The Department of Justice has sent numerous demands for information about Comcast’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal to companies in various sectors, asking many questions about programming seen on TV and over the Internet and set-top boxes and for several years’ worth of data, industry executives and lawyers said. They said the civil investigative demands (CIDs) appear to have been sent out in several batches, and some responses have recently been submitted to DOJ’s Antitrust Division. That office, with the FCC, is reviewing the multibillion dollar deal (CD July 9 p1) OR (CED June 17 p5) OR (WID May 6 p6). Some recipients said they regard the information demands as excessive because of the detail sought, sometimes down to the ZIP-code level, and the various years covered.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to circulate within the next few weeks a long-awaited order on location accuracy rules for wireless, based on proposals by AT&T and Verizon Wireless and incorporating changes sought in by T-Mobile, industry and FCC officials said. Last week, The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) filed a letter at the commission endorsing the tweaks sought in a June 16 letter by T-Mobile to AT&T’s proposal for GSM-based carriers. The Public Safety Bureau has started to brief eighth-floor officials on the order.
An impasse over FCC treatment of two types of FM stations whose representatives have been at odds was resolved late Thursday by the groups most active at the commission on the issue. That may resolve a standoff between owners of the two kinds of stations, because others are expected to support the agreement between the Educational Media Foundation, with hundreds of FM translators, and the Prometheus Radio Project, a low-power FM (LPFM) group, communications lawyers said. It may also get the commission to act on whether to cap at 10 the translator applications it will process from any filer in a 2003 window for which several thousands of requests remain pending, they said.
GENEVA -- European countries floated common proposals on satellite registration, allocation of IPv6 resources and environmental metrics for possible changes to ITU policies at a quadrennial conference in October. About 30 of the 48 countries in the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations agreed to each of the proposals.
Comcast made new diversity commitments relating to the NBC Universal deal, including a promise to put $20 million into a venture capital fund. In a letter to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and statements Thursday at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing in Chicago, Comcast executives emphasized increasing the presence of blacks and other minorities in employment and programs. The concessions came after criticisms by Rush and other members of Congress, as well as civil rights groups, of a lack of diversity at the two companies. Meanwhile, a new coalition, mostly of long-time foes of the deal, has formed.
A Colorado mountain town asked the state utility commission to force Qwest to bring it the same fiber service the company delivers to the state’s other 63 county seats. Acting in concert with San Juan County, Silverton petitioned the commission for an order requiring Qwest, under threat of financial penalty, to complete a fiber line that now stops 16 miles short of that town, the county seat. The petitioners sent a letter to NTIA and members of Congress impugning Qwest’s candidacy to participate in the broadband stimulus program because the telco hasn’t done what it said it would do in Colorado.
House Commerce Committee Republicans criticized the high cost of subsidies under the Universal Service Fund, saying the FCC needs to forget about net neutrality and concentrate on fixing “antiquated voice service subsidies.” That came after the release of information provided to the committee by the commission in response to a June 15 request from Chairman Henry Waxman of California, Ranking Member Joe Barton of Texas, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher of Virginia and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Cliff Stearns of Florida.
The FCC should expand its media ownership studies to include research on several types of agreements between TV stations within a market to share news, personnel and equipment, all the comments on the coming work said. The American Cable Association (ACA), Free Press and nine nonprofits critical of media consolidation pointed to sharing agreements in filings posted Wednesday and Thursday to docket 09-182. Shared-services agreements, local marketing agreements and local news services were mentioned. TV executives have predicted additional deals of this kind and said they let stations air more news than they could on their own (CD Oct 28 p4).
Carriers face “economic” regulation if not “price” regulation under the broadband classification scheme proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski as the “third way” alternative, Commissioner Robert McDowell said Thursday. McDowell told a Phoenix Center conference on the broadband gap that uncertainty in the markets increased right after Genachowski’s speech in September when he announced the commission would move forward on net neutrality rules.
Telcos and cable companies would pay the same rates as each other for attaching to utility companies’ poles under proposed FCC rules, but whether other aspects of the rules for attachments represent a change or a codification of current practice is unclear, lawyers said in a Law Seminars International briefing Wednesday. The order and further rulemaking follows through on chapter six of the National Broadband Plan, they said.