Copps Still Wants FCC Web Nondiscrimination Principle

A fifth Internet principle of “nondiscrimination” could be similar to a condition that the FCC imposed in late 2006 on the BellSouth-AT&T deal, Copps said. “This was a technology that was built in openness,” Copps said of the Internet, “and we have to figure out” how to maintain it. Deciding any complaints to the commission case-by-case would be the best approach, he said. It could mean deciding between “what is reasonable network management and those few cases that are not reasonable network management.” An NCTA spokesman declined to comment.

But the FCC probably won’t act on a fifth principle until there are five commissioners, Copps told reporters. “That’s a huge and a controversial subject,” he said. “You want to have real credibility when you do that. I'd like to have permanent leadership and a permanent commission.” The principle he seeks, which he wants the FCC to be able to enforce, “is an assertion of nondiscrimination and not prioritizing or privileging” content, the acting chairman said. “You could use a model of what we did in the AT&T- BellSouth merger and build from there in a cooperative fashion: Talk to a lot of people and see how you fine-tune the language.”

“If Congress thinks that’s not enough,” it can take a look at they question, Copps told his audience. “There’s a lot of interest in Congress, and at some point Congress may choose to legislate on it,” he said. He called his approach a “moderate” one. Copps has publicly supported a fifth principle previously.

The commission should involve a wide array of interests in preparing a report to Congress on a national broadband plan, Copps said. They should include Indian tribes and other bodies besides corporations, he said. “I want this to be inclusive” of “nontraditional stakeholders,” he said. “The private sector works better when there is some visionary policy,” but the government can’t do large projects without corporate help, he added.

Broadband deployment “is the most important infrastructure issue we face right now,” Copps said. “What worries me the most is the challenge of how we get this out ubiquitously,” after “every other country on God’s green Earth has a strategy,” Copps said. The notice of inquiry that FCC members will vote on at Wednesday’s meeting “will ask a ton of questions,” he said. “I hope to get to something pragmatic and achievable.”

Full-power broadcasters’ switch to DTV is going all right, but “we've got a long way to go, so I don’t want to exude false optimism,” Copps said. “You need to be candid with people” about possible losses of signals, because they'll “forgive a lot if you tell them the truth,” he added. “We need to go educate folks now that there are going to be some problems.”

Concerning cable’s digital, transition, it’s important “people understand what to expect,” Copps said. Already “policymakers generally do get it,” he said. Cable operators should understand that transition “is going to be disruptive and create some consumer confusion, and it already has.” -- Jonathan Make

NCTA Notebook…

Proposals last week by AT&T and Verizon that the D block be given to public safety agencies may be worth consideration, the three FCC members told reporters at the NCTA show. “That’s one way to deal with it,” said acting Chairman Michael Copps. “I have instructed our folks at the FCC to go back before new permanent leadership gets there and really prepare some options and take nothing off the table” (CD Feb 9 p9). Although there’s still “urgency” to rolling out a public-safety network using the spectrum, “we do have this little period now where we have the luxury of trying to look at all the options,” Copps added. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said he’s still considering the comments of AT&T and Verizon while the FCC is in the middle of a “very intense” internal review to “set the table” for the next commission. “It’s tragic that that spectrum use has not been resolved yet,” he said. “We've not properly gotten it into the marketplace.” Commissioner Robert McDowell said he welcomes D-block suggestions, but the FCC must make sure this one is legal. “There might be a statutory issue.”

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Many have sought “reasonable cable rates” through the years, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps told reporters. But he wouldn’t say how operators can lower prices. The other two commissioners told reporters later that competition can help, citing the vast supply of video available online, often free, and satellite-TV services. If people think their cable bills are too high, they can cancel service, Commissioner Robert McDowell said. Cable bills have fallen in recent years, discounting for inflation and added channels, the NCTA has said. Rules or legislation on cable a la carte are unlikely soon, an aide to Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said on a panel of eighth-floor advisers. “A la carte is dead for the next 12 months,” said the aide, Rudy Brioche. “The reason it hasn’t happened is it’s very complicated to do” it, “in many ways it may amount to serious price regulation” and “it seems as if Congress isn’t anywhere near going to that approach.” McDowell believes the video market “is a very active one,” said Rosemary Harold of his staff. The market is “more competitive than it was 15 years ago,” said Rick Chessen, Copps’ chief of staff. How competitive is a “tricky” question, he added.

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Cable operators should add to the 92 percent of U.S. homes they pass with broadband service “as far as you can build it,” acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said at an NCTA breakfast. “You can probably make the case as a country that we are underserved.”

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FCC and industry speakers praised what they called the commission’s recent openness and took digs at the previous chairman, Kevin Martin, Friday at the NCTA show. Kyle McSlarrow said that at his fifth show as the association’s president, “I'm delighted to be on stage for the first time with an FCC chairman.” McSlarrow didn’t moderate Martin’s past visits as he did Friday with acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps. Holding the event in Washington -- the first time that has happened -- is “a little bit like a victim returning to the scene of the crime,” Commissioner Robert McDowell said. “The healing process has begun. … I see the Stockholm syndrome is wearing off.” Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said he was “frustrated” about the FCC’s having been “shut down” under Martin, but now “everything that makes C our middle [initial] is actually happening at the FCC.”

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Attendance at the NCTA show was about 20 percent higher than the association had expected. About 12,000 came, slightly more than last year’s show, President Kyle McSlarrow said at a lunch Friday. The group had expected a 17 percent decline (CD April 1 p10). About 400 members of Congress, Hill aides and administration and federal agency officials attended, he said.

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Media stocks won’t rebound to their recent highs soon, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch told an audience at NCTA late Thursday. “We're not going back to the old levels in any hurry at all.” He pegged the recovery to between two and three years. And the recession may last a while, he said. “Every family, rich or poor, are poorer than they were a year ago and they're just going to be thrifty.” He said he’s worried that governments will start printing money to pull the economy out of a recession and cause inflation. News Corp. stock has fallen by more than half in the past year.