Congressional leaders were optimistic Tuesday afternoon they were close to reaching a deal on a third economic stimulus bill addressing the effects of COVID-19, after days of wrangling over legislative language on funding for telecom and other priorities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was among those saying a deal appeared near, though she warned House Democratic leaders could move forward on a counterproposal if they deem final Senate bill language unsatisfactory. The Pelosi-led counterproposal drew fire from Republicans in part because it contains pandemic-specific Lifeline funding (see 2003230066).
The FCC has been pleased to see industry take-up of its "keep Americans connected" pledge and its push to expand low-income offerings, and doesn't anticipate asking edge providers to throttle their streaming video quality to ensure adequate data network capacity, said Evan Swarztrauber, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, in a Recon Analytics web conference Tuesday. The European Union asked streaming services like Netflix and YouTube to reduce their data traffic. Deploying 5G could face some COVID-19 headwinds due to the workforce issues getting antennas installed, Techsponential President Avi Greengart said.
The FCC’s March 31 commissioners' meeting will be livestream only (see 2003240030). Items will be voted ahead of time on circulation and commissioner remarks will be shortened, agency officials said in interviews. The meeting’s changed format takes into account the agency’s COVID-19 preventive measures, which include closing headquarters to most visitors and staff being asked to telework.
The Ultra HD Forum will soon publish an updated “service tracker” that will cover 150 “consumer-facing” content offerings that reach 3 billion subscribers globally, Ben Schwarz, who chairs the forum’s communications working group, told a webinar Monday hosted by Europe’s DVB consortium. The forum had planned to announce the new tracker at the now-canceled NAB Show, said Schwarz.
Telecom and tech continued responding Monday to COVID-19 with actions that included moving to telework and canceling or postponing events, or moving them virtual.
President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment in 2017 when he blocked users from his Twitter account, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Monday (see 1806050068). The court denied the administration’s request for an en banc rehearing before the full panel in Knight v. Trump. Instead, the 2nd Circuit reaffirmed a prior, unanimous decision.
The FCC is unlikely to take additional actions soon mandating tougher rules for the vertical location accuracy of wireless calls to 911, said industry and public safety officials. Replies are posted through Monday in docket 07-114. In November, commissioners approved rules requiring carriers provide height above ellipsoid data from wireless calls to 911, within 3 meters accuracy for 80 percent of calls, starting in the largest markets in April 2021. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel voted no (see 1911220034).
Comcast's victory Monday in a Supreme Court decision on what legal standard must be met in a complaint that the cable operator was racially discriminatory in what programming it doesn't carry (see 2003230006) may not signal a quick end to the legal fight. University of Connecticut employment law professor Sachin Pandya, who was part of an amicus brief on behalf of Entertainment Studios Network (ESN) suing Comcast, said the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals conceivably could still decide that the case being remanded from SCOTUS plausibly survives the MVPD's motion to dismiss even under the standard SCOTUS requires. Oral argument was in November (see 1911130024).
Negotiations dragged on Monday on a third economic stimulus bill addressing the effects of COVID-19, with congressional lawmakers having yet to reach a bipartisan deal. A second bid for the Senate to invoke cloture on the legislative vehicle for the hoped-for compromise measure (HR-748) failed on a 49-46 vote amid continued Democratic objections to the current contours of a legislative proposal that has GOP buy-in. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was circulating her Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act counterproposal, which includes pandemic-specific Lifeline and distance learning funding.
The “math just doesn’t work” for movie studios and streaming video services to make a rapid shift to a direct-to-video model during the COVID-19 outbreak when millions of viewers are captive at home, said LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield Wednesday on a webcast. Greenfield was commenting on the possibility of first-run movies debuting on subscription VOD streaming services at a time when U.S. movie theaters are closed.