Tea Party gains in the November election would mean more opposition to the FCC from Congress on net neutrality and other regulations for industry, Tea Party supporters said. “Any change in the composition of the House and Senate is only going to exacerbate that friction between [FCC Chairman Julius] Genachowski and Congress,” said Wayne Brough, chief economist of FreedomWorks, a Tea-Party organizer in Washington. CompTel CEO Jerry James said competitive local exchange carriers are watching the Tea Party movement, “as well as other changes potentially resulting from the mid-term elections that may impact telecom policy going forwards.”
Marketing and media trade associations’ creation of an icon to give consumers control over the collection and use of their data is a step in the right direction but may not be enough to improve consumer trust, some privacy advocates said. The Direct Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other groups are educating their members about the Advertising Option Icon, a feature that can be displayed near online ads and on Web pages where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The icon leads consumers to disclosure statements regarding a company’s advertising data collection and features an opt-out mechanism.
The FCC should “peel away” some of the least contentious problems in a Universal Service Fund overhaul “instead of trying to boil the ocean,” Frontier Chairman Maggie Wilderotter told us Monday. Wilderotter was in town for an unrelated conference but met Monday morning with Chairman Julius Genachowski’s chief of staff, Eddie Lazarus. She said the commission could more easily tackle problems like phantom traffic. “That’s a big area they could clear up,” she said. “They have the authority to do that tomorrow” by subjecting all calls, even Internet voice, to USF charges and by changing the formula so it reflects the actual costs of service.
Verizon Wireless overcharged more than 15 million Americans tens of millions of dollars in unwarranted fees for data use, the FCC Enforcement Bureau found in an investigation, Bureau Chief Michele Ellison said in a statement. The carrier said it will repay subscribers money they don’t owe, but Ellison sharply criticized the company for having responded slowly when complaints emerged last year.
The FCC appears likely to extend an emergency alerting deadline for cable systems and radio and TV stations to start using a newly released warning standard made public last week by FEMA (CD Oct 1 p12) after several delays of its own, commission and industry officials predicted. Under current FCC rules, broadcasters and cable operators must certify compliance with Common Alerting Protocol 180 days after the standard was released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last Thursday. The regulator seems poised to delay that deadline, perhaps for several months and either for all who would be subject to CAP compliance or for those licensees who say they can’t meet the deadline, FCC and industry officials said.
Harbinger Capital Partners will sell a large chunk of its stake in Inmarsat and is no longer interested in acquiring the company, the private investment firm said Monday. Harbinger sought to buy in 2008 but pulled back after regulatory hurdles proved too high. The firm, which owns 28 percent of Inmarsat, didn’t give a reason for the sell-off. Harbinger’s LightSquared separately said it would accelerate plans to use Inmarsat spectrum for its wholesale terrestrial wireless network based on early demand.
The role managed services already play on broadband networks has gotten muddled in the net neutrality debate, panelists said Friday at a discussion hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Forum. Speakers said competition is thriving but quality of service (QoS) issues will continue to get significant attention as the net neutrality debate continues in Congress and at the FCC.
Dish Network subscribers lost access to a variety of regional sports networks (RSN) last week as the direct broadcast satellite operator failed to sign new contracts with Fox Sports and Madison Square Garden networks. It asked the FCC to step into the latter dispute and preserve its carriage of MSG’s networks while the agency considers its program access complaint. The programmers, meanwhile, are urging subscribers to switch providers. Dish’s contract to carry 19 Fox Sports RSNs, FX and the National Geographic Channel expired Sept. 30, and it’s advertising online and in print to call viewers to action. Fox is telling Dish subscribers they may also lose access to Fox-owned Fox and MyNetworkTV stations Nov. 1 if a new deal isn’t reached. Dish continues to negotiate with both Fox and MSG, a spokeswoman said.
They're new opportunities as smart grid technology pairs telcos with energy companies, but there are also emerging fault lines and energy companies might well become the next big players in telco lobbying, executives said. “Electric utilities are the sleeping giants here,” e-Copernicus principal and former Rural Utilities Service administrator Chris McLean said.
Standards bodies like 3GPP and carriers may have different interpretations of 4G, but they all consider things like spectrum efficiency and latency to be critical elements of the technology, experts said in interviews. Meanwhile, public safety has its own approach on 4G, public safety experts told us.