As Congress considers updating communications law, some want extreme changes. Comments on the committee’s first Communications Act update white paper were due Friday. Several commenters posted or shared their comments with us, and the House Commerce Committee posted them Wednesday at the #CommActUpdate section of its website (http://1.usa.gov/1lBg6gN). House Republicans have said they want to update the Communications Act over the next two years.
LA JOLLA, Calif. -- CEA’s “official policy” is that net neutrality “is a good thing,” but CEA President Gary Shapiro has a “more nuanced” view of the net neutrality debate, and he thinks the debate is obscuring “bigger” issues like the spectrum shortage, he said in a keynote Wednesday at the “INFLECTIONPoint 2014” conference sponsored by search marketing agency Covario. Contrary to CEA’s official position on net neutrality, Shapiro said, “I have no problem charging people for greater bandwidth usage,” as long as those people have a competitive choice in Internet providers. But bottom line, Shapiro said, is that “I don’t get excited” about the net neutrality debate “the way people do passionately on both sides.”
Consumer groups representing the hearing impaired don’t agree with NAB, NCTA and others on the technical challenges posed by a proposal to require closed captioning for video clips, according to comments filed in response to a Media Bureau public notice on the topic. The notice was issued after consumer groups filed a petition of reconsideration against the FCC’s IP closed captioning order because it didn’t include rules for captioning clips (CD April 19 p11). Since many local and national video programming distributors (VPDs) caption all their news clips, there’s little reason to expect others to face “technical barriers” doing so, said Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc. (TDI) and seven other consumer groups in a joint filing. The FCC shouldn’t “undermine the success of its IP closed captioning rules by imposing a video clips captioning requirement that would match or exceed the complexity and cost of captioning full-length programming,” said the Digital Media Association.
Federal agencies remain underprepared to defend their own information systems against most cyberthreats, said Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee Tuesday. Committee Republicans, led by ranking member Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a report outlining “real lapses by the federal government” on internal cybersecurity, even as the government has taken on a larger role in protecting the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure components. Cybersecurity experts told us that federal agencies need to improve their own cybersecurity, but said the report doesn’t give a complete picture of the situation, and risks politicizing the cybersecurity issue.
A new coalition representing the broadcast industry plans to even out the debate on retransmission consent negotiations, and is receiving some criticism from representatives in the multichannel video programming distributor community. The coalition of 23 members, including NAB, the affiliate groups of CBS, Fox and NBC began Tuesday as was expected (CD Feb 4 p18). Other members include multicaster Bounce TV, Dispatch Broadcast Group, Journal Broadcast Group, mobile DTV group Mobile 500 Alliance, Northwest Broadcasting and the Television Bureau of Advertising.
If the branches of government don’t resolve phone surveillance concerns about Patriot Act Section 215, the section may expire without renewal, House Judiciary Committee members told a Justice Department official at a hearing Tuesday. The committee questioned Deputy Attorney General James Cole and representatives from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and an independent surveillance review group appointed by President Barack Obama last year.
The wireless industry asked the FCC to move forward on proposals to make wireless siting faster, especially in light of upcoming spectrum auctions that will require additional buildout. The FCC began a rulemaking in September (CD Sept 27 p10) on speeding wireless siting, especially for distributed antenna systems and small cells. Local government groups are raising concerns about the loss of local control on zoning decisions (CD Feb 4 p11). The FCC logged nearly 100 comments in the initial comment cycle. Industry officials said work on the NPRM presents FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler with a series of issues that will inevitably prove controversial.
The White House education initiative, ConnectED, will bring more than $500 million of private funding to enhance the broadband and technological capabilities of schools across the country, President Barack Obama said Tuesday. “This is something we can do without waiting for Congress,” Obama said at a Maryland middle school. “We picked up the phone and we started asking some outstanding business leaders to help bring our schools and libraries into the 21st century.” Obama expanded on the “down payment” he hinted at in last week’s State of the Union Address (CD Jan 29 bulletin; Jan 30 p6). Carriers and technology companies will donate as much as $100 million each in free iPads and wireless service to low-income students, or teacher training to make the most of the new technologies.
New holders of low-power FM construction permits have a challenging road ahead as they move forward with building facilities and getting stations on the air, said some LPFM advocates and an attorney in interviews Monday. Out of more than 2,800 applications filed, the FCC Media Bureau granted 600 construction permits, a spokeswoman said. The advocates said they're impressed with the pace of issuing construction permits.
Top Democrats in both chambers of Congress introduced net neutrality legislation Monday, as expected, to restore the court-blocked FCC net neutrality rules. The Open Internet Preservation Act, HR-3982 in the House, has several original co-sponsors, the bill’s authors said. Several lobbyists representing varying industries -- some in favor of the net neutrality regulations and some not -- told us last week that any bill involving net neutrality would have little chance to make it through Congress due to the intense partisanship surrounding the issue (CD Feb 3 p5).