The FCC “at least at this juncture," is not pursuing a spectrum band for the Internet of Things, said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday at the Winnik Forum at Hogan Lovells. But Knapp acknowledged that spectrum is a huge IoT issue. FCC “flexible use” rules for licensed and unlicensed spectrum “negates the need for a dedicated Internet of things allocation,” he said. “We don’t expect right now that there’s going to be an IoT band.”

The FCC “at least at this juncture," is not pursuing a spectrum band for the Internet of Things, said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday at the Winnik Forum at Hogan Lovells. But Knapp acknowledged that spectrum is a huge IoT issue. FCC “flexible use” rules for licensed and unlicensed spectrum “negates the need for a dedicated Internet of things allocation,” he said. “We don’t expect right now that there’s going to be an IoT band.”

The FCC “at least at this juncture," is not pursuing a spectrum band for the Internet of Things, said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday at the Winnik Forum at Hogan Lovells. But Knapp acknowledged that spectrum is a huge IoT issue. FCC “flexible use” rules for licensed and unlicensed spectrum “negates the need for a dedicated Internet of things allocation,” he said. “We don’t expect right now that there’s going to be an IoT band.”

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on the right to be forgotten could create enormous implementation and legal problems for ISPs, said critics of the decision at panel Monday hosted by Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology (CCT) department (http://bit.ly/1r9At2y). Proponents of the ruling said requests to remove personal data shouldn’t necessarily be weighed differently than requests to remove financial or sensitive information.

The FCC is grouping the dozens of petitions seeking clarification of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act based on the questions they raise, said FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau attorney Kristi Lemoine at an FCBA event Monday about a rise in class-action suits spurred by the law.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on the right to be forgotten could create enormous implementation and legal problems for ISPs, said critics of the decision at panel Monday hosted by Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology (CCT) department (http://bit.ly/1r9At2y). Proponents of the ruling said requests to remove personal data shouldn’t necessarily be weighed differently than requests to remove financial or sensitive information.

NCTA urged the FCC to seek comment on the full range of issues and potential consequences of expanding obligations of multichannel video programming distributors if it plans to explore the MVPD issue in a rulemaking proceeding. Expanding the MVPD definition to include online video distributors (OVDs) would misconstrue the provisions of the Communications Act “and raise a host of practical and regulatory concerns,” NCTA said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-83 (http://bit.ly/1swUEdy). To the extent that the FCC finds that OVDs qualify as MVPDs, OVDs “must be subject to the obligations of MVPD status as well as its benefits,” like program carriage, closed captioning and emergency alerts, it said. Giving OVDs regulatory benefits that Congress provided to traditional facilities-based MVPDs without imposing their obligations “would dilute and undermine the policy goals underlying those obligations-including fair marketplace competition,” NCTA said. The filing pertained to a meeting with Chief Bill Lake and other staff from his Media Bureau, and staff from the Office of General Counsel.

NCTA urged the FCC to seek comment on the full range of issues and potential consequences of expanding obligations of multichannel video programming distributors if it plans to explore the MVPD issue in a rulemaking proceeding. Expanding the MVPD definition to include online video distributors (OVDs) would misconstrue the provisions of the Communications Act “and raise a host of practical and regulatory concerns,” NCTA said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-83 (http://bit.ly/1swUEdy). To the extent that the FCC finds that OVDs qualify as MVPDs, OVDs “must be subject to the obligations of MVPD status as well as its benefits,” like program carriage, closed captioning and emergency alerts, it said. Giving OVDs regulatory benefits that Congress provided to traditional facilities-based MVPDs without imposing their obligations “would dilute and undermine the policy goals underlying those obligations-including fair marketplace competition,” NCTA said. The filing pertained to a meeting with Chief Bill Lake and other staff from his Media Bureau, and staff from the Office of General Counsel.

NCTA urged the FCC to seek comment on the full range of issues and potential consequences of expanding obligations of multichannel video programming distributors if it plans to explore the MVPD issue in a rulemaking proceeding. Expanding the MVPD definition to include online video distributors (OVDs) would misconstrue the provisions of the Communications Act “and raise a host of practical and regulatory concerns,” NCTA said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-83 (http://bit.ly/1swUEdy). To the extent that the FCC finds that OVDs qualify as MVPDs, OVDs “must be subject to the obligations of MVPD status as well as its benefits,” like program carriage, closed captioning and emergency alerts, it said. Giving OVDs regulatory benefits that Congress provided to traditional facilities-based MVPDs without imposing their obligations “would dilute and undermine the policy goals underlying those obligations-including fair marketplace competition,” NCTA said. The filing pertained to a meeting with Chief Bill Lake and other staff from his Media Bureau, and staff from the Office of General Counsel.

AT&T and DirecTV said responses filed in the FCC proceeding on AT&T’s purchase of DirecTV confirm that the transaction is in the public interest. Opponents’ efforts to show countervailing harm to consumers are “unpersuasive” and “transparent attempts to advance parochial agendas,” the companies said in a joint opposition to petitions to deny the deal in docket 14-90. There can be no legitimate concern with the programming matters raised by some opponents, they said. There's no question “that the combined firm will not have sufficient size to exercise monopsony power in content acquisition,” they said. Because the applicants own very little content, “there is no reason to apply program-access requirements beyond those already contained in the Communications Act.” No party seriously disputes that the deal will enable the combined company to reduce the cost of acquiring content, which is the largest and most critical variable cost for multichannel video programming distributors, they said.