John Eggerton

In a letter to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rob Portman (R-OH), Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that there is little the FCC can do to prevent public comments filed under false names, or under stolen identities or to prevent mass bogus filings in what is meant to be an open, public, process.

Legislation to reauthorize the Federal Communications Commission, boost mobile broadband, and provide additional funds, as needed, for broadcasters' moves to new spectrum in the post-incentive auction repack has been included in the must-pass omnibus spending bill, which must pass by March 23 to avoid another government shutdown. The RAY BAUM Act (which incorporated Sen.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who chairs the House Communications Subcommittee, spoke at the American Cable Association Summit. She put in a plug for her network neutrality legislation, the Open Internet Preservation Act, and also suggested that proponents of network neutrality could be on the same page as she is and just not know it. Her bill prevents blocking and throttling, which she said "everybody agrees with." It does not prevent paid prioritization, which is where it runs into major pushback from Democrats.

On March 22, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on an order to streamline environmental and historic preservation reviews for 5G facilities deployment. Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Raul Ruiz (D-CA) wrote FCC Commissioner Brandan Carr, who is spearheading the FCC proposal, to ask him to reconsider, saying the order will short-circuit safeguards for tribal lands. The proposed order would render the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) toothless when it comes to protecting "tribally-significant" sites.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would require on-air disclosures of content from foreign entities. The Foreign Entities Reform Act of 2018 (FERA) would amend the Communications Act to require broadcast, cable and satellite companies to disclose through the duration of the content when it has been supplied by a registered foreign agent, like RT, the Russia-backed video content that the Intelligence Community has concluded tried to influence the 2016 election.

The American Cable Association has officially joined the court challenge of the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rule rollback, filing a motion to intervene in the case with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  ACA is intervening on the side of the FCC, to "help defend the Federal Communications Commission's ruling that restored light-touch regulation to providers of high-quality broadband facilities and infrastructure to millions of users in rural America." An intervenor is a party with a demonstrable interest in the outcome, something ACA certainly has, re

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has decided that not every smartphone is an autodialer subject to the restrictions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). In a decision released March 16, the court reversed a 2015 Federal Communications Commission decision that robocalls to numbers of consenting parties that were subsequently transferred to nonconsenting parties violated the TCPA as well as the FCC's definition of the autodialers (automatic telephone dialing system, or ATDS) that can't be used without the call (or text) recipient's prior permission.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Next Century Cities is pushing back on the FCC's efforts to exempt some wireless deployments from local historic or environmental reviews, saying they are being scapegoated unfairly as impediments to broadband deployment. Three dozen mayors and other elected officials signed the letter defending local decisionmaking in 5G small-cell deployments.

In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wants the FCC to rethink its approval of deals putting high-band spectrum in the hands of AT&T and Verizon. The FCC's Wireless Bureau approved the transfer of millimeter-band (high-band) spectrum licenses from Straight Path to Verizon and FiberTower to AT&T in settlements with those companies for not building out the spectrum as they agreed to do when they acquired it.

Citizens Against Government Waste has a bone to pick with President Donald Trump's infrastructure plan, which leaves the distribution of $50 billion in rural infrastructure seed money to the states and localities. In a letter to Office of Manqagement and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, CAGW, joined by Americans for Tax Reform and others, said that while they generally support states spending money over the feds, they are worried about the potential for waste, fraud and abuse and duplication of spending given the focus on rural broadband.