Former Obama adviser Phil Weiser pledged to take on the Republican FCC and support local broadband if elected Colorado attorney general in November. Weiser supports state legislation to provide open-internet protections for Coloradans and would join other Democratic state AGs’ net neutrality lawsuit against the FCC, he said in an interview. Also, Weiser supports eliminating Colorado’s ban on municipal broadband to increase internet access across the mountainous state. “I’m the partner for every county commission and local community.” Weiser, in his first bid for office, was deputy assistant attorney general and senior adviser for technology and innovation for President Barack Obama.
Expect the Supreme Court to consider how much the digital economy has evolved since 1992 when it considers a potential sales tax law reversal for online retailers, various parties told us Monday. The high court will hear oral argument Tuesday in South Dakota v. Wayfair (see 1803080066).
The FCC Public Safety Bureau is acting to increase the use of the Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) to propagate emergency alert system warnings, rather than the legacy “daisychain” system, said the bureau’s report on the 2017 Nationwide EAS test, released Friday. The internet-based CAP (common alerting protocol) alerts sent through IPAWS contain more information, have better audio and allow multi-language alerts, the report said. The test shows EAS participants have “improved in their ability to successfully alert the public,” the report said, though it also shows a drop from 2016 in test participation, and a Federal Emergency Management Agency report on the nationwide test released last week questioned the accuracy of the results reporting.
The government's chief economic expert's predictive model actually shows AT&T's buy of Time Warner as a net plus to consumers if that model takes into account Turner's arbitration offer to MVPDs and the FCC's program access rules, testified University of California, Berkeley economics professor Michael Katz Monday in U.S. v. AT&T and TW. That DOJ expert Carl Shapiro didn't account for those is "a fatal error," Katz said.
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said rural telco subsidies could be increased somewhat while better fiscal discipline is brought to the overall USF mechanism. The "real issue" for USF is the budget, he said, and while the high-cost program has been relatively "stagnant," other programs have grown over the years. "We can't constantly double" funding for E-rate, Lifeline and rural healthcare, he said at an NTCA policy conference Monday, noting he was pushing for a hard Lifeline budget. O'Rielly, who was interviewed by NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, wants a "happy medium" for high-cost funding: rural telcos may not get everything they want but "hopefully" regulatory changes could "get you most the way there" and remove "barriers to your offerings."
On the eve of the FCC vote on an NPRM on the security of U.S. communications networks, CTIA warned in a report Monday that the U.S. has fallen behind China in the race to 5G. Commissioners also will vote Tuesday on a public notice on the first auctions of millimeter-wave spectrum for 5G. The auction notice appears likely to get a 5-0 vote, industry and agency officials said Monday.
The House Communications Subcommittee will re-enter the net neutrality debate Tuesday via a long-expected hearing on paid prioritization and other forms of data prioritization (see 1712120037, 1804030024 and 1804100057), though lawmakers and lobbyists differed on the extent to which the panel could result in a consensus on the contentious policy issue. Hill Republicans are urging all parties to reach a compromise on legislation, after the FCC's December order to rescind its 2015 net neutrality rules, while Democrats are emphasizing legal challenges and legislation aimed at reversing the FCC's action. The House Communications hearing is to begin at 10:15 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn.
The FCC is expected soon to seek comment or otherwise address industry concerns about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and particularly the definition of automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS), after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned key parts of a 2015 order and declaratory ruling (see 1803160053). Then-Commissioner Ajit Pai dissented and his Republican colleague Mike O’Rielly partially dissented. Both warned that it would lead to more class-action lawsuits against companies trying to communicate with their customers through robocalls to customers.
A Democratic senator and others told us they're wary of Donald Trump attacking Amazon. The latest salvo from the president came Thursday, when he ordered reassessment of the financial situation of the U.S. Postal Service, which Trump says loses money because of Amazon. Trump also attacked The Washington Post, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, for its coverage of the administration.
Net neutrality rules supporters and opponents disagreed how a state-by-state approach might affect competition. State-by-state net neutrality rules in the long term may advantage the largest incumbents -- the very companies that have put up the biggest resistance -- by making it harder for less financially resourced competitors to enter the market, Montana Public Service Commissioner Travis Kavulla told us. But supporters of state rules countered that smaller companies should have no difficulty complying with open-internet regulations.