Matt Daneman

Local government interests urged Missouri lawmakers Tuesday that before adopting any legislation protecting streaming services from video service provider franchise fees, they should follow through on the promise to create a task force to look at the contentious issue of how rights of way are used and who should pay for their use. SB 152, which would amend state law so provision of streaming content is excluded from being considered a video service provider and thus liable for such fees, is premature before that task force can do its work, said Missouri Municipal League Executive Director Richard Sheets at a state Senate Commerce Consumer Protection Committee hearing.

While the lineup of cable operators providing mobile service grows, with others likely to follow, most will rely on mobile virtual network operators and their own Wi-Fi networks to provide the service rather than become more active in acquiring spectrum for their own wireless networks, wireless and cable experts tell us.

SpaceX wants the conditions the FCC put on its second-generation constellation to be required of other satellite applications pending before the agency. In a series of near-identical filings with the International Bureau Tuesday, SpaceX said those conditions should be required of Amazon's Kuiper, Tomorrow Company's earth exploration satellite service constellation and Kepler's requested U.S. market access for its mobile satellite service. The conditions SpaceX seeks include the other operators having to file semi-annual reports on collision avoidance maneuvers and satellite disposal, including any difficulties or failures, and the agency employing with those operators a performance-based method for assessing disposal failures that accounts for the number of failed satellites and their entire passive decay time. SpaceX also urged the FCC to require the operators to coordinate with the National Science Foundation to reach agreement about mitigating their satellites' impact on optical ground-based astronomy and that there be related annual reporting requirements. SpaceX said questions remain about FCC authority regarding space sustainability, but the agency's rules, to be effective, "must apply ... equally to similarly situated operators, and not through a patchwork of conflicting licensing conditions." Adopting those conditions for the others would create "a meaningful and broadly applicable baseline for sustainable operations in space." The FCC, Kuiper, Tomorrow and Kepler didn't comment Wednesday. "The strategy seems more likely to be to hobble competitors, by increasing their perceived regulatory risk, especially in a challenging economic environment where those competitors either need to raise money, or (in the case of Kuiper) convince senior executives to continue pouring billions of dollars into the project," satellite and spectrum consultant Tim Farrar emailed. He said those operators aren't likely to advocate for the conditions to be removed from SpaceX. "In reality SpaceX doesn’t need them to be removed anytime soon, it will take several years (at a minimum) to get 12,000 Gen1 and Gen2 Starlink satellites on orbit," he said.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wants improved ability to route calls and texts made to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline to local call centers (see 2207150036), but mental health and emergency management stakeholders say more enhanced capabilities to know exactly where calls are being placed from could be complicated by a sizable policy split in the mental health community on privacy.

State broadband offices are facing increasing challenges in hiring and retaining staff, particularly directors. State broadband officials and experts told us competition for talent is heavy.

A new FCC approach on how it calculates satellite constellation collision risks, used in its partial approval of SpaceX's second-generation constellation, is raising some space expert concerns, especially since it's seen as a possible harbinger of how the FCC might look at collision risk for future constellations. Viasat petitioned the commission to clarify aspects of that SpaceX authorization granted in November (see 2212010052). The agency and SpaceX didn't comment.

Globalstar and Iridium shouldn't face notable regulatory hurdles or opposition to their direct-to-handset services, we were told. Iridium said last week it had inked a smartphone service provider agreement. In an SEC filing, it said the deal could mean revenue in the form of development fees, royalties and network usage fees. Apple debuted its Globalstar-enabled SOS emergency messaging service on iPhone 14s in November (see 2211100005).

The FCC's partial grant of SpaceX's second-generation constellation application last month (see 2212010052) is an abuse of agency discretion under the Administrative Procedure Act and a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, nonprofit International Dark-Sky Association told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a notice of appeal last week (docket 22-1337). The FCC didn't comment Tuesday.

M&A activity in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector is down from the more heated pace during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic but could pick up in 2023, TMT M&A experts told us. However, expect fewer big, transformative deals and more a series of bolt-on deals, they said.

The FCC, having opened the 17 GHz band to geostationary orbit fixed satellite service, is facing some divides among satellite and wireless operators about doing the same for non-geostationary orbit FSS operations, per docket 22-273 comments this week. The commissioners adopted a 17 GHz GSO order in August on circulation that included an NPRM about an NGSO FSS downlink allocation in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band (see 2208040055).