Facing another year of swiftly growing retransmission consent fees paid to broadcasters, the cable industry and experts say it's unclear when, or if, that rate of increase will begin to moderate. That broadcasters have been able to keep those rates of increases this long is surprising, given declining broadcaster ratings and the proliferation of other content sources like over the top, said Duke University Shepley professor of public policy Philip Napoli.
President Donald Trump’s administration again proposed to cut federal funding to CPB in its FY 2019 budget proposal, placing it among the 22 entities it’s aiming to zero out for federal funding in a bid to “bring Federal spending under control, and reduce deficits by $3.6 trillion over the budget window.” The administration also proposed Monday expanding FCC authority to do spectrum auctions and eliminating accrued interest on future deposits in the Rural Utilities Service borrowers’ cushion of credit accounts. The budget largely maintains the funding levels the FCC, FTC and NTIA proposed in the Trump administration’s FY 2018 request, all of which are down from the year’s funding levels under continuing appropriations (see 1705230041). The White House also released its infrastructure legislative proposal, which would streamline the permit review process for small cells and Wi-Fi deployments (see 1802120001).
A NARUC draft resolution backing reseller participation in the Lifeline program advanced at the state regulators' winter meeting. The consumer committee Sunday endorsed the draft to urge the FCC to continue to allow non-facilities-based Lifeline providers to continue to receive low-income telecom subsidies. Chairman Maida Coleman, a Missouri commissioner who sponsored the draft, told us Monday the action was unanimous. The panel didn't support a conflicting draft resolution that would welcome an FCC proposal to retarget Lifeline support to facilities-based providers but did endorse a nationwide number portability draft resolution, one of four telecom drafts being considered at the meeting (see 1801300023).
President Donald Trump’s infrastructure legislative proposal included its expected focus on streamlining the federal environmental permitting process, including for small-cells deployments, along with state block grants and federal matching funds (see 1801220035, 1802090050 and 1802110001). Communications sector officials and lobbyists bemoaned lack of a dedicated broadband funding allocation in the proposal, released Monday. They told us they are in the beginning phase of negotiations with the White House and Capitol Hill. The White House also released its FY 2019 budget plan, which seeks to zero out public broadcaster federal funding. The FCC's budget would also fall (see 1802120037).
Industry is backing Commissioner Mike O’Rielly's January blog post to relax kids' video rules (see 1801260031) as public interest advocates are mobilizing against the perceived threat, officials on all sides told us last week. O’Rielly Tuesday said he believes the FCC will act in 2018. Others aren't so sure. The FCC and Chairman Ajit Pai’s office haven’t commented.
SES' signing onto the joint Intelsat/Intel plan for clearing portions of the C-band downlink spectrum for sharing with terrestrial mobile operations (see 1710020047) greatly increases the likelihood of that proposal moving forward at the FCC, satellite industry insiders told us. Citing a "duty and mission" to protect satellite C-band operations from disruption, SES CEO Karim Sabbagh said Friday the aim is to "ensure that the expansion of the C-band ecosystem in the U.S. will protect the interests of hundreds of established services and millions of American end-users, while at the same time paving the way for the creation of next-generation 5G terrestrial services.”
Lawmakers and communications sector lobbyists are watching closely for any final clues about President Donald Trump's long-anticipated infrastructure legislative proposal, before expected Monday release. Several told us they would gauge the proposal's viability based on what funding the proposal allocates directly for broadband projects. Trump's glancing mention of infrastructure plans during his January State of the Union speech, and particularly omission of broadband, left many industry officials disappointed and surprised. Some predicted it was a bad omen for their push to strengthen a broadband title in coming legislation (see 1801310071).
State regulators face competing Lifeline draft resolutions at NARUC's winter meeting on an FCC proposal to target low-income USF subsidies to facilities-based providers (see 1801300023 and 1801300023). A draft resolution to urge the FCC to continue allowing resellers to receive Lifeline funding appears to have more support than a draft that welcomed the proposed shift, some told us Friday, though compromise or postponement of consideration is always possible. Competing Lifeline draft resolutions were pulled from the last meeting (see 1711130035). At the winter meeting, which was to begin Sunday and run through Wednesday, NARUC is also to consider draft telecom resolutions on nationwide number portability and pole-attachment overlashing.
With the deadline for compliance with the EU general data protection regulation looming, many companies are still far from ready, business organizations we spoke with said. The GDPR takes effect May 25. Despite the seriousness of noncompliance, preparations are uneven, with U.S. tech companies and global digital enterprises further along than smaller businesses, industry representatives said. Lacking is final guidance from the EU Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29), which said Wednesday its last set of guidelines should be completed in coming weeks.
The Arizona Corporation Commission plans to vote next month on an ethics code, said Commissioner Boyd Dunn, spearheading the effort. At a webcast workshop Thursday, Dunn and other commissioners discussed proposed modifications to a draft that would create an ethics officer and clarify rules on conflicts of interest and financial disclosure (see 1801020017). Dunn believes commissioners will be able to agree on most provisions "because they make absolute common sense."