FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s effort to issue another joint public statement by the FCC commissioners on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation system reform appeared to be in flux late Thursday, agency officials said. Genachowski had hoped to get his colleagues to sign another Web post, as they did in March. Then, the full commission had promised “a busy spring and summer” of reform work and a promise to move to order’s “within a few months” of the comment cycle’s end in May (CD March 16 p10). Commissioners apparently couldn’t agree on language in the proposed new post, the officials said. Efforts to reach Genachowski’s spokesman for comment were unsuccessful at deadline.
The FCC will issue a new public notice on reforming the Lifeline program, a commission official said. It could come out as early as Friday. It will ask questions about the pilot notification program in Tennessee (CD July 27 p11), how a “one-per-residence” rule would be phrased and how to determine eligibility and duplication. It also will ask how to structure a national database on duplicate benefits, whether and how to build a national database for eligibility, and whether to cap the Lifeline fund, the official told us.
The growing concern over mobile cybersecurity is warranted, security experts said Thursday at a Washington cybersecurity conference sponsored by CompTIA. “Right now mobile security is in a pretty dicey place,” said Andrew Hoog, viaForensics chief investigative officer. The threat model for mobile devices is significantly higher than for traditional computers and IT systems and the number of targeted attacks is on the rise, Hoog said.
Pay-TV companies found their next exhibit in the quest to convince the FCC to change good-faith bargaining rules on retransmission consent deals with broadcasters. Four days after the FCC approved the contested sale of a TV station (CD July 22 p16) despite the concerns of an alliance of all major multichannel video programming distributors other than Comcast and opposition from the association for small cable operators, a broadcaster filed an antitrust lawsuit against a rival. Nexstar’s suit against Granite Broadcasting was ill-timed, agreed broadcast and cable lawyers who reviewed it and related FCC filings, because it gave ammunition to MVPDs to press the FCC to act on retrans. They also said the case won’t likely spur the agency to act more quickly.
The demand for 3D TV programming hasn’t developed yet and has grown slower than expected, Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav said during the company’s Q2 earnings teleconference. “3D, candidly, has been slower than expected.” The market will be driven by the penetration of 3D TV sets into consumer homes and how quickly consumers adopt them, Zaslav said. “The good news for us is that we've gotten a lot of experience with it,” through Discovery’s joint venture with Sony and Imax, he said Thursday.
CTIA said Thursday it’s reviving a lawsuit challenging a San Francisco ordinance requiring disclosure about cellphone radiation, in response to enactment of a new, weakened version. Mayor Ed Lee approved Wednesday the measure by Supervisor John Avalos in order to “protect public health,” an aide to Lee said. Michael Altschul, CTIA general counsel, said, “Our lawsuit remains on file. Now that the Mayor has acted, we plan to resume the litigation."
The longer the FCC delays in providing VoIP providers with legal certainty and consistency across their multi-state operations, the more difficult it will be to replace the “growing body of disparate state regulation with a single coherent national regime,” telecom groups said. The VON Coalition, TechAmerica, National Association of Manufacturers, Telecom Industry Association and Information Technology Council wrote the FCC Wednesday. They cited growing state efforts to regulate VoIP.
The FCC dropped from the Aug. 9 meeting agenda a controversial foreign ownership rule change opposed by Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and Telefonica Internacional USA. Chairman Julius Genachowski pulled an order and declaratory ruling on the International Bureau’s Foreign Ownership Guidelines and the application of section 310(b)(3) of the Communications Act to foreign ownership of common carrier and aeronautical licensees. The item had been circulated two weeks ago for a vote at the meeting.
The House sponsors of last year’s Universal Service Fund overhaul bill support the FCC acting on the industry USF agreement brokered by USTelecom. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., no longer plans to move USF legislation, aide Brad Schweer told us Wednesday. He said that Terry “will now be encouraging the FCC to produce details that reflect suggestions” proposed by the industry group. Terry’s former co-sponsor Rick Boucher agreed that the commission should move forward on its own.
TV stations, having dodged one spectrum bullet, now face longer-term prospects for Congress to pass legislation for the FCC to voluntarily auction some channels. Industry executives said they avoided having Congress authorize the incentive auction (CD Aug 2 p1), in debt-ceiling legislation that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday, through several means. Lobbying on Capitol Hill by state associations, NAB and its corporate members, House Republicans’ concerns about auctioning TV spectrum but not the D block, and GOP legislators’ focus on deficit reduction and not adding government revenue each played a part.