Nexstar Broadcasting Chairman Perry Sook expects no movement, and certainly nothing “deleterious,” to broadcasters happening in the context of incentive spectrum auctions in 2011, he told investors during the company’s Q4 earnings teleconference Thursday. “In this budget climate, there would be a faction of Congress wholly uninterested in sharing any auction proceeds with broadcasters.” Indications from leaders on the Commerce committees are that Congress wants to move ahead with a spectrum inventory before taking up auction proposals, he said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture revived its broadband loan program, with new interim rules that department officials said will eliminate the kind of waste cited by the USDA’s inspector general last month. Congress is still debating the budget and a federal government shutdown looms, but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a conference call with reporters Thursday that “hundreds of millions of dollars” in unspent funds have been left over from the original broadband loan program that was first authorized in 2002. A government official told us that anywhere from $446 million to $700 million could be available. “Obviously we're keeping an eye on Congress relative to the flexibility they'll give us on the budget,” Vilsack told reporters.
Google TV missed the boat in first-generation products that launched in October by not understanding what the consumer wants, said panelists at the NexGen Entertainment Home Experience panel at the Digital Hollywood 2011 Media Summit in Manhattan Wednesday. The platform should come back strong in subsequent generations, assuming Google addresses issues that limited its appeal the first time out, panelists said. But Google’s stab at an undefined, fast-moving target shows how far the entertainment industry has to go in defining the home entertainment experience of the future.
Recent GPS industry efforts to drum up support and interest in the LightSquared proceeding aren’t expected to hurt the LightSquared working group process, said LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs Jeff Carlisle in an interview. GPS interests announced Thursday they would form a new group to increase awareness of potential interference problems and a Trimble Navigation executive will take up the issue in Congressional testimony Friday (CD March 10 p7).
CenturyLink and Qwest promised that if their proposed deal is approved by the FCC, the new company will offer discount broadband with download speeds of at least 12 Mbps to 60 percent of their customers within seven years of the transaction being completed. The merged company will also phase out accepting federal support for local switching by 2014, forgo federal safety net additive payments and come up with a plan to freeze interstate common line support “on a per-line basis” by the beginning of 2012, CenturyLink and Qwest said. Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff has been working on an order approving the transaction for at least two weeks, FCC officials said. Qwest spokesman Tom McMahon said the letter is the product of meetings with “FCC staff and the chairman’s office over a number of days, and we believe they reflect what the FCC will find to be in the public interest.”
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Both houses of an ill-informed Congress this year probably will pass cybersecurity legislation that’s too burdensome for business, to overcompensate for inaction the past 10 years, said President Larry Clinton of the Internet Security Alliance. The organization includes Verizon, Symantec, VeriSign, SAIC and the National Association of Manufacturers.
NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow is going to work for Comcast, with the title of president of Comcast/NBC Universal in Washington, the cable association and the No. 1 U.S. cable operator confirmed Wednesday afternoon. Comcast is the biggest member of the NCTA. McSlarrow said in November that he was leaving the cable association, where he’s held the top job since 2005. Those close to him at the time had said he hoped to work as an executive in the cable industry, and some had speculated he'd go to Comcast.
The House Communications Subcommittee approved a bill to overturn the FCC net neutrality rule from December, over protests by Democrats. Dividing by party Wednesday afternoon, the committee voted 15-8 in favor of a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act authored by Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. Democrats held up the vote by flooding the markup with seven amendments. Walden rejected them because he said resolutions under the CRA statute are not subject to amendment. In a new development, GOP-sought witness RapidDSL admitted to slowing Netflix on its network. A Netflix spokesman said, “Consumers should be able to receive what they want over the Internet."
A Justice Department official called on Congress to reauthorize three key provisions in the Patriot Act set to expire in May, including one that allows quick shifting of phone taps from one carrier to another. The testimony came Wednesday during a hearing by the House Judiciary Committee’s Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security subcommittee.
National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin said the speech by his old boss, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, announcing the plan was effective in winning short-term publicity but “muddied the waters for the universal service debate” because it focused on speed goals.