The FCC lacks authority for disabilities accessibility rules in areas where a committee of representatives of industry and those with problems seeing couldn’t agree, three associations said. CEA, NAB and NCTA were the only initial commenters by a 11:59 p.m. Tuesday deadline in dockets 12-107 and 12-108 on a Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee report on areas including device and user interface accessibility and getting emergency information. The associations said that just because the VPAAC couldn’t achieve consensus doesn’t mean regulation’s needed or lawful.
There’s little leeway in the timing of the FCC’s recently adopted political file rule if it’s to be in place in time for the 2012 general election, industry officials who opposed the order and public-interest officials who backed it told us. The rule would require TV stations affiliated with the Big Four broadcast networks in the top-50 markets to post on a website run by the commission their political file information, including who’s buying airtime at government-mandated rates. The NAB has already asked a court to review the decision and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must sign off on it before it takes effect.
FirstNet faces a tough challenge starting this summer to put in place a wireless network for first responders, Steve Proctor, a member of the 15-member Technical Advisory Board for First Responder Interoperability, told the National Public Safety Telecommunication Council at a meeting in Alexandria, Va., Wednesday. The board, which operated under the FCC, submitted its report to the agency in May. The FirstNet board, which is under NTIA, hasn’t been appointed. Both committees were established by the spectrum legislation, which was enacted in February.
Public safety officials in many major U.S. cities remain concerned about a requirement that they vacate the 700 MHz T-band, Public Safety Spectrum Trust Chairman Harlin McEwen told the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. Under spectrum legislation that became law in February, public safety got the 700 MHz D-block, but had to give up the T-band, heavily used in a number of major cities. Public safety is required to vacate the T-band within nine years, under the spectrum law. In April, the FCC Public Safety Bureau imposed an immediate freeze on applications for new stations and major modifications in the T-band.
Executives from CEA and Pandora said in separate interviews Tuesday lawmakers are increasingly supportive of leveling the playing field among broadcast, radio and Internet radio stations. CEA President Gary Shapiro and Pandora founder Tim Westergren are scheduled to testify Wednesday at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the future of audio.
U.S. network operators’ privacy practices generally work, and the FCC has a role to play on the issue, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. Both the FCC and the FTC have “a very important role,” one that’s “in many respects” complementary, he said in a Q-and-A Tuesday at an FCBA luncheon. “In other respects they overlap,” Genachowski said of the agencies’ privacy roles, with the FCC focused on networks and “the FTC is more focused on apps.” He again said an update of the 1996 Telecom Act may be a good idea.
USTelecom objected to the FCC’s draft decision to freeze further grants of pricing flexibility as it seeks more data on special access. But competitive carriers as a group and individually welcomed the move. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated an order Monday suspending the grant of any new “price flexibility” petitions while the special access probe moves forward (CD June 5 p3). The order also denied three pending pricing flexibility petitions. In January, CompTel and allies withdrew a petition at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asking the court to grant a writ of mandamus that would have forced the FCC to act on special access reform. Officials said then they did so following promises that a special access order was being readied by the Wireline Bureau (CD Jan 27 p1).
Free Press questioned many of the fundamental arguments made by Verizon Wireless in favor of its proposed buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox. The Free Press letter to the FCC comes as the FCC’s consideration of whether to approve the transactions enters what is likely to be the homestretch, based on recent interviews with FCC officials. One big question mark is that two of the officials active in the review, Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan and General Counsel Austin Schlick are leaving the agency.
Wednesday’s World IPv6 Launch will have about 3,000 participating website operators, six network operators and five home router vendors, said the Internet Society, spearheading the event. That’s a “large representation of IPv6 stakeholders” who will show others how to make transition to the technology happen, said IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid. “It would have been good to get more ISPs, mobile operators, and customer-premises equipment vendors, but it’s a good start,” he told us. Rollout of a revised U.S. federal IPv6 roadmap has been held up for more edits, we're told, and one European Commission staff member urged public authorities to make the change as soon as possible or risk an untenable situation.
The Rural Cellular Association said it’s “difficult to overstate” the importance of a 700 MHz interoperability mandate to “the future health of the wireless industry,” in comments to the FCC. RCA has made an interoperability requirement one of its top priorities. The main resistance has come from Verizon Wireless and AT&T. But CEA and TIA weighed in against a mandate, giving the two major carriers critical support. Where the newly reconstituted FCC will come down remains to be seen, agency and industry officials agreed Monday.