strengthen communications networks, including one exploring whether to extend emergency alert mandates to the Internet and streaming services. H.R. 6096, the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act of 2020, requires the FCC to "examine the feasibility of modernizing the [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-17-20 The National Association of Broadcasters has told the Supreme Court that the Third Circuit has been trying for most of two decades to regulate media ownership when the decision whether to regulate it or deregulate it is the FCC's job. It said the Supreme Court should restore the [...]