A Wyoming broadband bill headed to the governor’s desk “strike[s] a good balance” between industry and local interests, Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr (I) said in a Friday interview, despite last month calling CenturyLink and Charter “bullies” for allegedly changing the bill's substance. The Wyoming Legislature last week passed SF-100, which would create a broadband grant program to spur deployment in unserved areas. Gov. Matt Mead (R) supports the bill, emailed his director of Economic Diversification Strategy and Initiatives, Jerimiah Rieman. Charter and CenturyLink supported the bill, while Stop the Cap condemned it.
The Trump administration put the spotlight on violent media after last month's school shooting in Parkland, Florida, but experts see big First Amendment hurdles to FCC or congressional action aimed at addressing such content. One big issue is defining violent media in a way that can be consistently and reliably applied, emailed broadcast lawyer David Oxenford of Wilkinson Barker, noting that the same violent act is seen very differently in the context of a live-action show versus a Looney Tunes cartoon. The White House last week hosted a closed-door meeting on media violence, focusing largely on video games (see 1803080067).
Parties gave the FCC conflicting signals on a contingency rollback plan in the local number portability administrator (LNPA) transition from Neustar to iconectiv. AT&T and Verizon said system testing was going well and they support a North American Portability Management plan for manually rolling back functions to Neustar if iconectiv's new systems suffer "catastrophic failure," which both carriers called unlikely. Verizon said further discussions on a solution are ongoing. But the Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA) voiced concerns, and Neustar, in a strange twist, entered into the record a correction and retraction from PwC, NAPM's transition oversight manager (TOM), after NAPM apparently refused to do so. The FCC and NAPM didn't comment Friday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may be asked to transfer net neutrality litigation to the D.C. Circuit, observers told us Friday. Parties to the case aren't saying what they'll do; some cautioned against speculation; and others questioned whether it would make that much difference to the outcome. But several agreed with previous suggestions the 9th Circuit generally is slower than the D.C. Circuit in deciding cases. The FCC declined to comment.
The next U.S. ambassador to the World Radiocommunication Conference, set for Geneva Oct. 28-Nov. 22, 2019, likely won’t be named until almost a year from now, officials predicted. U.S. preparation is well underway, but the ambassador is generally designated late in the game. WRC-19 is widely viewed as perhaps the most important WRC ever because of its expected focus on 5G and harmonizing spectrum bands for the new generation of wireless. Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state-cyber and international communications and information policy, told a Wiley Rein conference last week that President Donald Trump plans to appoint an ambassador to head the U.S. delegation to the WRC (see 1803050054).
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., picked FCC Enforcement Bureau Assistant Chief Geoffrey Starks as his recommended candidate to replace Commissioner Mignon Clyburn upon her expected departure from the commission, multiple sources familiar with the situation told us. Schumer's office didn't comment Friday, but he may publicly recommend Starks for Clyburn's seat in the near future, two communications sector lobbyists said. Schumer's decision came a month after Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., publicly backed John Branscome, committee chief Democratic telecom counsel, to succeed Clyburn (see 1802070047).
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act strikes a balance Congress probably couldn’t repeat today, said industry and digital rights representatives Thursday, despite hearing one independent filmmaker’s claim of lack of recourse for piracy. Silicon Flatirons panelists discussed Section 512, a safe harbor that makes certain providers -- like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube -- immune from liability for copyright infringement linked to user-generated content.
The Arizona Corporation Commission’s ethics code should address campaign contributions, Commissioner Bob Burns said Thursday as he proposed several amendments less than a week before commissioners vote on the document. The ACC is to vote at its Tuesday open meeting on a Feb. 28 draft code (see 1803010028) that would create an ethics officer and clarify rules on conflicts of interest and financial disclosure, but didn’t specifically target campaign contributions. Commissioners "will consider and comment on the amendments" at the open meeting, an ACC spokeswoman emailed.
Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, led Thursday filing of the Inmate Calling Technical Corrections Act, which would update rules for inmate calling services rate settings and clarify FCC authority to adjust the rules in the future. Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, along with Capitol Hill Democrats and others, meanwhile, voiced concerns during a Thursday Voices for Internet Freedom Coalition event about FCC policy direction on ICS, net neutrality and changes to the USF Lifeline program.
The Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization and spectrum legislative package (HR-4986) “will go through the Senate” one way or another, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on an appearance on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, set to be telecast Saturday. The House passed HR-4986 earlier this week (see 1803060046), but it remains unclear whether the measure will make it onto the FY 2018 omnibus spending bill.