The same logic that tanked AT&T/T-Mobile could kill any attempted Sprint purchase of T-Mobile, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told an Economic Club of Washington, D.C. luncheon Tuesday. The government “shot our deal down” with its complaint that the industry was being consolidated from four national competitors to three (CD Dec 20/11 p1), said Stephenson, who thinks the Comcast/Time Warner Cable will go through.
Congressional Democrats introduced bicameral legislation Tuesday that would end paid prioritization deals. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., released the bill, attracting some industry pushback as well as praise from consumer advocates. After approving, on a party-line vote, a net neutrality NPRM last month that critics said would allow fast lines, the FCC now is looking into interconnection deals between ISPs and websites like Netflix (CD June 17 p2).
Senate Commerce Committee leaders are making progress on a Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization bill draft, the source of much industry anxiety (CD June 9 p1), but decline for now to set any release dates, they said in interviews at the Capitol Tuesday. STELA expires at the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes it, and Commerce and Judiciary committees in both chambers have jurisdiction.
An order requiring video clips on the Internet to be closed captioned is planned to be part of the agenda for the FCC July 11 meeting, agency officials told us Tuesday. Chairman Tom Wheeler said as much during a speech last week at the M-Enabling Summit (http://bit.ly/1p18o0D), said Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Executive Director Claude Stout. Though several FCC officials confirmed that an IP clip closed caption rule is planned for the meeting, they said no prospective rule has yet been circulated, and with extensive recent ex parte filings in docket 11-154 (http://bit.ly/1lwfbOo) from NAB, NCTA and others, it’s not yet clear what form an eventual rule would take. The Media Bureau under Wheeler has been thought to be working on an order for a vote this summer (CD March 7 p5).
Netflix has stopped using on-screen messages to alert subscribers to video latency issues that the company claimed ISPs caused, but industry participants and observers told us they believe both content providers and ISPs should provide the public with data-driven information on interconnection issues. Netflix said last week that its “small scale test” of the latency messages would end Monday, soon after Verizon -- an ISPs referenced in the messages -- sent Netflix a cease-and-desist letter seeking an end to the messages (CD June 10 p14). Nondisclosure agreements mean “we outsiders cannot really tell whether Netflix properly complained about non-performance or unsatisfactory performance by Verizon,” said Pennsylvania State University telecom and law professor Rob Frieden.
Industry will soon get a timetable laying out in more detail FCC plans for the TV incentive auction, Gary Epstein, chair of the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force, told us Monday night, at an FCBA seminar on the auction. The FCC is reviewing the timeline and plans to make it public “reasonably soon,” Epstein said. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is pushing for an auction next year, following the AWS-3 auction, slated to start Nov. 13.
The FCC information collection on peering and interconnection practices could violate the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), industry observers said in interviews Monday. Chairman Tom Wheeler Friday announced he had directed staff to start gathering information from ISPs and content providers on what interconnection and peering agreements are in place (CD June 16 p1). The PRA applies to collections of information using identical questions posed to 10 or more persons.
Although there are just three remaining opinion dates this term for the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a decision in the Aereo case, those following the case told us they aren’t surprised a decision hasn’t yet been issued. Oral argument in the case was held April 22 (CD April 23 p1). “It was one of the last cases argued and it’s clearly a difficult case,” said Fletcher Heald copyright attorney Kevin Goldberg, who is not connected with the proceeding. “That’s a recipe for a decision on the last day of the term.”
Keep the FCC from reviewing and imposing conditions on mergers and acquisitions, AT&T told Congress Friday. House Commerce Committee leadership solicited comments on competition policy in a white paper issued last month, with a deadline of Friday. AT&T has proposed buying DirecTV, a deal currently under review by the FCC and Justice Department, as is Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable.
The FCC Electronic Comment Filing System continues to sag under the weight of tens of thousands of net neutrality filings, resulting in the unusually late posting of comments in the net neutrality and other dockets. Comments on competitive bidding procedures for the AWS-3 auction were due at the FCC June 9. None was posted on ECFS before Friday. Other dockets are seeing similar delays, with comments posted days after they hit the agency. AT&T filed its public interest statement on its proposed buy of DirecTV Wednesday (CD June 12 p8). It was made available on ECFS Monday (http://bit.ly/1siRexB).