The telecom market isn’t “uniformly competitive, due to the industry’s history of government-sanctioned monopolies,” Sprint warned the House in comments on overhauling the Communications Act. “While there is remarkable diversity in terms of service providers, network architectures, and customer markets, there remain key choke points that impact the operation of the entire ecosystem.” Sprint insisted any rewrite of the Communications Act “preserve and promote interconnection rights and obligations” and maintain access to “critical competitive inputs” and “carefully tailored regulatory oversight and safeguards.” It pointed to a “handful” of companies that still control the bulk of the market. Comments were due to the House Commerce Committee Friday (CD Feb 3 p8).
A controversial Kansas Senate bill that would block municipalities from creating their own networks ran into a speed bump Monday when the chairwoman of the state’s Senate Commerce Committee canceled a hearing on the measure that had been scheduled for the next day. Chairwoman Julia Lynn is “communicating with representatives on each side and it’s clear we need to gather more information,” she told us by email. “This is a long and deliberative process, and I expect to see changes as we move forward. I believe that all groups and individuals should continue to present facts on issues” as it moves through the legislative process, added Lynn.
The FCC will invest an additional $2 billion in high-speed Internet for schools and libraries over the next two years, it said Monday in a news release. Chairman Tom Wheeler called it, in a statement, a “down-payment on the goal of 99 percent of America’s students having high-speed Internet connections within five years.” Wheeler will lay out more details at a “Digital Learning Day” at the Library of Congress Wednesday, the agency said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said it will move forward on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) crash avoidance systems that operate in the 5.850-5.925 GHz band, which is also being targeted by the FCC for Wi-Fi. The Monday move was not a surprise, since the spectrum had previously been dedicated by the FCC for use by V2V systems, industry sources said Monday. Last year, in remarks to CES, then Chairman Julius Genachowski suggested the spectrum could also be used for Wi-Fi on a secondary basis. Automotive industry officials told us soon after that pronouncement that they were deeply concerned about the proposal (CD Jan 16 p1).
Local government groups, as expected, are protesting proposed rule changes from the FCC designed to cut red tape on the deployment of distributed antenna systems and small cells (CD Jan 24 p3). The FCC approved an NPRM in September (CD Sept 27 p10) on speeding wireless siting, and comments were due Monday. The FCC asked a battery of questions as it implements a requirement in the 2012 spectrum law, which says “a State or local government may not deny, and shall approve, any eligible facilities request for a modification of an existing wireless tower or base station that does not substantially change the physical dimensions of such tower or base station."
Netflix lost 1.3 million DVD subscribers in 2013, compared with a loss of 3 million DVD subscribers the prior year, bringing the total number of disc-by-mail subscribers to 6.93 million on Dec. 31, the company said in an SEC filing. DVD revenue fell 20 percent to $911 million. Netflix called the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s reversal of FCC net neutrality rules last month a risk factor. It has warned shareholders about that, though saying it sees little short-term change among ISPs (CD Jan 24 p1).
An FCC move to make TV joint services agreements (JSAs) attributable at the same level they are in radio would be unpopular with broadcasters but is unlikely to cause widespread divestitures or end the practice of using pacts like JSAs to get around ownership rules, said broadcast attorneys in interviews Friday. Such a rule “would be a good first step” for the public interest groups that oppose such sharing arrangements, said Free Press Policy Counsel Lauren Wilson. “We wouldn’t see that as the end."
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated Thursday the FCC is working on a new set of principles to help guide companies in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s Jan. 14 decision rejecting the agency’s 2010 net neutrality rules. Wheeler also indicated following the commission’s monthly meeting that all options are still on the table (CD Jan 31 p13). But industry observers said Friday it remains unclear what these new principles would look like and how they would be received by parties on both sides of the net neutrality debate.
Top Democrats in the Senate and House plan to introduce a net neutrality bill as soon as Monday, a media industry lobbyist told us last week. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., authored the legislation, the lobbyist said. Both members have strongly defended the net neutrality rules and slammed the January U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision striking down FCC net neutrality rules. A second industry official confirmed that Democrats are working on a bill, naming Markey as well as House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.
Frontier Communications’ $2 billion purchase of AT&T’s Connecticut wireline business is unlikely to mean major telcos are prepared to sell off similar statewide assets en masse, said industry experts in interviews. But they said telcos could consider similar deals in the future if it makes sense from a business perspective. Frontier said in December it’s buying AT&T’s wireline residential and business services in Connecticut, including that state’s portion of AT&T’s fiber network, as well as its U-verse video customers and some satellite-TV customers. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2014 (CD Dec 18 p9).