Matt Daneman

Charter Communications is now the nation's largest rural broadband provider and builder, President Chris Winfrey said Friday as the company announced Q1 earnings. He said rural construction helped Charter add 76,000 internet customers in the quarter, during which the company also activated 44,000 subsidized rural passings. He said the 2023 goal is buildouts to 300,000 additional rural passings.

Commercial space startups' access to capital is increasingly a challenge, GVF event panelists said Thursday. Financing costs for debt capital are substantially higher than a year ago, and equity investors have higher expectations, said Noel Rimalovski, managing partner at investment bank GH Partners. Financing deals are still getting done, but investors are focusing far more heavily on business fundamentals like having revenue now, he said. Echoed, Akshay Patel, PJT Partners Strategic Advisory Group managing director, the bar investors have for considering a company is "quite high." He said it has become hard to get investors' attention to equity investing when the debt market is more attractive right now.

NAB's attempt to get the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to force the FCC to move on its 2018 quadrennial review isn't likely to result in new media ownership rules coming out of the agency soon in large part due to the 2-2 commissioner deadlock, broadcast experts told us. NAB's suit Monday seeks a writ of mandamus compelling the commission to complete the 2018 review within 90 days of a court decision. The NAB legal action was expected (see 2303290065). The FCC didn't comment.

While satellite operators heavily lobbied the FCC regarding a proposed sunset of interference protections of non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service systems (see 2304120023), the commission's decision to go that route isn't likely to end up challenged in court, we are told. The order and accompanying Further NPRM, approved 4-0 at the agency's April meeting (see 2304200039), was released Friday. A lawyer representing a company involved in the NGSO FSS sharing proceeding said satellite operators opposed to the 10-year sunset recognize there's a low likelihood of success in a court challenge, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is highly deferential to the agency on spectrum management issues. The court also has held that the agency can alter the rules regulating a licensee's license, the lawyer said. He said the agency generally has made clear a lot of its licensing decisions are conditioned on future rule-making. He said it's more likely that satellite operators could petition the FCC to reconsider, as the stakes are lower. Per our side-by-side comparison, the approved order axes several sentences from the draft laying out how a degraded throughput methodology analysis should be done to demonstrate a later-round system won't interfere with an earlier-round system. Instead, the approved order says that while the agency is adopting a degraded throughput methodology, it "recognize[s] that certain details of its implementation may benefit from further comment." The Further NPRM seeks comment on various technical details, and much of that language that was in the draft order -- such as laying out three steps for a degraded throughput analysis -- are now in the FNPRM, with the agency seeking comment on the proposed process. When discussing information sharing during good-faith coordination, the approved order adds a sentence stating that if earlier round systems don't share some non-public information "later round systems may have to make assumptions regarding the operations of earlier round systems in order to plan operations and submit a compatibility showing." The accompanying Further NPRM adds a paragraph of questions regarding post-sunset criteria, such as whether spectrum splitting should be the default procedure between systems after the sunsetting of interference protection in order to facilitate coordination. The agency said it also seeks comment on how well a default spectrum splitting process fits in the post-sunset environment. "What does co-equal mean when there are established operators on a co-equal basis with newer entrants?," it asks. The questions were prompted by OneWeb, the FCC said.

Wireless industry commenters disagreed in docket 16-185 Monday on which of three views presented by the FCC’s World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee Agenda Item 10, on spectrum for international mobile telecommunications (IMT) best reflects what the U.S. should advocate at the upcoming WRC. Carriers support a broad look. Several satellite operators also expressed concerns about considering portions of 7-15 GHz for IMT use. Among satellite operators, there was a lack of consensus about supporting a proposed future agenda item to review existing Ku- and Ka-band equivalent power flux density (EPFD) limits.

Despite considerable lobbying from some satellite operators for a different time frame, the FCC stuck with a 10-year sunset for interference protections in its order and NPRM passed 4-0 Thursday regarding spectrum sharing procedures among non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) fixed satellite systems (FSS) approved in different processing rounds. The commissioners at their open meeting also unanimously adopted a framework for requiring companies to renew their Section 214 authorizations to provide international telecommunications services to and from the U.S. and an order expanding its access stimulation rules to traffic that terminates through IP enabled service providers, as well as receiver standard and wireless emergency alert items (see 2304200040).

As NTIA tries to craft a national spectrum strategy, advocates are far apart on whether exclusive licenses for spectrum or reuse and sharing should be the primary focus, per comments submitted this week (docket 2023-0003). It continued to get pushes for repurposing bands including 3.1-3.45 GHz (see 2304170009).

In its hunt for spectrum available for more-intensive use, NTIA was urged to look at the 12 GHz and upper 12 GHz bands, in comments submitted Monday responding to its request for comments on creating a national spectrum strategy (see 2303150066). CTIA said U.S. efforts to lead the world in 5G are threatened by the lack of a spectrum pipeline and the expiration of the FCC's spectrum auction authority.

The FCC isn't expected to make big changes to the non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) spectrum sharing order on the agenda for commissioners' April meeting (see 2303290068), a satellite executive told us. There were strong disagreements over such items as sunsetting interference protections of earlier-round NGSO systems, and that kept up in lobbying by some satellite operators in recent days.

Beyond promoting U.S. space leadership, the FCC's newly launched Space Bureau is going to make regulatory process transparency and streamlined application processing a focus, Chief Julie Kearney said Tuesday at an event marking the launch of the agency reorganization of the International Bureau into the Space Bureau and Office of International Affairs. OIA Chief Ethan Lucarelli said a priority there would be the agency's role in international standards setting. The agency also named Joel Taubenblatt Wireless Bureau chief and Ron Repasi Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) chief. Both had been acting chiefs.