Pending personnel changes at the FCC will come at what is likely to be a critical time for FCC consideration of Verizon Wireless’s proposed buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox. General Counsel Austin Schlick is scheduled to leave in mid-June and Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan’s departure will follow soon after. Approval of the deals, though likely with substantial conditions, is expected this summer. Current and former FCC officials said it remains unclear whether the departures will slow a final decision, and if so, for how long.
Lawmakers hammered the FCC over the costs and burdens that telecom carriers for tribal communities face when seeking waivers to the commission’s USF reforms. The barrage came at a hearing held Friday by the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs. Subcommittee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, was particularly critical of the commission’s high-cost order, which he said will lead to the eventual demise of the carriers that serve rural and tribal America. The FCC said that they did not agree with Young’s “characterization."
The cities of Philadelphia and Boston and groups representing city governments pushed back against a petition from the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, DirecTV and Dish Network that urges the FCC to amend its Over-The-Air-Reception Devices (OTARD) rule and prohibit state and local governments from restricting reception devices located on rental properties. Comments were due Thursday in docket 12-121.
The FCC could face challenges to its DTV viewability proceeding no matter how it resolves the issue. The rules, which require cable operators to deliver the DTV signals of must-carry stations to analog cable subscribers, are set to expire Tuesday. That sunset date itself was the result of a compromise with the cable industry in which cable operators agreed not to sue (CD Sept 13/07 p2). The rules are now set to largely expire after a six-month phase-out period (CD June 4 p4).
Advocates for the deaf and hard of hearing pushed back against a CEA petition for reconsideration that sought to change some IP-video closed captioning rules that the FCC adopted to comply with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). At the same time, media industry groups and a CE manufacturer opposed a petition for reconsideration the same advocates had lodged that would expand the types of video covered by the rules. And media groups also opposed a petition for reconsideration filed by TVGuardian, which makes a “foul language filter” for TV programming. Other parties lodged oppositions to various petitions for reconsideration earlier last week (CD June 8 p17).
NARUC supported the FCC’s enhanced probe of special access prices in a statement released Thursday. Meanwhile, the debate continues about special access reform, with opponents and supporters continuing to weigh in. Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated an order this week suspending the grant of any new “price flexibility” petitions while the special access probe moves forward and denying three petitions seeking pricing flexibility (CD June 5 p3). The order is the most contentious item imminently before the agency, with both Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai expected to raise objections (CD June 7 p1).
Major websites are interested in getting emergency alert system feeds becoming available over the Internet now that the government and EAS participants are implementing a new format, federal officials and broadcasters said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s integrated public alert and warning system makes it possible for websites to get real-time access to EAS messages, noted FEMA IPAWS Director Antwane Johnson on an agency webinar late Wednesday. Traditional EAS participants in the broadcasting and pay-TV industries are getting ready for the Common Alerting Protocol message format that distributes the alerts online, which the FCC has required be able to be received and passed on starting at month’s end, FEMA and FCC officials noted.
Senate Indian Affairs Committee members urged FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to consider how proposed reforms of the Universal Service Fund could negatively affect rural and native communities, during a hearing Thursday. In particular, lawmakers took issue with the hurdles and cost of the FCC’s waiver process for telecommunications companies that cannot adjust to the USF reforms.
NAPA, Calif. -- A December ITU conference could lay the groundwork for far-reaching regulation of the Internet by treaty, though it probably won’t be any “absolute catastrophe” in its concrete results, said Ed Black, Computer & Communications Industry Association president, Thursday. The one-country, one-vote World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai takes international pro-regulatory discussions of recent years “to a whole new level” because it’s dealing with proposals for binding obligations, said Sally Wentworth, Internet Society senior manager-public policy. They spoke at the Tech Policy Summit.
DALLAS -- The FCC should do more to encourage secondary markets for spectrum, Commissioner Robert McDowell told the Telecommunications Industry Association conference. In a speech where he discussed a spectrum policy to promote U.S. growth and make the economy more “reliably business friendly,” he revisited critiques of the FCC for taking too long to review deals and discussed ways frequencies can be used more efficiently. Over the past decade, major transactions have taken an average of 321 days to get approved, and the commission’s voluntary 180-day clock to review deals means little when commission staff frequently stop it at will, McDowell said.