Senator John McCain has introduced a bill that would repeal the Jones Act, which requires that all goods shipped between waterborne ports of the U.S. be carried by vessels built in the U.S. and owned and operated by Americans.
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who was recently in New York to meet with analysts and investors, said the message emanating from Wall Street was clear: Chairman Julius Genachowski’s “third way” broadband reclassification proposal is already having a chilling effect on investment. A divided commission is to take up the Genachowski proposal Thursday. McDowell also said in an interview Wednesday that the FCC should complete action on the stalled white spaces proceeding quickly, so devices can be on store shelves in time for the 2011 holiday buying season.
The FCC left the door open to further action on complaints of a dysfunctional fixed-satellite services (FSS) marketplace, in its report to Congress on the Open-Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (ORBIT) Act. The report referenced Globecomm, Artel, CapRock, and Spacenet’s filings saying the FSS market is flawed and Intelsat uses anticompetitive behavior to win contracts and dictate leasing prices, but the report doesn’t propose any specific action. The ORBIT Act requires the FCC to provide annual reports to the House and Senate Commerce and Foreign Relations committees on the effect of the privatization of Intelsat and Inmarsat.
Anti-porn advocates urged more vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws, saying Congress and the Department of Justice should ensure that aggressive prosecution of laws already on the books is a priority, they said at a briefing hosted by the Coalition for the War Against Illegal Pornography on the Hill Tuesday.
The Rural Cellular Association (RCA), the Rural Telecommunications Group (RTG), T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel and many small and midsized carriers said the FCC should use its authority under Title III of the Communications Act to impose a data roaming obligation on carriers like the one for voice approved in 2007. But AT&T and Verizon Wireless countered that requiring roaming for data would violate the Communications Act. The commission sought comment on data roaming when it dropped the in-market exception for voice roaming (CD April 22 p4).
Recent Supreme Court cases haven’t displaced antitrust law in telecom and other highly regulated industries, Verizon Senior Vice President John Thorne said at a hearing Tuesday of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy. But an FTC official and others urged Congress to use legislation to clarify the meaning of the high court’s 2003 Trinko and 2007 Credit Suisse decisions. Democratic and Republican subcommittee members said they were troubled by the rulings, but Republicans seemed hesitant to back legislative action. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., told us a legislative fix is unlikely.
Anti-porn advocates urged more vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws, saying Congress and the Department of Justice should ensure that aggressive prosecution of laws already on the books is a priority, they said at a briefing hosted by the Coalition for the War Against Illegal Pornography on the Hill Tuesday.
The Rural Cellular Association (RCA), the Rural Telecommunications Group (RTG), T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel and many small and midsized carriers said the FCC should use its authority under Title III of the Communications Act to impose a data roaming obligation on carriers like the one for voice approved in 2007. But AT&T and Verizon Wireless countered that requiring roaming for data would violate the Communications Act. The commission sought comment on data roaming when it dropped the in-market exception for voice roaming (CD April 22 p4).
The FCC needs to weigh the potential effect on minority broadcasters if it proceeds with a proposal to urge broadcasters to sell off part of their spectrum for mobile broadband, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Monday at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition meeting in Chicago on spectrum and the National Broadband Plan. She said the effect of the auction on broadcast diversity is one of a “number of potential landmines” for the auction proposal. Clyburn has voiced similar concerns before (CD March 17 p7).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted answers to questions that were submitted at its December 2009 Trade Symposium. Highlights of CBP’s answers to the questions it received include: