John Eggerton

The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously passed the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act (S.1822), a bill that would try to improve the data the government uses to establish where broadband is and isn't via broadband availability maps. Specifically, the bill:

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons defended the FTC's $5 billion settlement with Facebook, saying that it was the best deal it could get with limited authority, and calling on Congress to pass comprehensive privacy legislation. Chairman Simons said he was faced with two choices, get an "excellent" settlement, as he suggested this was, or face years of litigation that would likely achieve "far less" relief than the FTC got, which he took pains to outline.

The House Communications Subcommittee held a hearing on spectrum management and House leadership was not pleased with the infighting between the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications & Information Administration over spectrum policy. The most prominent falling-out is over the FCC's recent auction of high band spectrum in the 24 GHz band for 5G and concerns by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of "out-of-band emissions" affecting satellite weather sensing.

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly has been named "New Yorker of the Year" by the New York State Broadcasters Association (NYSBA). O'Rielly, who was born just outside Buffalo (NY), was hailed by the association as "one of the outstanding commissioners in the history of the FCC". “Receiving this award is an incredible honor," Commissioner O'Rielly said.

The Federal Communications Commission took some heat after it voted to loosen its children's television rules. “Today’s FCC decision sacrifices children’s education and well-being all for corporate profit under the guise of flexibility," said Sen Edward Markey (D-MA), one of the senators behind the Children's TV Act. "Promoting the public good and serving kids should not fall by the wayside for the sake of increased business revenue.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing "Protecting Innocence in a Digital World" July 9 on protecting kids online, and Big Tech came in for further criticism over its handling of the issue. Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he hoped to learn a lot from the witnesses about the perils of social media sites, and the internet in general, for children. He also signaled there would be a follow-on hearing where Big Tech was called to account. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has circulated a proposal to grant USTelecom what is described as two narrow portions of its request for forbearance from applying some copper-era Telecommunications Act voice service support regulations to an increasingly fiber world. But it does not retire broadband-related obligations after USTelecom withdrew that ask July 1.

Comcast met with Federal Communications Commission officials the week of June 24 to urge them to adopt NCTA-The Internet & Television Association's proposal to use polygon shapefiles to more accurately map broadband deployment, including where service could be lit up in a matter of days (which Comcast argues should count as served). In their meeting with FCC officials, the Comcast executives made the point that the shapefiles mapping approach would be more granular than census block, saying shapefiles "accurately reflect coverage in partially served census blocks that may not be depicte

The House has passed an omnibus appropriations bill, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, and it funds the Federal Communications Commission. But it will almost certainly need major tweaking if Senate Republicans are expected to approve it, partially due to three amendments related to FCC policy.

In a letter of inquiry sent by the Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau to Sinclair Broadcast Group General Counsel David Gibber, the FCC asks for documents releated to Sinclair's  aborted effort to buy Tribune TV stations and whether Sinclair mislead the FCC about who would actually be controlling the stations it was spinning off as part of the deal. The FCC is investigating "whether, in light of the issues presented in the HDO, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.