ICANN’s major constituencies and stakeholder groups, including the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), will seek clarification on its accountability process released Aug. 14 (http://bit.ly/1vdRn3j) (CD Aug 20 p3), they said in a draft letter advanced to us. It’s addressed to ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade and the ICANN board, including Chairman Steve Crocker.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday said he’s appointing Scott Jordan, who has done significant amounts of research on net neutrality, the agency’s chief technology officer, replacing Henning Schulzrinne. Industry officials said Schulzrinne has been active in policy formation at the FCC and sat in on numerous meetings they have attended. One carrier official predicted Tuesday that Jordan also will play an active pole in policy discussions at the agency.
A lobbying frenzy surrounding the Senate Commerce Committee draft of Satellite Television Localism and Extension Act reauthorization legislation is heating up ahead of its September release and markup. Industry officials are obsessing -- even during the long August recess -- over the many possible items the STELA bill may include, notably a bipartisan proposal from committee leadership to end TV blackouts by overhauling retransmission consent rules. The proposal was circulated this month and known as Local Choice (CD Aug 13 p4; Aug 11 p12).
AgeCheq believes it has a technological solution for the problem of obtaining parental consent for apps, websites and third-party advertisers to collect children’s information. But the Center for Digital Democracy is dismissing AgeCheq’s proposal as a “marketing ploy.” Monday, the FTC requested comment on AgeCheq’s verifiable parental consent (VPC) method application, opening it up to public scrutiny until the Sept. 30 comment deadline (http://1.usa.gov/VOjSHZ).
Critics of Comcast’s deal to buy Time Warner Cable are making “discredited arguments” that “don’t have any merit” said Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen in a blog post responding (http://bit.ly/1p9Ffk7) to comments filed in docket 14-57 Monday (http://bit.ly/1wthpno). The deadline was 11:59 p.m. for comments on the transaction.
Gigabit broadband deployment has made “enormous progress” over the past 12 months, including a “radical change” in incumbent ISPs’ involvement in broadband development, but more work is necessary through 2015 and 2016 to accelerate growth, Gig.U said Monday in a report. Founded in 2011 to encourage next-generation broadband deployment at research universities and elsewhere, Gig.U said a combination of its and others’ efforts have resulted in a “new dynamic” in the market.
Net neutrality rules and the emphasis on ISPs will lead to an Internet market that is less free rather than more so, former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Fred Campbell argued in a new blog post. The weakness of the FCC’s approach is it focuses “entirely on ISPs,” said Campbell, now executive director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology (http://bit.ly/1rvcWi0). The FCC launched a rulemaking in May proposing revised net neutrality rules (CD May 16 p1).
Concerns raised by rival Neustar about naming Telcordia the next Local Number Portability Administrator (LPNA) have already been addressed, Telcordia said in its final reply comments. To the extent that issues like Telcordia’s ability to stay neutral, protect the security of the network from intrusion and work effectively with law enforcement agencies remain unaddressed, they can be dealt with after the FCC formally awards it the contract, said Telcordia’s filing (http://bit.ly/1vGSFny), posted on Monday.
Prognostications about a looming spectrum crunch overstate the public’s demand for wireless spectrum, said a paper co-authored by a doctoral student at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. It concluded there’s unmistakable “evidence of persistent errors in projections of wireless demand,” but such faulty estimates “remain the basis for policy direction, and their underlying accuracy has not been evaluated in a systematic manner."
The FCC wants more information from Charter Communications, Comcast and Time Warner Cable on their cable systems, subscribers, dealings with other companies and many other details, said letters sent to the companies from Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake (http://bit.ly/1toXNNC). The bureau requires “additional information, documents and clarifications of certain matters” to decide whether Comcast’s (http://bit.ly/1njTwoH) plan to buy TWC (http://bit.ly/VIb1YD) and its companion divestiture to Charter (http://bit.ly/1q2W0wc) is in the public interest, Lake said Thursday. The companies have to Sept. 11 to provide the data. The initial comment period for the deal ends Monday, and more than 60,000 comments were filed in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/YKaXt7), said the FCC website.