Closing the gender gap in communications and technology companies is a goal that Commissioner Mignon Clyburn plans to focus on closely in the coming months, she said at an FCBA luncheon Thursday. “Many of you have heard me speak about the staggering imbalances that exist between men and women when it comes to senior and leadership positions in the communications and technology space,” she said. “If there is any place where the benefits of full inclusion and economic and workplace parity should be organic, where the strength, and majestic beauty that makes our nation so envied by the rest of the world, should be reflected in all its glory, it is in our media, technology, and telecommunications companies, at all levels, including inside of the C-Suites and on governing boards."
Changes in the Universal Service Fund are throwing many rural carriers into confusion about how to keep afloat once the USF spigot is turned down starting July 1. Companies that invested heavily in rural broadband say new rules limiting reimbursable capital and operating costs mean they won’t be able to repay loans. Others question the “safety net additive” reforms that they say unexpectedly eliminated promised financial support. The end result, rural carriers say, will be decreased investment in broadband, and an inability to maintain the phone lines currently in place.
Privacy laws “need to change to keep pace” with technology, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) summit. Companies opposing broad privacy laws said legislation is unlikely this year, but Smith said new privacy law is inevitable: The question is whether it will be “good law.”
The FCC is seeing little in the way of lobbying from anyone, with a vote slated for March 21, on a 700 MHz interoperability rulemaking notice that’s been a long-time priority for small wireless carriers. There have been only two ex parte filings on the NPRM this month, though a few smaller carriers active in the proceeding have been in this week to make their case for an interoperability mandate, an industry lawyer said. The rulemaking, which is on the tentative agenda for the commission’s March meeting, has been fiercely contested in the past.
The disruption of cable by over-the-top video has been greatly exaggerated, said panelists at Digital Hollywood’s Media Summit Wednesday in New York. Some OTT services will survive, many won’t, and consumers will likely adopt a multi-format approach to TV viewing in the future, panelists said. While cord-cutting isn’t happening in large numbers, “cord-nevers” coming out of college present a challenge to the pay TV industry, they said.
The cable industry has faced privacy rules for longer than other sectors, with the 1984 Cable Act the first U.S. statute to mandate fair information practices, executives said Thursday. As this Congress and administration are focused on the issue of privacy across communications platforms, cable lawyer Paul Glist of Davis Wright suggested the Cable Act got much of the balance right between protecting information and allowing operators to aggregate and otherwise use data. “It speaks to the requirements according to pertinent uses,” he said at an International Association of Privacy Professionals conference in Washington. Speakers from Comcast and Canoe Ventures, an interactive ad venture of that company and the five next-largest U.S. operators, also addressed how they think the act is still relevant.
SEATTLE -- The fragmentation of the mobile device industry, patent litigation and even the traditional U.S. subsidy model are challenges for the mobile industry, executives told the GeekWire Summit Wednesday. They agreed Microsoft’s Windows 8 and its new phone software were much better efforts than prior versions but said the software giant’s marketing and reliance on Nokia wouldn’t do it any favors in competition with Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and a likely phone from Amazon.
The FCC is formally launching a public-private initiative, which will be under the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. Examples of the kinds of programs the initiative is targeting include the Connect to Compete program, the Digital Textbooks Initiative and the FCC’s cybersecurity small business initiative, the FCC said Wednesday.
The FCC has some options to prevent cable operator withholding from multichannel video programming distributor rivals the channels the operators own when a program access exclusivity ban sunsets Oct. 5, a draft notice of proposed rulemaking says, according to agency officials. They said the Media Bureau NPRM that’s tentatively set for a vote at the March 21 meeting, but may be approved before then, reaches few if any conclusions about how the agency should proceed. Instead, the item seeks comment on several scenarios for program access rules post-Oct. 5, when their five-year extension expires, commission officials said.
Some public broadcasters want more money from the government to pay for fees to change channels as part of an FCC repacking of TV stations before the agency auctions the frequencies of those agreeing to give up some or all of their spectrum. Although some provisions in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act that became law last month recognize public broadcasters’ interests, some public TV executives said they must monitor how the auction will be implemented and the relocation process. The provisions provide $1.75 billion for relocation costs for broadcasters, some of which say that’s not enough money.