High Court Probes Regulatory Shakeup in Evolving Media Landscape
The Federal Communications Commission caught heat for leaving women and minority media ownership out of the equation when it took aim at decades-old cross-ownership rules.
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FCC
Robocalls
The Federal Communications Commission fined a San Diego-based telemarketer nearly $10 million for making more than 47,000 robocalls in two days shortly before California’s 2018 primary election. The calls, which referenced a woman’s accusations that a candidate for state assembly tried to grope and kiss her in a bar, manipulated caller ID info to appear as if they were coming from another telemarketing company.
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Huawei Challenges FCC Security Risk Label at Fifth Circuit
An attorney for Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei told a Fifth Circuit panel Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission was wrong to label the company as a national security threat because it has no standards to make such a determination.
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Fight Over Berkeley Cellphone Warnings Returns to Court
The city of Berkeley’s five-year battle with the wireless industry over cellphone radiation warnings came to a head Thursday before a federal judge, who will decide whether the city’s 2015 ordinance requiring retailers to provide guidance on avoiding radio-frequency exposure is pre-empted by federal law.
Read moreApple Says Jury Trial on Phone Radiation Would Undermine FCC Authority
Pushing to defeat a class action claiming Apple failed to warn consumers about dangerous radiation from iPhones, an Apple attorney told a federal judge Thursday that bringing the case to a jury will undermine the Federal Communications Commission’s authority.
Read moreUS Seeks $225M Fine for Pair Who Made 1 Billion Robocalls
The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday proposed a $225 million fine, its largest ever, against two health insurance telemarketers for spamming people with 1 billion robocalls using fake phone numbers.
Read moreUS Threatens to Block China Telecom From Its Market
The United States has threatened to cut off Beijing-controlled China Telecom from serving the U.S. market because of legal and security risks, the Justice Department said Thursday.
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FCC Seeks $12.9M Penalty for Racist Robocalls
With the national spotlight on Iowa ahead of next week’s caucuses, the Federal Communications Commission is seeking a $12.9 million fine against a man who authorities say placed racist robocalls to Hawkeye State residents.
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New Law May Reduce Robocalls, but They Won’t End
An anti-robocalls measure signed into law Monday by President Trump should help reduce the torrent of unwanted calls promising lower interest rates or pretending to be the IRS, though it won’t make such calls disappear.
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Huawei Fights United States Funding Ban in Court
Chinese tech giant Huawei has asked a U.S. federal court to throw out a rule that bars rural phone carriers from using government money to buy its equipment, on security grounds.
Read moreCable Regulations
Pittsburgh appealed to the Ninth Circuit an FCC regulation involving revenue from cable companies.
Read moreHigh-Speed Internet Still Rare in Parts of Rural Texas
Large swaths of rural Texas continue to lag far behind the state’s major metropolitan areas when it comes to high-speed internet, at a time when the United Nations considers online access to be a basic human right.
Read moreJustices Call for Test Case on VOIP Regulation Void
The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case over Voice Over Internet Protocol regulations, but two justices called for another case to test whether states can step in the absence of federal law.
Read moreDC Circuit Hands FCC Partial Victory in Net Neutrality Fight
The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday largely upheld the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama-era net neutrality rules, saying the Federal Communications Commission was within its authority to redefine broadband internet services for regulatory purposes but cannot block states from implementing their own rules.
Read morePanel Slams FCC Move to Ease Media Ownership Rules
The Federal Communications Commission implemented sweeping rule changes for media ownership without taking into account how they negatively affect female and minority ownership, the Third Circuit ruled Monday.
Read moreFCC Fines Networks for Wrongly Using Emergency Alert System
Jimmy Kimmel has learned an expensive lesson: don’t mess with the government’s emergency alert system.
Read moreFCC Walloped for Nixing Construction Reviews on 5G Facilities
Siding with a group of Native American tribes, the D.C. Circuit reinstated environmental and historical review requirements Friday for the construction of new 5G wireless facilities.
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Senators Urge FCC to Maintain Quake Wireless Alert Speeds
A group of U.S. senators from the West Coast is urging the government to ensure that planned changes to the national Wireless Emergency Alert system do not impair its ability to provide rapid warnings about earthquakes.
Read moreSpam Case Not Ready for Prime Time, Justices Say
The Supreme Court punted Thursday in a case where a chiropractic office that was faxed an advertisement for the Physicians’ Desk Reference, a staple of most medical offices, brought a class action decrying the message as spam.
Read moreStates Sue to Stop Sprint Merger With T-Mobile
A coalition of state attorneys general took to federal court Tuesday to block a proposed $26.5 billion merger between telecommunication giants T-Mobile and Sprint.
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