The FCC announced on Tuesday the relaunch of its Consumer Advisory Committee, with a special focus on AI. The first meeting will be April 4, starting at 10:30 a.m. EDT. The CAC had its last meeting under the previous cycle in August (see 2208300059). “As AI rapidly advances, illegal calls utilize more sophisticated tactics, and too many communications tools potentially leave limited-English speaks behind, we are committed to actively engaging these challenges and opportunities today and looking into the future,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The co-chairs for this cycle are Claudia Ruiz, civil rights analyst at UnidosUS, and John Breyault, vice president-public policy, telecommunications and fraud, at the National Consumers League.

Del. Sara Love introduced the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, along with fellow Democrat Sen. Dawn Gile.

Delegates to the World Radiocommunication Conference last year dealt with a slew of proposed future agenda items for WRC 2027, Michael Mullinix, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, said during a panel discussion at an FCBA webinar Wednesday (see 2402140051). Similarly, an unusually large number of items on the 2023 agenda remained from 2019, Mullinix said. The U.S. delegation offered a “whopping” 18 proposals for the 2027 agenda; more than 40 proposals came from other regions, he said. “That’s a lot of proposals, and more importantly, a lot of priorities for each country that submitted them,” he said. The goal is narrowing the focus to a “manageable” 15 to 18 topics during the four-year study period, Mullinix said. “The work is already underway toward WRC-27 decisions today,” he said. It’s already clear that the biggest focus of the U.S. in 2027 will be making more mid-band spectrum available for full-power licensed use, he said. Recent studies suggest U.S. wireless networks will “fall short” of meeting expected demand “absent new spectrum access,” he said. Mullinix said 7/8 GHz, which will get further study under the administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2402090059), is “now the global harmonization target for expanding capacity for 5G and beyond.” Spectrum policy is critical to ensuring that trusted equipment suppliers have “the global economies of scale needed to compete, and don’t have to develop unique equipment just for the U.S. market,” he said. HWG’s Tricia Paoletta said it’s also clear the U.S. will continue pressure at the next WRC to protect the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi and unlicensed use. “The U.S. is also the global leader in the Wi-Fi ecosystem,” which next year is expected to be worth $5 trillion, she said. U.S. companies “hold the vast majority of intellectual property rights … so it’s a very critical area for the United States’ economy too,” she said. Chinese operators, led by Huawei, will continue pressuring other countries to allocate the 6 GHz band for international mobile telecommunications, Paoletta said. Hogan Lovells’ George John noted that 7/8 GHz is already used for unlicensed operations, earth exploration and space research. It's important because the amount of space research services spectrum available is limited, he said. All the bands to be studied for licensed use will present complications for policymakers, John predicted. U.S. leadership in 5G and 6G is “super important,” but “we also need to love the incumbents,” he said.

TV and smartphone price tags saw big drops between January 2023 and last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index unadjusted data released Tuesday. TV prices fell 9.7% year over year, while smartphones were down 13.2%. Computers, peripherals and smart home assistant prices fell 2.1%. Wireless phone service costs declined 3.1%, while residential phone service rose 4.5% year over year. Cable, satellite and livestreaming TV service costs were up 5.7%. The price of internet service increased 3.8%. Video purchase/subscription/rental rose 2.9%. BLS said January prices for all items were up 3.1% year over year before seasonal adjustment.

A coalition of 21 Republican state attorneys general urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Consumers' Research's challenge of the FCC's quarterly USF contribution factor and methodology in an amicus brief posted Thursday (docket 23-743). "Agencies are finding all kinds of creative new ways to grab money and power for themselves lately," the coalition, led by West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey (R), said. The FCC "extracts billions from American consumers based on a vague statute" and "doesn’t even do the work of setting these rates itself," they argued (see 2401100044). The AGs called the FCC's use of the Universal Service Administrative Co. unconstitutional and a violation of the nondelegation doctrine. "Those that would warn the Court away from reaching these issues are wrong," the group said: "The benefits of the present state of play are overstated." The FCC declined to comment Monday. The agency on Monday petitioned the court to extend until April 3 the March 4 deadline for responding to Consumers' Research's petition, citing a parallel case pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, in an order Friday, randomly picked the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as the venue in which to consolidate 10 multicircuit petitions for review filed in six appellate courts challenging the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital divide order (see 2402070058), the agency told those courts in notifications Monday, under Panel Rule 25.6. The FCC notified the panel of those 10 petitions Wednesday (see 2402070058). Virtually all the petitioners -- mostly state broadband and television associations, but also the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are challenging the order on grounds that it gives the FCC unprecedented authority to regulate the broadband internet economy.

The breadth of AI is hindering regulators, preventing them from proposing regulations for connected tech, said Adam Thierer, R Street senior fellow, technology and regulation, in a panel discussion at the State of the Net conference Monday. Efforts to regulate AI at the macro level are “sucking up all the oxygen in committee rooms” and preventing discussion of smaller components of AI such as privacy. Thierer said. “This is why I don't think anything's gonna move through Congress.” Similarly, Evangelos Razis, senior manager-public policy, at AI company Workday said lawmakers should focus on the most high-impact risks of AI use, such as in healthcare, rather than trying to “have an all-encompassing AI approach that will regulate every potential use of AI.” Thierer said the AI regulatory approach should mirror the light-touch taken with the young internet. “We got a lot about the internet right,” Thierer said. Yet Miranda Bogen, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s AI Governance Lab, said the wait-and-see approach used with internet regulation resulted in economic consequences for marginalized communities. A similar attitude toward AI would likely do the same, Bogen added. The White House’s executive order took a “kitchen sink” approach to the matter that was overbroad and will generate a great deal of pushback, Thierer said. Subsequent administrations can easily reverse EOs, Thierer pointed out. Travis Hall, acting associate administrator for NTIA's Office of Policy Analysis, countered that the EO contains many “steam vents” where comments are sought on prospective policies and agencies are given discretion over implementation of rules. AI use and concerns are expanding so quickly that it’s as though policymakers are riding a train while also constructing the tracks, Hall said.

Initial testing of its supplemental coverage from space service with T-Mobile was "extraordinarily successful," SpaceX said Monday in docket 23-135. SpaceX said it will "soon" submit to the FCC detailed information about how its SCS operations would protect out-of-band terrestrial operations. It said that forthcoming information "will only add to the significant evidence that SpaceX’s direct-to-cell operations in the PCS G Block will not cause harmful interference to any adjacent band users." SpaceX urged that other satellite operators supply such information, such as aggregate interference analyses.

The FCC completed a voluntary test of the disaster information reporting system (DIRS) Thursday, FCC Public Security Bureau Chief Debra Jordan said in an emailed statement. The test let communications providers practice filing outage reports as they would during an actual DIRS activation. The agency released a new version of DIRS in early December (see 2312040057). “We appreciate the widespread participation in this simulated DIRS activation in advance of hurricane and wildfire seasons, which will help ensure that the FCC can provide the public and emergency managers with timely, accurate data on the operational status of communications networks during disasters and support recovery efforts,” Jordan said. Because the test was primarily a practice session centered on logging in, filing and accessing reports in DIRS, there aren’t results to share, an FCC spokesperson told us.

Lobbyist Klein/Johnson Group purchased Perry Bayliss Government Relations. Klein/Johnson said Thursday the deal deepens its expertise in technology and telecommunications. In addition, it said Perry Bayliss' Steve Perry and Kim Bayliss will join Klein/Johnson as principals.