Proposed Foreign Ownership Questions Overbroad: USTelecom

FCC-proposed questions on whether foreign entities seeking to buy a U.S. FCC licensee have ever been subject to legal penalties are overbroad, said USTelecom in a call Thursday with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr, per a filing in docket 16-155. Queries should be limited to a “timeframe of relevance,” USTelecom said. “Some USTelecom members are amalgamations of companies that date back 100 years, working with many different state and local regulatory entities.” That makes it difficult to report on penalties with certainty, and it isn’t clear why older information would be useful, the filing said. USTelecom wants a 10-year time frame. The draft order sided with the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecom Services Sectors stance that the information was relevant when considering whether prospective buyers are security threats to the U.S. (see 2109200059)