Wireless Telecommunications

Reps Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced the TOWER Infrastructure Deployment Act (HR 3255), bipartisan legislation to help close the workforce shortage in the telecommunications industry. HR 3255 reflects the need for a highly-skilled, professional workforce equipped to deploy 5G, lightning-fast broadband networks, and new broadcast technology. The act: 

A year ago, the Trump Federal Communications Commission announced a proposal to reallocate C-band spectrum for 5G. With much fanfare, the FCC trumpeted a plan to outsource to the satellite companies the process of auctioning these airwaves. Rather than the kind of open and transparent auction process the agency has followed since the first spectrum auction in 1994, the Trump FCC declared it would be “faster” to embrace what they called a “marketplace approach” in which the licensees took over the job traditionally done by the FCC.

Public interest groups and telecommunications experts filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission centering on how AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon sold their customers' real-time location data to third parties without those customers' informed consent. The complaint reads:

As the share of Americans who say they own a smartphone has increased dramatically over the past decade – from 35% in 2011 to 81% in 2019 – a new Pew Research Center survey finds that the way many people choose to go online is markedly different than in previous years. Some highlights:

The Senate Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission. Some highlights:

Four satellite companies known as the C-Band Alliance have enlisted a spectrum auction expert to develop a plan for an auction of spectrum in the coveted spectrum band known as the C-band.

Thousands of jails and prisons across the US use a company called Securus Technologies to provide and monitor calls to inmates. But the former sheriff of Mississippi County (MO) used a lesser-known Securus service to track people’s cellphones, including those of other officers, without court orders, according to charges filed against him in state and federal court. The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds.

Cities across the US are trying to become “smart cities,” as they invest in digital technologies to help monitor the environment, enhance mobility, and improve the delivery of municipal services. An examination of several cities which have sought to embrace smart city technology while keeping equity in the forefront shows that:

The Federal Communications Commission is renewing the charter of the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment for a two-year period. The purpose of the Committee is to make recommendations to the FCC on how to empower disadvantaged communities and accelerate the entry of small businesses, including those owned by women and minorities, into the media, digital news and information, and audio and video programming industries, including as owners, suppliers, and employees.

A group of attorneys general from 10 states filed a federal lawsuit in a bid to block a proposed merger between the wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint, a $26 billion deal that has yet to receive the Justice Department’s approval. The lawsuit, led by Letitia James of New York and Xavier Becerra of California, contends that competition will suffer and consumer prices will rise if the companies combine. Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin joined the complaint, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.