The FCC’s December 2010 net neutrality order suffers from the same defects as the Comcast order rejected by the same court and should also be vacated, Verizon and MetroPCS said in a joint filing at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is hearing the appeal. The FCC approved the order by a 3-2 vote, with the two FCC Republicans, Robert McDowell and then-Commissioner Meredith Baker, warning it would not hold up on appeal (CD Dec 22/10 p1).
Communications carriers serving the broad area struck by a “derecho” Friday experienced widespread problems in its aftermath. The storm struck a large area, and millions of people lost power during the derecho that had damage-causing winds exceeding 60 miles per hour. In one of the more potentially troubling developments for the FCC, officials in Fairfax and Prince Williams counties in Virginia reported some in the area experienced problems calling 911. The commission is probing the 911 outages.
Bring on the relay provider complaints. Monday marked the deadline for states and providers of interstate telecom relay services (TRS) to file a year’s worth of consumer gripes with the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau from June 1, 2011, to May 31, 2012. TRS allows people with hearing or speech disabilities to make calls via a text telephone or other device. The FCC describes a two-fold reason for the demand. The complaint logs “are intended to provide an early warning to the Commission of possible service quality issues,” and the process “also allows the Commission to determine whether a state or interstate TRS provider has appropriately addressed consumer complaints, and to spot national trends that may lend themselves to coordinated solutions,” the commission said in a recent reminder about the deadline. The complaints, which address a variety of technical and customer service problems, come in just as the FCC has shifted the rules for IP relay due to allegations of fraud from earlier this year.
A coalition of groups and companies led by Free Press said a set of principles that they put out Monday for an “free and open Internet” is nonpartisan and isn’t aimed specifically at the public or private sector. The coalition was responding to criticism from free-market groups including TechFreedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the International Center for Law & Economics that the principles blur “the distinction between political and civil society while endorsing certain business models over others.” Both the Free Press and TechFreedom groups came out with their own “Declarations of Internet Freedom” principles.
When the Copyright Royalty Board gets comments from broadcasters on royalty rates for performance and musical compositions and graphic and other works used by PBS and NPR affiliates, some smaller nonprofit stations may seek a cheaper tier, industry officials predicted. The board also received comments on a similar proposal for the period of January 2013 through December 2017 for other noncommercial educational stations (NCEs). Some small NCEs said adopting reasonable rates is critical to their operations. Comments on the NPR and PBS proceeding are due July 26, said a notice in the Federal Register (http://xrl.us/bnc4zt).
An interconnection problem in Mountain View, Calif., caused six days’ worth of broadband data to be compromised, leading the FCC to throw out data for the second month in a row, the commission reported Thursday. In April the commission restarted a month of data collection because of “anomalies” in the network affecting some of the measurement locations in March (CD May 7 p8). Stakeholders we contacted aren’t worried about the accuracy of the data for the remainder of April, but some are concerned about the reliability of the collection platform, given the repeated performance issues.
While there is growing concern in Washington and elsewhere over the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), scheduled to meet in Dubai in December, and a move to regulate the Internet, State Department Official Richard Beaird said it’s too early to push the panic button. Beaird, senior deputy U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy, said compromise is likely. But other speakers laid out their concerns during a FCBA seminar
The FCC received more petitions from broadcasters and cable operators seeking to be let out of new Emergency Alert System common alerting protocol (CAP) obligations that were set to take effect Saturday. Some parties told the commission they needed a waiver because of the lack of available broadband service at their operations. Others said they couldn’t afford the equipment and costs associated with maintaining it. Some parties have equipment ordered, but manufacturing backlogs mean they won’t receive the gear until after the deadline. The waivers are in docket 04-296 (http://xrl.us/bndbh7).
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a case on whether an unscripted broadcast of Janet Jackson’s breast for 9/16 of a second during CBS’s 2004 Super Bowl halftime show is indecent contained some surprises for experienced court watchers. Departing from what the high court usually does when denying a grant of certiorari, not one but two justices issued concurring statements in FCC v. CBS. That came eight days after the court found against the commission on Fifth Amendment grounds for not giving broadcasters sufficient notice they could be penalized for fleeting instances of nudity and swearing in a case involving Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox (CD June 22 p1). Constitutional scholars and First Amendment lawyers said Friday’s rare departure from usually denying cert without comment shows where an additional jurist stands on the issue of the commission’s general ability to regulate nudity and cursing on broadcast TV.
It’s time to better evaluate how broadband stimulus has worked, the government and grant managers say. As federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants continue to fund expansion of broadband throughout the states, the questions arise -- how effective are these grants? And how are they truly helping people? In the last year there has been “a tremendous shifting in the public-computing arena into collecting data and reporting and thinking about outcomes,” said Samantha Becker, a University of Washington professor responsible for assessing BTOP programs in her state who helps oversee the education of grantees across the country in 2012. BTOP grantees are “trying very hard” to properly evaluate how well their programs are doing, Becker said, describing as a barrier “the huge range in sizes and sophistication” of the grantee programs.