A pending decision in a federal appeals court may set up a special-access revamp at the FCC and spur a second look at broad forbearance relief deemed granted to Verizon in 2006, Stifel Nicolaus said in a note Monday. Competitive carriers and the AdHoc Telecommunications Users Committee are challenging FCC orders granting AT&T, Embarq and Frontier forbearance from dominant-carrier requirements in the special access market. In oral argument Friday (CD Feb 23 p1), judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seemed to lean toward sending the orders back to the FCC, the analyst firm said. If the court sides with the challengers, it would give the special-access proceeding “a new push” and raise the stakes by putting other incumbent services into play, it said. Because the case concerned orders on forbearance petitions seeking “me too” relief after the 2006 Verizon outcome, a court remand could also renew the FCC’s interest in peeling back relief given Verizon, it said. In its 2007 order on the AT&T forbearance petition, the FCC promised to harmonize the treatment of Bells within 30 days, but the commission hasn’t acted. The court is expected to rule on the case in two to four months. A further appeal of the decision, either to the full D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court, is unlikely, Stifel Nicolaus said.

Congress is expected to vote this week on spending bills covering the NTIA, FCC and RUS for fiscal 2009, which started Oct. 1, 2008. House Democrats released the spending requests Monday, bringing an outcry from Republicans who are arguing for a spending freeze. Proposed spending for the FCC is $341.8 million, slightly more than the $338.9 million approved last summer but never enacted. Instead, Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government running

The Florida Attorney General’s office persuaded Google to require search marketers to display price and billing- interval information associated with mobile content services like ringtones, Google said in a letter to its AdWords advertisers. The search provider said it will no longer accept text or image advertisements that don’t meet the requirements. Google will suspend all campaigns identified as violating the new policy when it makes the change. Now, searching “free ringtones” on Google returns sponsored listings with headlines like “complimentary ringtones,” but with copy that includes phrases like “ad-supported or $9.99 a month.” A Google spokesman emphasized that the action didn’t result from a legal settlement. The decision incorporated “concerns raised by users and discussions with the Florida Attorney General’s office,” the company said. The spokesman noted that a federal court dismissed a lawsuit against Google late last year by a woman who alleged that she was billed for a ringtone subscription after entering her cellphone number at a fraudulent site that she had found through an AdWords advertisement. In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, Calif., ruled that the federal Communications Decency Act immunized Google from liability stemming from pay-per-click advertisements created through AdWords.

FCC staff have been thrilled with the new openness there and many have told Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein so in the weeks since the departure of former Chairman Kevin Martin, Adelstein said in the edition of C-SPAN’s The Communicators that aired over the weekend. Adelstein reiterated that the first stage of the DTV transition went better than expected, though he warned that broadcasters still have a long way to go.

The Florida Attorney General’s office persuaded Google to require search marketers to display price and billing- interval information associated with mobile content services like ringtones, Google said in a letter to its AdWords advertisers. The search provider said it will no longer accept text or image advertisements that don’t meet the requirements. Google will suspend all campaigns identified as violating the new policy when it makes the change. Now, searching “free ringtones” on Google returns sponsored listings with headlines like “complimentary ringtones,” but with copy that includes phrases like “ad-supported or $9.99 a month.” A Google spokesman emphasized that the action didn’t result from a legal settlement. The decision incorporated “concerns raised by users and discussions with the Florida Attorney General’s office,” the company said. The spokesman noted that a federal court dismissed a lawsuit against Google late last year by a woman who alleged that she was billed for a ringtone subscription after entering her cellphone number at a fraudulent site that she had found through an AdWords advertisement. In that case, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, Calif., ruled that the federal Communications Decency Act immunized Google from liability stemming from pay-per-click advertisements created through AdWords.

The construction of undersea fiber cables serving Africa is moving forward, but has been slowed by opposition from some governments and incumbent telecommunications providers, said people involved. With the SAT3 network installed on the west coast, Seacom on the east coast scheduled for activation in June and other digital cables in various stages of progress, problems persist with infrastructure, open access, and licensing, they said. Still, Africa is becoming more competitive, Seacom President Brian Herlihy said in an interview.

The construction of undersea fiber cables serving Africa is moving forward, but has been slowed by opposition from some governments and incumbent telecommunications providers, said people involved. With the SAT3 network installed on the west coast, Seacom on the east coast scheduled for activation in June and other digital cables in various stages of progress, problems persist with infrastructure, open access, and licensing, they said. Still, Africa is becoming more competitive, Seacom President Brian Herlihy said in an interview.

The House Ways and Means Committee has issued a press release summarizing the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) provisions in the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1, the Economic Stimulus Bill). (Press release dated 02/18/09, available at http://waysandmeans.house.gov/News.asp?FormMode=release&ID=863.)

The FCC Wireline Bureau didn’t need to give a long explanation when it approved compliance plans by Qwest, AT&T and Verizon related to cost-assignment rules forbearance, Verizon said. In an opposition filing late Friday, the company opposed a petition by CompTel and others urging commissioners to review the bureau decision (CD Feb 3 p5). The petitioners said the bureau improperly approved the compliance plans without explaining why. The bureau only needed to issue a “simple notice of approval” because the associated forbearance orders “included a detailed explanation of the basis for relief and addressed the arguments raised by opposing parties,” said Verizon. The Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to issue detailed orders, “does not apply to ministerial agency functions such as the Bureau’s approval of the compliance plans,” it said. The FCC has no “legitimate policy basis” to reverse its forbearance decision, especially because Qwest, AT&T and Verizon “have already implemented much of the cost assignment forbearance relief,” Verizon added.

Web hosting, e-mail and potentially other service providers could face jail time for “knowingly” engaging in conduct that they have “reason to believe” facilitates distribution of child pornography, under companion bills by Rep. Lamar Smith and Sen. John Cornyn, Republicans of Texas. The Internet SAFETY Act (HR-1076, S-436) also requires electronic communication service providers to store for two years all information identifying the user of a “temporarily assigned network address,” or so-called dynamic IP addresses. Anyone who “knowingly conducts, or attempts or conspires to conduct, a financial transaction … knowing that such transaction will facilitate access to, or the possession of, child pornography,” can be fined or imprisoned up to 20 years. “Internet content hosting providers” and “e-mail service providers” who do the same can get up to 10 years in prison. The definition of a hosting provider would appear to include any company that temporarily stores bits in transit, not necessarily just those that let users upload and store content. A broad range of criminal penalties involving child porn would be changed to allow for life prison terms and raise the minimum prison time available. The bills would authorize $30 million a year from fiscal 2010 through 2014 for the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative. John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, told us that Internet service providers would fall under the “facilitates access” language and could be criminally liable for child porn crossing their networks. “As such, the bill language is extraordinarily overbroad and almost certainly unconstitutional,” he said.