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President ***** has withdrawn the nomination of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, a six-year FCC veteran who was expected by many to be renewed for a third term, as first reported by Reuters. The withdrawal comes less than a week after Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) placed a hold on the nomination over concerns about O’Rielly’s position on a recently approved terrestrial 5G network.
The conflict centers over a controversial 5G network recently approved by the commission. The proposed network would operate on the L-band spectrum traditionally utilized by radar and GPS, operated by Ligado Networks as a low-power terrestrial system. In its proposal, Ligado pledged to report its base stations and operating parameters to avoid any interference with…