Altice should adopt an interconnection policy that mirrors Charter Communications' as a condition for approval of its buy of Cablevision, Cogent said in an FCC ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 15-257 about a meeting between Cogent Chief Legal Officer Robert Beury and various FCC Office of General Counsel and Wireline Bureau staff. The very fact Altice and Cablevision didn't talk about post-merger interconnection policies in their application "was notable," as was that they "continued to avoid the issue" in subsequent reply comments, Cogent said. Altice instead seems to be uncommitted to the emerging consensus among major U.S. interconnecting broadband ISPs, and buying Cablevision would "give it a level of bargaining leverage that its recently consummated Suddenlink acquisition did not," Cogent said. The details of Altice's interconnection policy can be worked out, but "what matters most is that it reflect an unambiguous commitment to an interconnection protocol that will ensure robust connectivity for consumers and avoid the sort of congestion and packet loss that leads directly to degraded service," Cogent said. Absent some interconnection policy, the FCC should require at least that Altice disclose its interconnection arrangements to the agency for four years while regularly reporting different interconnection performance metrics, it said. "This serves a dual benefit of giving the Commission insight ... and, like any meaningful disclosure requirement, serves as a deterrent to problematic conduct." In a statement, Altice said it "look[s] to a fair and open regulatory process with the relevant authorities in connection with our proposed Cablevision transaction, and as in all of our other territories we expect to deliver significant benefits to consumers and their communities."
The Digital Living Network Alliance is “greening” its guidelines through mandates for the use of low-power modes across networked devices, DLNA said. A low-power requirement is now part of DLNA guidelines for subscription-TV streaming devices and other devices used for sharing personal content in the home, it said Tuesday. Other parts of the pay-TV and CE industries have likewise been working to cut energy use of devices (see 1506250038), as advocates want energy-efficiency rules for some devices (see 1508070059). It's "the first time that the power of the network has been harnessed to tackle the consumer electronics industry’s energy management challenge,” DLNA board member Stephen Palm emailed us. “As devices are added to a home network, instead of multiplying household energy usage, they will interact with other devices on the network to reduce overall power consumption beyond what is possible by focusing exclusively on the energy efficiency of individual devices." Most energy initiatives focused on improving the efficiency of individual TVs, set-top boxes, PCs, gaming consoles, routers and other devices. DLNA guidelines now mandate low-power modes for VidiPath-Certified Mobile Digital Media Server and Digital Media Renderer devices used to stream personal and subscription TV content, the alliance of CE companies said. DLNA ties together connected devices’ power-saving features and activities at the network’s application layer, improving the efficiency of these devices both individually and collectively, Palm said. More than 4 billion DLNA-certified devices are on the market, it said.
The FCC should affirm the continued certification of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable to regulate cable rates in Adams, MDTC said in an FCC filing. A petition by Time Warner Cable doesn't rebut MDTC's demonstration that effective competition isn't present in Adams, it said. The ZIP codes that TWC identifies in the proceeding don't contain residential households, MDTC said. Because of that, any DBS subscriptions in those ZIP codes are irrelevant to a determination of effective competition in those areas, it said. Even if the nonresidential subscriptions that TWC found were included in the effective competition calculation, the DBS penetration would still be under 15 percent, MDTC said. Only a few state and municipal interests challenged nationwide effective competition for cable operators, and those companies including TWC have been rebutting those challenges (see 1601110040 and 1601080019).
The FCC reminded small entities they can seek assistance on federal agency enforcement and compliance matters from the Small Business Administration's Office of the National Ombudsman. The office provides various forms of assistance, including a one-page form letter to facilitate written comments on "any complaints, suggestions, or compliments concerning a federal agency's enforcement action," an FCC news release said Tuesday.
The failure of the recently concluded World Radiocommunication Conference to work out any agreements on the future of the 600 MHz band, which the FCC will offer in the TV incentive auction, and its shortcomings on the 28 GHz band raise real questions about the viability of the entire process, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Friday in a blog post. O’Rielly, who spent most of the opening week in Geneva at WRC (see 1511050041), praised the efforts of the U.S. delegation under Decker Anstrom. “For a number of reasons, other countries prevented a global 600 MHz allocation, even going so far as trying to block any discussion of the band at WRC-15,” O’Rielly said. “They also barred the 28 GHz band from inclusion in the 5G feasibility studies. It is incomprehensible that even doing studies should be a non-starter or off the table. Science should dictate the efficient allocation of spectrum, not politics or international protectionism.” Making matters worse in the 600 MHz band was a decision that individual nations could support a mobile allocation in the 600 MHz band through a footnote only upon the approval of neighboring countries, he said. “Ultimately, this de facto veto power led to a domino effect of countries blocking other countries at the end of the conference,” he said. “Therefore, many governments that supported the U.S. position were forced to sit on the sidelines.” O’Rielly said the failures of WRC-15 raise big questions about the ITU and the entire process. “There is a real possibility” that some of the practices at the WRC “undermined the value of future WRCs and increased the risk that the ITU will become a tool for governments and incumbent spectrum users to halt spectral efficiency and technological progress,” he wrote. “Global spectrum harmonization for future services will be difficult, if not impossible, or, at a minimum, be years behind innovation if such practices are allowed to occur.” O'Rielly "raises some important and legitimate concerns," an administration official said in response to the blog post. "Important progress was made, however, at WRC-15 for the future use of 470-698 MHz for mobile broadband, helped by Commissioner O'Rielly's very effective advocacy. In the Americas, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Colombia and some Caribbean countries will move ahead, with no restrictions." The debate also revealed, as O'Rielly noted, that "many other countries supported the U.S. position and are clearly interested in using this band for mobile, particularly once they finish their digital transitions," the official said. "Much like the movement that started in 2007 and culminated at WRC-15 to globally harmonize the 700 MHz and 3400-3700 MHz bands for mobile broadband, WRC-15 has stimulated a similar process that will occur over the next decade for the lower UHF bands."
With the FCC poised to take a deep dive on sharing the 5.9 GHz band between Wi-Fi and auto companies (see 1601120055), NCTA said in a blog post Friday that it sees the use of the band as critical. “We’re working hard alongside technology companies, broadband providers, and consumers to encourage the FCC to work quickly, and to enter a collaborative testing process aimed at finding a win-win solution,” the cable association said. “We can all enjoy a future of fast, innovative, widely accessible broadband access. Meaningful sharing of the 5.9 GHz band would be a crucial step forward.”
Groups representing smaller telcos and consumers stepped up allegations the FCC’s planned local number portability administrator (LNPA) transition from Neustar to Ericsson’s iconectiv is a closed process dominated by large industry players. The LNP Alliance and New America’s Open Technology Institute “are concerned that decisions could be (or are being) made by the largest [North American Portability Management] carriers which would establish a non-neutral LNPA and/or processes and procedures that impose additional costs” on small and midsize (S/M) carriers and consumers. In a filing posted Friday in docket 95-116 that included a 2014 iconectiv white paper, the LNP Alliance and OTI said they had “reason to be concerned that iconectiv could undermine the traditional neutrality of the LNPA because, in the recent past, it has publicly advocated for a non-neutral LNPA arrangement.” The groups again asked the FCC to make public a Transition Oversight Manager Engagement Letter and a proposed iconectiv LNPA contract. “Timing is critical,” the groups said: “If these documents are not made available until after critical gating issues on the LNPA Transition and possibly the IP Transition have already been made, there could be irreparable harm to S/M carriers and consumers. With respect to the Proposed Contract, if review is not permitted until after it has been approved by the Commission, S/M carriers and consumers will be foreclosed from any meaningful input. While the Bureau Staff has previously indicated that portions of the Proposed Contract will be made public, they could not provide a near-term date when it would be made available to the Joint Parties. As time passes, the largest NAPM carriers and the Commission continue to close all other parties out of the process, feeding the suspicions of those outside the process that they may not like the results.” The FCC had no comment Friday.
Telecom policy is nearing a crossroads and could go in a very bad direction if the FCC doesn’t back off various utility-like regulatory initiatives, said AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Jim Cicconi. “The question is whether the Open Internet Order was designed solely to keep a free and open Internet, like the prior rule we supported, or whether it signifies a much harder shift — a shift away from the pro-investment policies of the past 20 years,” he said in prepared remarks for the Emerging Issues Policy Forum in Amelia Island, Florida, Thursday. Cicconi said the “velocity of technological change is incredible,” and broadband networks are the bedrock and catalyst for innovative products and services: “Without broadband would Facebook be the Facebook we know today? Would Amazon be the Amazon we know today? Would Google be Alphabet? Would Uber even work? Of course not.” The broadband networks have been built with $1.4 trillion of mostly private investment over the past 20 years, he said. Policymakers helped by adopting a pro-investment “light touch regulatory framework," he said, but the current FCC has “strayed from that course” by reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. He said the agency could make things worse through various proceedings: “the re-regulation of special access and Ethernet services”; tech transition regulation of new services as older technologies are retired; examinations of usage allowance; “Mother May I” oversight; promotion of municipal broadband and “special privacy rules that will apply solely to ISPs, not Google and Apple.” Cicconi rejected the notion of a binary choice between an open Internet and “adopting an archaic regulatory model designed for railroads in the 1880s,” saying “ideological purity” should give way to “pragmatic policies that spur investment to serve consumer needs.” He said it will take trillions of dollars to build future broadband networks. “Government policies can either make it easy, or make it hard,” he said, urging policymakers to reexamine their course. Public Knowledge officials Thursday urged the FCC to consolidate and build on its 2015 decisions for net neutrality and Title II and against cable concentration (see 1601140064). The FCC declined comment Friday.
CTA faces a June 9 deadline for responding to Patent and Trademark Office pushback on its Aug. 25 application (see 1511110002) to register the CTA initials as a stand-alone trademark, PTO records show. PTO examiners appear from the records to have no problems with the application to register the full Consumer Technology Association name. But a “prior-filed pending application may present a bar” to landing CTA as a stand-alone registration (serial number 86736073) or even in conjunction with the full Consumer Technology Association name (serial number 86736040), the agency emailed Wiley Rein partner Christopher Kelly, CTA’s lead outside trademark attorney. CTA had no comment Thursday.
Wireline broadband adoption has plateaued and mobile isn't a satisfactory alternative, Gigi Sohn, senior aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, told a broadband conference Thursday, based on her written remarks. Sohn said recent results in a Pew Research Center study make the case that the FCC must modernize the Lifeline program. The report said after years of “slow but steady progress,” home broadband adoption fell to 67 percent, from 70 percent in 2013, she said. That doesn't mean fewer people are online, but more are using mobile connections, Sohn said. If more Americans have some form of Internet access, why does it matter that home broadband adoption has plateaued? she asked. “Because not all forms of Internet access serve the same function,” Sohn said: “Home broadband, which offers faster speeds and a lower likelihood of running up against data caps, does things for consumers that smartphone-only access can’t.” She said most job applications are now online, for example: “It’s a lot easier updating your resume and submitting it on your laptop than on your phone.” Sohn assured the group that Lifeline reform is imminent. Lifeline modernizations “is nearing its conclusion and key decisions will need to be made in the not-too-distant future,” she said at the Digital Pathway Summit in Amelia Island, Florida.