Netflix and Cogent deliberately sent Internet traffic down channels that couldn’t handle the load, to try to secure free interconnection, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen alleged Wednesday on a conference call. It was held to publicize Comcast’s reply comments (http://bit.ly/Y8xgIm) filed Tuesday at the FCC in docket 14-57 in response to petitions to deny its proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable.
The FTC can help mobile app privacy by boosting consumer education and industry guidelines, app developers told Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen during a Google Hangout hosted Wednesday by the Application Developers Alliance. Developers said during the Q&A with small app developers that truly effective privacy policies will come only with high consumer demand and clear signals from the FTC.
The FCC is putting its emphasis on measurement and accountability as industry develops standards for cybersecurity, David Simpson, chief of the Public Safety Bureau, told the FCC Communications Security, Reliability & Interoperability Council Wednesday at CSRIC’s quarterly meeting. Simpson said industry must not “leave the public short” and accept “unacceptable degrees of risk."
The FCC will explore making permanent the interim cap on interstate inmate calling rates the agency set last year, as well as imposing a new cap on intrastate rates, under a Further NPRM to be circulated Thursday, senior commission officials told us. They said the draft FNPRM tentatively concludes that inmate calling service (ICS) providers’ payments to correctional facilities should be banned. Providers and inmate groups have cited the payments as a significant factor in driving up rates.
Large programmers asked the FCC for protections like what the Department of Justice uses, beyond the joint protective orders of programming contract information used in the commission’s review of Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable. CBS, Discovery, Viacom and other programmers asked for the protection last week, said a memorandum Tuesday on a meeting with the programmers and agency staff last week (http://bit.ly/1rnhFjU). An FCC official wrote the memo. LIN Television, Sinclair and other broadcasters made a similar request Monday (CD Sept 23 p7). The Media Bureau opened a comment period on the issues raised by the programmers and broadcasters, with comments due Sept. 26, said a public notice (http://bit.ly/1DxynSI).
FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel attacked their agency’s approach to net neutrality, as did Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., Wednesday at a net neutrality forum Matsui convened in Sacramento. She styled the meeting like a hearing, with Clyburn and Rosenworcel, both Democrats, sitting alongside her in the role of lawmakers, questioning five witnesses who all strongly defended net neutrality protections. The proceedings will be part of House Commerce Committee record.
Executives who are members of Communications Security, Reliability & Interoperability Council (CSRIC) Working Group 4 said they're optimistic about ongoing FCC efforts to improve the communications sector’s cyber-risk management. Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson said during an FCBA event Tuesday night that FCC work on cybersecurity via CSRIC and other efforts “won’t be a recipe for perfection,” but he hopes it will improve the resiliency of 911 and other communications networks. “I think we'll see that in the outage reports” and other data, he said. Working Group 4 updated CSRIC Wednesday on its work to adapt the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector use. (See separate report in this issue.) Working Group 4 Co-Chairman Robert Mayer had told us before the CSRIC meeting that the group had made “substantial progress” on that work (CD Sept 24 p4).
FirstNet seeks comment on how to interpret key provisions of the spectrum law enacted in 2012, which enabled the launch of the long-awaited wireless broadband network for first responders. Among the questions, FirstNet seeks to better define its relationship with the wireless industry. FirstNet’s notice and request for comment was published in the Federal Register Wednesday and seeks comment by Oct. 24 (http://1.usa.gov/1xfEU2W).
The federal government is taking the necessary steps to reform its spectrum policy through several efforts, like incentive auctions and assessing possibilities for spectrum sharing, said government officials Tuesday at the Brookings Institution. Spectrum sharing, incentive auctions, potential for unlicensed spectrum, and reallocating public spectrum can provide opportunities for growth in better utilized spectrum, said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. While spectrum has been shared over different kinds of users, “recent advances in communications technology promise dramatic increases in the intensity and dynamism of sharing,” he said. All communications devices autonomously negotiating shared use of common spectrum will be a boon to innovation across all sectors, he said.
A summary judgment ruling for pre-1972 public performance royalties against SiriusXM in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday could strengthen the argument for the full federalization of such royalties, said congressional members and music industry officials Tuesday. Judge Philip Gutierrez said California’s copyright laws include the “exclusive right to publicly perform” copyrighted sound recordings, and that SiriusXM broke that law by failing to license and compensate recordings by Flo & Eddie. The ruling came in a 15-page decision (http://bit.ly/1wKCoyz). The sound recordings of The Turtles, a music group from the 1960s, are owned by Flo & Eddie and were the subject of the lawsuit.