By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-26-20 The Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets $75 million in emergency funds in the $2 trillion coronavirus bill that passed the Senate late Wednesday night. The money is to keep up facilities of noncommercial TV and radio stations and to help stations, particularly rural ones, keep the lights [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-13-20 Communications companies big and small have signed on to a "Keep Americans Connected Pledge" at the request of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in the face of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Pai talked with broadband service providers and trade associations Thursday (March 12) and asked them, "in order to [...]

By Gary Arlen, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-11-20 Policymakers "need to take a fresh look at existing allocations of spectrum, including the allocation of spectrum to broadcasters" to determine if "that spectrum is still needed by the broadcast industry or if it is better used in other areas," said Jim Ciconni, senior executive VP of [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-11-20 FCC chairman Ajit Pai Pushed back hard on Wednesday (March 11) against suggestions by Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel that he was playing "hide the ball" with the way the FCC issues its request for comment on the remand of some of its net neutrality dereg order. That [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-10-20 Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks told Congress Tuesday (March 10) that the FCC and communications networks have an integral role in responding to the coronavirus and called for immediate action, calling for a “connectivity and economic stimulus” plan to address the virus. That came in testimony for [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-10-20 The Senate Financial Services Subcommittee held an FCC budget request hearing Tuesday (March 10) and a C-Band auction hearing broke out. Actually that was signaled at the outset by Subcommittee chairman John Kennedy (R-La.), who has been critical of the FCC's decision to award potentially billions of [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-10-20 Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told a Free State Foundation audience Tuesday (March 10) that the Justice Department's investigation into Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, part of a wider look into online platforms and antitrust, is focusing on four areas for potential "engagement" and said [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-5-20 Marking the halfway point in its Airband rural broadband initiative, Microsoft said it is now in 25 states and one territory and is on track to meet its goal of 3 million more rural Americans with broadband access. Airband is Microsoft's promotion of unlicensed wireless in the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-5-20 The Federal Trade Commission has launched a lookback at some of the smaller past acquisitions by some of the largest tech companies. The FTC said Tuesday it has issued "special orders" to Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, which require them to provide info on [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 2-5-20 A district court judge's decision upholding the Justice Department and FCC approval of the Sprint-T-Mobile merger drew immediate reaction from Washington. Both the FCC and Justice had argued the deal would help speed the 5G rollout, with conditions that would ultimately create a new, facilities-based, competitor, helping [...]