The cable industry and allies strongly disagree with public, educational and government (PEG) access interests and backers over whether FCC cable leased-access requirements can withstand First Amendment scrutiny changes in the video marketplace (see 1906060029), in docket 07-42 postings this week in response to the agency's Further NPRM.
Matt Daneman
Matt Daneman, Senior Editor, covers pay TV, cable broadband, satellite, and video issues and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications in 2015 after more than 15 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where he covered business among other issues. He also was a correspondent for USA Today. You can follow Daneman on Twitter: @mdaneman
Proposed changes to how the FCC collects broadband deployment data should be some improvement over the oft-criticized Form 477-centric approach, though it also opens a potential can of worms with its crowdsourcing component, experts told us. Others see a catastrophic failure in the agency's not bringing retail pricing data into the mix. "It's tweaking a broken system," said Penn State telecom professor Sascha Meinrath. The proposal's on the FCC agenda for Aug. 1 (see 1907110071).
MVPDs like AT&T are abusing the retransmission consent regime to trick Congress into using a possible Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization as a vehicle for rewriting the retrans system in their favor, said NAB President Gordon Smith at a Media Institute lunch Tuesday. STELA "has outrun its usefulness" and should be allowed to sunset, he said.
Municipal and electric cooperative pole attachment rates either chill rural broadband deployment, and their exemption from Section 224 of the Communications Act needs to end, or those rates are a nonissue. Those are the competing NCTA and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) narratives before the FCC, with NCTA on Monday filing a 49-page study in docket 17-83 documenting notably higher pole attachment rates muni and co-op electric companies charge over investor-owned utilities.
Parties in proposed reallocation of some C band for 5G said each of their plans is the only one that makes sense, in docket 18-122 comments posted Friday. The Wireless and International bureaus and offices of Engineering and Technology and of Economics and Analytics said in a public notice Friday they were seeking comment on the band-clearing plans put forward by AT&T; America's Communications Association, the CCA and Charter Communications; and the Wireless ISP Association, Google and Microsoft. Comments are due Aug. 7 and replies Aug. 14.
A dearth of good radar data about debris in low earth orbit and a lack of congressional action on establishing a civil space situational awareness (SSA) operation were among concerns of space experts at an International Astronautical Congress briefing Wednesday about monitoring the growing orbital debris problem. “This is problem ripe for disruption,” said Commerce Department Office of Space Commerce-Director Kevin O’Connell.
The FCC continues to look at the possibility of routing 911 calls to public safety answering points based on where the call originates, as location-based routing becomes more technologically feasible, but it’s “not there yet,” said David Furth, Public Safety Bureau deputy chief, at a GPS Innovation Alliance briefing Wednesday. The agency began a notice of inquiry in 2018 (see 18032200027). Citing traffic fatalities in rural Nebraska where victims couldn't be found until days later, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., co-chair of the GPS Caucus, said GPS-linked 911 is a lifesaving synergy between two capabilities that speeds up response. In some jurisdictions, 80 percent of 911 calls annually come via smartphones, he said. Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., a member of the NextGen 911 Caucus, said most 911 dispatchers have a story about being unable to get location of a caller in an emergency. "The technology is getting there,” but geolocation needs federal support, said Torres, a former 911 dispatcher. She backed the 911 Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services (Saves) Act (see 1904050054) and hopes it gets Senate support. Stormy Martin, U.S. National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing director, said ongoing GPS modernization efforts like the Air Force's ground infrastructure upgrades and the next-generation GPS III satellites will lead to increased accuracy and availability of GPS signals, which in turn will mean better accuracy of 911 geolocation. The first GPS III satellite, launched in December, should be operational next year, and the second GPS III satellite is set for launch later this summer, he said. Martin said mapping software rather than the constellation is typically the source of GPS problems such as wrong locations.
With a majority of commissioners seen likely to adopt the local franchise authority item on the Aug. 1 agenda (see 1907110071), locality and public, educational and government channel advocates see at best lemonade in that some PEG draft items didn't go as far as proposed in the NPRM. Many also still consider a legal challenge. That has long been expected (see 1812200042).
Third-party streaming of local live TV broadcasts is growing, with Locast adding markets and Didja, trialing in three markets, hoping to sign retrans agreements with major broadcasters soon. Though the copyright and retans lawsuits some saw as possible with the early 2018 launch of Sports Fans Coalition's Locast (see 1801110026) haven't materialized, some say it's not in the clear.
SpaceX, OneWeb Kepler and Telesat are continuing their fight over who gets home-base Ku-band frequency first choice (see 1906140015) and OneWeb's petition to reconsider the modification to SpaceX's satellite system authorization (see 1905310002), with a set of FCC International Bureau filings Tuesday. SpaceX's read of Section 25.261 of the rules doesn't line up with its plain language and reads requirements in it that don't exist, OneWeb said. It said the rules on selection order for home spectrum priority don't require anything of a satellite other than being part of the relevant system, launched and capable of operating in the relevant band. The company said its six satellites all fit that bill and SpaceX is wrongly applying rules on the geographic scope of spectrum sharing to shoehorn in home priority requirements that don't exist. Telesat also said SpaceX was conflating separate provisions of Section 25.261 and that the company's interpretation goes against FCC stated objectives of fostering competition and efficient spectrum use. It said adding the possession of an operating earth station to the first choice determination makes it dependent on arbitrary factors like whose earth station application is opposed and how quickly that earth station application is processed. Kepler echoed those arguments and said it launched and began operating its satellite more than year before any other Ku-band claimant. It said SpaceX's read of the rules "serves no interest other than to skew the home spectrum priority in its favor." SpaceX said OneWeb's recon petition was followed by its "series of shifting arguments and assertions [in] a never-ending cycle." It said OneWeb is distorting its arguments to make Ku-band user terminal interference sound more likely and that OneWeb mustn't be aware of the technology in SpaceX's Starlink system that will have multiple user terminals pointing at a visible SpaceX satellite from different angles. It said that's "perhaps understandable given the substantial limitations of its own proposed system."