FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed hiking a USF Rural Health Care cap by 43 percent, from $400 million to $571 million per year, to reflect inflation since program inception in 1997. He circulated a draft order to increase the cap for the current (2017) funding year ending June 30, index the program for inflation going forward and allow unused funds from prior years to be carried forward to future years, said a release Wednesday. It noted recent demand exceeded the budget, creating uncertainty for participants. Rural healthcare (RHC) and telco interests welcomed the announcement.
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Officials from the German and Austrian embassies in Washington had contrasting predictions Tuesday for the future of autonomous vehicles in Europe. The German official told an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event that Americans are more willing to accept a trial-and-error approach for AV deployment.
LAS VEGAS -- Technology in the enterprise and connected home is converging, creating opportunities and challenges for integrators serving both, said panelists at an event at Infocomm Tuesday. Bring-your-own-device policies at work are driving convergence, leading consumers to want familiar experiences and user interfaces (UI) all over, said Parks Associates' Brad Russell. The analyst is often shocked in hotel rooms by the “abysmal” UIs on hotel TVs vs. what’s available to consumers at home, a “step back in time.” Consumers should be able to port content preferences, he said.
Major parties urged the FCC to end two remaining rural call completion duties of providers covered by a 2013 order, after the agency ordered in April that their data reporting requirements be eliminated. CTIA, ITTA, NCTA, Sprint and USTelecom said the data recordkeeping and retention obligations should be scrapped, and Verizon said they should be reduced. NTCA opposed that. Parties offered various views on implementing the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act, in comments posted Monday and Tuesday in docket 13-39 on a Further NPRM attached to the April order, which made covered originating long-distance providers accountable for intermediate carrier performance (see 1804170025 and 1804180025).
That media and telco companies now have to release data publicly about what their median employees make and how that compares with the CEO's pay package likely won't change their compensation approaches for either those at the top or for average workers, experts told us. The numbers could be fodder in ongoing populist movements like gender pay equality and living wage issues, said Deborah Lifshey, a managing director at executive compensation consultancy Pearl Meyer.
House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., pushed the committee's Republican leaders Tuesday to “immediately reschedule” a House Communications-led FCC oversight hearing originally planned for Feb. 16. It was postponed after House leaders canceled votes planned for that day, ending that week's schedule earlier than anticipated (see 1802120037). House Communications' last such hearing was in late October (see 1710250050).
Several net neutrality advocates don't plan to seek a stay of the FCC order undoing Communications Act Title II broadband service regulation. They told us Tuesday they aren't aware of any who will seek a stay, with the order to take effect Monday. Some have warned that Monday will mark the start of declines in internet freedom, which Republicans and other net neutrality deregulation backers say is overblown and untrue.
TV broadcasters and the FCC haven’t coalesced around a single path forward on the national ownership cap, broadcasters and their lawyers said in interviews. Though many in the industry believe the FCC will try to issue an order this summer raising the 39 percent cap to get ahead of an expected U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision against reinstating the UHF discount (see 1804200059), it’s not clear what change the regulator and industry are moving toward. “They’re going to end up in court no matter what,” said University of Minnesota School of Journalism assistant professor-media law Christopher Terry.
Facebook, Google and Microsoft support the Federal Election Commission rulemaking to increase online political advertising transparency (see 1805250032 and 1805290037), but the commission should look to recent industry response for guidance, they commented. The commission is considering two proposals that would update online ad disclosure requirements for the first time since 2006.
Resigning Gov. Eric Greitens (R) signed a Missouri small-cells bill that would pre-empt local governments on right of way to streamline 5G infrastructure deployment. On his last day and amid a scandal over sexual assault allegations, Greitens Friday signed the small-cells item and 76 others, including a bill to combat one offense Greitens was alleged to have committed. Local government representatives said a two-year sunset unique to the Missouri small-cells bill (HB-1991) may be good and bad. Missouri is the 19th state to enact a small-cells bill, and some expect three more states to advance legislation this year.