D.C. Memo: FCC's Carr Racing to Jam Cell Phone Crime in American Prisons
▪️BREAKING: SpaceX Paying $17b for EchoStar Airwaves▪️Starlink Upset with Colo. BEAD Plan▪️CTIA: Wireless Data Usage Keeps Surging▪️Lutnick’s BEAD Savings to Date: $13 Billion▪️CBS News Caves on Edits
BREAKING: EchoStar said in a press release Monday it has reached a $17 billion agreement to sell spectrum licenses to SpaceX in a deal that also includes a long-term partnership between the two companies. Under the agreement, SpaceX will acquire EchoStar’s AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses through a mix of up to $8.5 billion in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, valued at the time of the agreement. SpaceX will also cover about $2 billion in interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027. As part of the deal, EchoStar and SpaceX will enter into a commercial agreement allowing EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers to connect to SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink Direct to Cell service via EchoStar’s cloud-native 5G core. "We're so pleased to be doing this transaction with EchoStar as it will advance our mission to end mobile dead zones around the world," said Gwynne Shotwell, President & COO of SpaceX. "SpaceX's first generation Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities have already connected millions of people when they needed it most – during natural disasters so they could contact emergency responders and loved ones – or when they would have previously been off the grid. In this next chapter, with exclusive spectrum, SpaceX will develop next generation Starlink Direct to Cell satellites, which will have a step change in performance and enable us to enhance coverage for customers wherever they are in the world." EchoStar said the transaction, along with a previously announced spectrum sale, is expected to resolve inquiries by the FCC. The sale is subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions. On Aug. 26, EchoStar agreed to sell spectrum worth $23 billion to AT&T.
Prisons: Last year, Democratic FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, a Biden appointee, refused to allow Georgia officials to jam contraband mobile phones used by inmate gang leaders to plot murders and other heinous crimes on the outside. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr plans to reverse Rosenworcel as soon as possible. Speaking in Little Rock, Ark., on Friday, Carr promised to deliver new rules and legal interpretations to pave the way for state officials to combat use of contraband cell phones in prisons. “President Trump has been very clear. He is making America safe again. We going to vote on a proposal that will lift a federal restriction that has prohibited state and local prisons from jamming cell phones,” said Carr, who was flanked at the podium by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R), and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who has sponsored jamming bills for years. Carr said the situation was urgent because “these contraband cell phones are being used to run drug operations, to call in hits, to order kidnappings. We had one story where a prosecutor had his father kidnapped by an inmate that he put behind bars.” Under his plan, Carr said the FCC would interpret 47 U.S. Code § 333 to mean that contraband cell phones are an “unauthorized” use of radio communications and therefore susceptible to government-sponsored jamming. “Other countries and the federal government have authority to jam within their facilities, but state and local officials have been denied that ability based on, in my view, a misreading of federal law,” Carr said at a press conference after touring Varner Prison, a high-security unit, in Lincoln County. (More after paywall.)
