Comments are due Dec. 5 and replies on Dec. 22 in docket 14-192 on USTelecom’s Oct. 6 petition (see 1410070050) for forbearance from “’various outdated regulatory requirements applicable to incumbent local exchange carriers,’” said a public notice Wednesday.
Top executives and lobbyists for telecom and media companies often donated generously to their favored political candidates and parties in the 2014 election cycle, with donations sometimes bending along specifically partisan lines. Many officials chose to help lawmakers already in power in key committees or party leadership. Midterm elections happen Tuesday, determining the shape of the next Congress.
Industry groups and companies reacted along already well-established lines to a Wall Street Journalreport that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is considering a net neutrality order, with some hybrid version of Communications Act Title II, for a vote as early as the Dec. 11 commissioner meeting.
Cash from telecom industry political action committees could help tilt the Senate Republicans’ way in next week’s midterm elections, if some forecasts of a GOP takeover of that body pan out. The industry’s heaviest hitters donated more money through their PACs to Republicans than Democrats across the board this cycle, with spending in Senate races specifically leaning in that direction. Media company PAC spending differed, however, many favoring Democratic Senate candidates.
Under a Title I regime, consumer and business usage of the Internet has tripled over the past five years according to Cisco analysis, USTelecom President Walter McCormick said in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (http://bit.ly/1tRynL9). “Given these growth projections and the success the nation has enjoyed under a Title I environment, we urge the Commission to avoid any proscriptive regulatory policy that would threaten future investment and innovation,” McCormick wrote. “Proponents of extreme measures, such as Title II reclassification of broadband, have not provided evidence to indicate that investment and traffic growth would be better under Title II, or that the entire sector -- edge, content, and broadband -- could be any more vibrant under Title II than it has been under the current longstanding Title I regime.”
The FCC should issue a notice seeking comment on “alternate approaches” to collecting special access market data instead of its current data collection effort, USTelecom said in an application for review Friday. USTelecom said the commission had ordered a two-year collection effort, but the Office of Management and Budget only approved a one-year effort. The one-year effort creates an “obvious conflict” with the commission’s “determination that a comprehensive review of the special access marketplace required the collection of data covering two years,” USTelecom said. The filing was not yet posted in docket 05-25.
There's “no sound reason” to allow LECs receiving Connect America Fund Phase II support to not serve specific locations in unserved areas and instead serve locations in partially served areas, NCTA Vice President-Associate General Counsel Jennifer McKee told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Oct. 17, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1DAN8mL) posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. If the agency allows the flexibility, the burden should be on the LECs to show the specific locations they want to serve in the partially served areas that aren't being served, the American Cable Association said at the same meeting. LECs should also not be excused from serving all areas in an unserved Census block for which they're receiving CAF support, said Ross Lieberman, ACA senior vice president–government affairs, and Kelley Drye’s Thomas Cohen, counsel to ACA. CenturyLink and USTelecom had said they would be willing to support providing faster broadband speeds under CAF if granted the flexibility (see 1409100036).
AT&T, Comcast and Google continued to lead the pack among big lobbying spenders in the third quarter of 2014. All three companies spent several millions of dollars on lobbying, with some of the biggest items at stake in years on the table -- net neutrality, media consolidation deals and a contested reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act foremost among them. Also looming on Capitol Hill is a possible rewrite of the Communications Act, which may take off in earnest next year.
What FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his team will propose on net neutrality remains unclear, industry and agency officials said in interviews this week. The officials agree the most likely proposal remains some iteration of Title II reclassification of broadband, possibly based on proposals by Mozilla and Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, an early proponent of net neutrality.
The information and communications technologies (ICT) sector is now substantially aware of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework and is working to align it with often-robust existing cyber risk management practices within the sector, industry stakeholders told NIST in filings released through Tuesday. That level of awareness also extended into state governments, state agencies said. NIST sought feedback from stakeholders within critical infrastructure sectors about the “Version 1.0” framework, which it released in February 1402130026. Comments were due Friday.