Qualcomm is likely to still face multiple tough legal challenges to the company’s licensing of its patents for baseband processors used in cellphones and other products, even if a new forthcoming Republican majority FTC chooses to reverse course on its antitrust complaint, said industry and public interest lawyers in interviews. The FTC claimed in a complaint filed this month that Qualcomm “engaged in exclusionary conduct that taxes its competitors' baseband processor sales, reduces competitors' ability and incentive to innovate, and raises prices paid by consumers for cell phones and tablets” (see 1701170065). Apple filed a lawsuit last Monday seeking $1 billion in damages on claims Qualcomm overcharged the smartphone manufacturer “billions of dollars” for patent licenses (see 1701230067).
Qualcomm is likely to still face multiple tough legal challenges to the company’s licensing of its patents for baseband processors used in cellphones and other products, even if a new forthcoming Republican majority FTC chooses to reverse course on its antitrust complaint, said industry and public interest lawyers in interviews. The FTC claimed in a complaint filed this month that Qualcomm “engaged in exclusionary conduct that taxes its competitors' baseband processor sales, reduces competitors' ability and incentive to innovate, and raises prices paid by consumers for cell phones and tablets” (see 1701170065). Apple filed a lawsuit last Monday seeking $1 billion in damages on claims Qualcomm overcharged the smartphone manufacturer “billions of dollars” for patent licenses (see 1701230067).
Small cable operators and groups opposed to media consolidation on one side, and media allies on the other disagreed whether the FCC should reconsider newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership and other media-holdings restrictions as NAB wants. The association and Nexstar petitioned for reconsideration, which the American Cable Association opposed (see 1701250054). About a dozen groups including unions and led by the United Church of Christ opposed such deregulation, but it was backed by Cox Media Group and the News Media Alliance (NMA). Filings were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 14-50 and the subject of an NMA news release Thursday. The UCC, Communications Workers of America, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Prometheus Radio Project and others said broadcasters raised no new facts not already considered by the regulator. "The US Court of Appeals, which has retained jurisdiction over the remand in Prometheus III [the court case is named after that group] directed the Commission to assess the impact of any repeal or modification of an ownership rule on opportunities for station ownership by women and minorities. The Commission has conducted no such assessment" here, said the consolidation foes. "Neither petition mentions, much less challenges, the Commission’s threshold determination that it is premature to change the media ownership rules before it has had a chance to evaluate the 'dramatic effect' that spectrum auctions will have on the broadcast marketplace." Comments related to FCC plans for shuffling TV stations after the incentive auction were the subject of separate filings posted this week (see 1701260033). Cox Media sees the rules retaining long-time hurdles to one company owning a broadcaster and daily paper in the same market as a "veritable museum of the way things used to be." When the 1996 Telecom Act mandated periodic review of media ownership rules, Congress didn't "expect the endless cycle of delay, court appeals, and regulatory inertia that have characterized the past two decades of biennial and then quadrennial reviews," said the broadcaster. Nix "this analog-era rule once and for all," wrote NMA. "In the remarkable seven years it took the FCC to conduct its 2014 quadrennial review, the Commission compiled a record clearly demonstrating that the cross-ownership ban is a musty anachronism that undermines the very values for which it was promulgated. Yet, inexplicably, the Commission concluded its review in August 2016 by deciding to retain the rule in essentially the same form in which it was adopted in 1975."
Efforts to boost broadband in an infrastructure bill have appeal but face differences and uncertainties over the initiative's structure and size, speakers at a USTelecom event Thursday indicated. A telco executive urged using existing funding mechanisms and new tax incentives; a Senate Democratic staffer cited a plan to provide $20 billion for broadband through executive branch programs (see 1701240067); a House Republican staffer said his members are seeking to encourage broadband but are still working on a plan; and a Trump transition team member opposed repeating the 2009 broadband stimulus approach. The member said FCC restructuring should include an economics bureau; and an AT&T official cited its gigabit-speed efforts in six North Carolina cities.
Efforts to boost broadband in an infrastructure bill have appeal but face differences and uncertainties over the initiative's structure and size, speakers at a USTelecom event Thursday indicated. A telco executive urged using existing funding mechanisms and new tax incentives; a Senate Democratic staffer cited a plan to provide $20 billion for broadband through executive branch programs (see 1701240067); a House Republican staffer said his members are seeking to encourage broadband but are still working on a plan; and a Trump transition team member opposed repeating the 2009 broadband stimulus approach. The member said FCC restructuring should include an economics bureau; and an AT&T official cited its gigabit-speed efforts in six North Carolina cities.
Despite pressure on Congress to address ISP privacy rules through the Congressional Review Act, new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is more likely to address the rules procedurally, by acting on a petition for reconsideration, industry officials said. A Capitol Hill source said a procedural fix would have the advantage of being relatively quiet and not provoke the same public backlash as a fight in Congress. Pai spent part of this week, his first in the new job, meeting with outside stakeholders from industry and elsewhere.
Despite pressure on Congress to address ISP privacy rules through the Congressional Review Act, new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is more likely to address the rules procedurally, by acting on a petition for reconsideration, industry officials said. A Capitol Hill source said a procedural fix would have the advantage of being relatively quiet and not provoke the same public backlash as a fight in Congress. Pai spent part of this week, his first in the new job, meeting with outside stakeholders from industry and elsewhere.
NTIA’s Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee held its initial meeting under the Trump administration Wednesday with 10 new members, but an uncertain future. A top NTIA official said at the meeting the incentive auction raises some big questions about future spectrum demands. NTIA also forecast that the spectrum needs of the IoT are likely to be a big area for future CSMAC work, and took another band off the table for sharing.
Thirteen Democratic senators pressed AT&T for a “public interest statement” on its proposed acquisition of Time Warner. They focused on the likely lack of an FCC review of the deal. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told us she agrees with her 13 colleagues despite not affixing her signature to that letter, planning instead to send a letter with Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, later. AT&T said it’s always ready to provide answers.
Thirteen Democratic senators pressed AT&T for a “public interest statement” on its proposed acquisition of Time Warner. They focused on the likely lack of an FCC review of the deal. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told us she agrees with her 13 colleagues despite not affixing her signature to that letter, planning instead to send a letter with Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, later. AT&T said it’s always ready to provide answers.