Congress is close to passing cybersecurity legislation, House and Senate aides told the State of the Net conference Tuesday. The Senate, returning from recess next week, is “narrowing in” on a cybersecurity bill to bring to the floor in three to four weeks, said Tommy Ross, aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Meanwhile, House committees are marking up individual bills to be combined later, House aides said.
More consumer electronics are subject to new FCC requirements to display online captions from content originally broadcast on TV or seen on cable, DBS or telco-TV than industry executives expected. They said the order (CD Jan 17 p3) requiring TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors to caption video they put online appears to go beyond what’s required by 2010 disabilities legislation. The order said the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act didn’t say in great detail what type of CE equipment must be covered by Internet Protocol captioning rules.
CTIA urged the FCC to allow a 24-month transition period if it changes its hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rules to incorporate the 2011 revision of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) technical standard C63.19. The revision would replace the 2007 version of the standard now part of the rules. Groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing said a year is time enough. In a Nov. 1 notice of proposed rulemaking (http://xrl.us/bmozvb) the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology proposed giving Tier 1 carriers a year to meet the revised standard and smaller carriers 15 months.
A letter from the Space-Based Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee to the NTIA released Friday is raising questions about the FCC’s ability to allow LightSquared to move forward, said industry executives. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012, signed New Year’s Eve, which prevents the agency from lifting conditions on LightSquared without resolving Defense Department concerns, could be in play due to the letter, the executives said. LightSquared said the PNT process for review was deeply flawed and the NTIA should assert itself to take over the next testing phase. The PNT committee, co-chaired by the DOT and DOD deputy secretaries, works to “advise and coordinate federal departments and agencies on matters concerning,” according to the PNT website.
The most common concern with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act is how they will affect the domain name system, Public Knowledge Deputy Legal Director Sherwin Siy said Tuesday. Other concerns about SOPA and PROTECT IP include their broad definitions, he said during a conference call with reporters on the bills hosted by several associations.
President Barack Obama received twice as many campaign contribution dollars from the Communications and Electronics sector as the entire field of GOP challengers in the 2012 election cycle so far. But among House incumbents, GOP members continued to receive more than Democratic members in political action committee contributions from the sector heading into 2012, showed data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The numbers are consistent with a trend of PACs favoring incumbents and the party in control (CD July 19 p1).
The FCC didn’t back down from First Amendment concerns expressed by video programming owners that VPOs should have no or little role in ensuring broadcast-TV and subscription video is captioned when put online. Such concerns expressed by VPOs led Commissioner Robert McDowell to concur with the rules implementing the Internet Protocol captioning rules in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn cited the “marketplace of ideas embodied in the First Amendment” as reason to let those with hearing problems know what’s happening on-screen, online. The final order released Friday afternoon had few changes from the first draft that circulated for a vote the last work day before Christmas. That conformed with expectations (CD Jan 6 p4).
The FCC seems likely to concur with opposition to a cable channel’s request to escape closed captioning rules, said an opponent of the waiver. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing expects the commission to concur with its joint opposition of The Africa Channel’s (TAC) request (CD Sept 19 p14) for a temporary waiver, TDI General Counsel Jim House said. TDI and several other deaf groups said in their opposition posted Thursday to docket 06-181 (http://xrl.us/bmooei) that the channel’s petition lacks sufficient proof of its need for the waiver. Six other deaf advocacy groups signed TDI’s opposition.
AT&T will ask the FCC to lift rules that require the company to be a default wireline Lifeline provider, Executive Vice President Bob Quinn said Friday. Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a proposed order on Lifeline Tuesday (CD Jan 10 p1). “We're disappointed about what we're hearing,” Quinn said, saying company officials will meet with eighth floor officials next week to ask that decades-old rules requiring wireline incumbents to offer Lifeline service be lifted. Quinn said at least one-third of Lifeline customers have switched from wireline to wireless, and AT&T ought, therefore, not to be forced to offer the service.
NTIA would be swept up in a merger of government agencies proposed Friday by President Barack Obama. Obama proposed combining the U.S. Commerce Department’s “core business and trade functions” with the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. The Commerce Department bucket includes NTIA and other subordinate agencies except NOAA, which would move to the Interior Department, White House officials said. Obama asked Congress to give him “consolidation authority” to make the proposed mergers and future reorganizations. Members of Congress appeared supportive of the plan, in statements Friday.