A bill further criminalizing P2P file sharing (CED April 1 p4) that cleared a House subcommittee late Wed. won’t be changed to address liability concerns of ISPs, its author told us. HR- 4077 by House Judiciary Courts, Internet & Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R-Tex.), lowers the prosecution threshold when a P2P user is sharing 1,000 or more files, and ISPs such as Verizon have argued that they could be ensnared as an enabler to the file-sharing. But Smith, in an interview following his subcommittee’s voice-vote approval of his bill, dismissed that fear.

The Journal of Commerce (JoC) reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) may face a manpower problem as it begins to enforce export compliance as well as import. According to JoC, the Trade Act of 2002 requires exporters to go through roughly the same advance-reporting requirements as importers but the number of CBP inspectors on the export side is currently outnumbered more than 10 to 1 by the import staff. (JoC Pub 03/29 -04/04/04 www.joc.com)

A bill further criminalizing P2P file sharing that cleared a House subcommittee late Wed. won’t be changed to address liability concerns of ISPs, its author told us. HR- 4077 by House Judiciary Courts, Internet & Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R-Tex.), lowers the prosecution threshold when a P2P user is sharing 1,000 or more files, and ISPs such as Verizon have argued that they could be ensnared as an enabler to the file-sharing. But Smith, in an interview following his subcommittee’s voice- vote approval of his bill, dismissed that fear.

Public safety groups urged the FCC in comments this week to expand the scope of Enhanced 911 requirements to include multi-line telephone systems (MLTS). The issue of how to provide caller location information to 911 centers from MLTS systems is among issues the Network Reliability & Interoperability said this week it would consider under a new 2-year charter (CD March 31 p6). But the Ad Hoc Telecom Users Committee backed an FCC decision last year to not enact E911 rules for MLTS, arguing states have clear jurisdiction and are a logical place for the issue to be resolved.

Local TV broadcasters should reap the benefits of increased political ad spending in 2004, particularly in 17 swing states where spending is already on the rise, according to Legg Mason analysts. Analysts Blair Levin and Sean Butson said the Bush-Kerry battle was playing out to broadcasters’ benefit: (1) Because Kerrey secured his primary win early, this is expected to be the longest general election campaign ever. (2) Bush and Kerrey opted out of govt. campaign spending limits during the primary season. “That’s good news for broadcasters,” Levin said. The analysts raised their predictions for political ad spending to about $1 billion from $920 million.

FCC Chmn. Powell defended himself against vague accusations that the FCC “intimidated” broadcasters to prevent them from challenging FCC fines, during a hearing on the FCC’s budget Wed. House Appropriations Commerce Justice State ranking Democrat Serrano (N.Y.) also implied that the FCC pressured Clear Channel to drop Howard Stern from its 6 stations that carried the program. Powell defended the FCC’s actions on indecency, denied any role in Clear Channel’s decision and asked Serrano for more specifics, saying Serrano was making “ethical accusations.”

NextWave recently filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, White Plains, N.Y., the terms of settlement agreements that entail it paying $1.25 million to NY Telecom and Eldorado Communications. The court approved the agreements last week. One agreement involved NY Telecom and Eldorado challenging NextWave’s compliance with its 5-year buildout requirements. After the Commission returned NextWave’s previously cancelled PCS licenses, the bankrupt carrier made initial construction filings for most of its C-block licenses. One issue raised during the proceeding was whether an earlier settlement agreement reached by the FCC, NextWave and the Jan. 2001 PCS re-auction winners gave NextWave additional time to meet certain construction requirements. NY Telecom argued NextWave missed its buildout deadlines. NextWave had argued that the clock stopped on its buildout requirements during the period when the FCC had cancelled its licenses and before the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., ruled otherwise. During the period covered by the original FCC agreement, which expired Dec. 31, 2001, when Congress didn’t act, the clock had also stopped, NextWave argued. The FCC Wireless Bureau agreed with that interpretation last year (CD March 4/03 p1) and NY Telecom sought full FCC review. NextWave paid NY Telecom and Eldorado $1.23 million under the settlement terms for the tolling challenge. NY Telecom and Eldorado also settled with NextWave their challenge of a Feb. 13, 2004, FCC order authorizing NextWave to assign certain licenses to Cingular. In Sept. the Bankruptcy Court approved the NextWave-Cingular spectrum sale, contingent on FCC approval, which came in Feb. NY Telecom (NYT) had appealed that FCC decision to the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C. NextWave paid the firms $25,000 to settle that challenge. The Bankruptcy Court approved a NextWave filing that sought permission to settle the claims related to the Cingular license transfer. “Both NextWave and NYT have spent significantly more time and expense on litigation and other contested proceedings than either would have ever thought possible when their respective businesses were formed,” NextWave told the court. NextWave said it would continue to maximize the value of its assets for creditors. “However, where, as here, disputes that have been ongoing for several years in multiple forums can be resolved on a reasonable basis -- thereby avoiding further litigation and its attendant expense -- then it is in the best interest of the estates to achieve such resolution.” The agreements to settle pending matters involve all disputes and challenges between NYT and NextWave, the filing said. NY Telecom and Eldorado made separate filings at the FCC and the D.C. Circuit seeking dismissal of its challenges. For the settlement of disputes on the FCC challenge, the $25,000 that was part of the agreement represented the legal expenses NYT and Eldorado incurred pursuing the challenges.

On March 24, 2004, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on the state of maritime security, focusing on the impact of security efforts on maritime commerce, and the additional measures that may be needed to further enhance maritime transportation security.

The United South & Eastern Tribes (USET) objected at the FCC recently to what the group said was a wireless industry request that tribal provisions be taken out of a pending national programmatic agreement (NPA) on tower siting. USET said industry representatives also have raised “noise objections” to a voluntary best practices agreement for tower siting on which the FCC has been working with USET for the past year. A draft NPA has been designed to streamline the review of tower siting decisions under Sec. 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Wireless carriers earlier this month had told the FCC they were concerned about the scope of compliance requirements and FCC responsibilities that might be part of the NPA concerning tribal participation procedures as laid out in the best practices document. Requirements on applicants that entailed “unnecessary” delay or expense could be avoided if the NPA were adopted without the section on tribal participation to allow further development of this language, the wireless industry filing said. USET balked at this suggestion. “After making a tremendous effort to provide comments and to consult with the FCC, USET objects strongly to the notion that the programmatic agreement should now go forward without tribal provisions,” it said: “Why should our matters be dismissed after so much work, to be resolved at some uncertain date in the future, if at all? Tribal sites are just as important as other sites.” USET said it would be “deeply troubled” by a decision to leave tribes out of the NPA. “The voluntary best practices that USET has been developing with the FCC is an effort to draft a set of guidelines that would help both applicants and tribes to achieve their goals in a timely fashion,” it said.

Even as FCC Comr. Copps again Fri. said the agency needs to be “actively ensuring” that no bottlenecks are formed on the Internet, a leading advocate in the “network neutrality” movement said the less-aggressive position taken last month by Chmn. Powell might be sufficient. Copps, MCI Senior Vp Vinton Cerf and Stanford U. Prof. Lawrence Lessig pitched their network neutrality arguments Fri. to an audience of Capitol Hill staff at a forum co-sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America and the Stanford Law Center for Internet and Society.