The House Commerce Committee's timeline for marking up the FCC Reauthorization Act remains up in the air amid behind-the-scenes negotiations on proposed amendments to the bill before its formal introduction, lawmakers and lobbyists said in interviews. The House Communications Subcommittee last month cleared a draft of the bill by Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., after staff reached a compromise to remove several controversial provisions. House Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., at the time said he was willing to work with ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and others on ways to incorporate language allocating additional funding for repacking reimbursements into a final bill (see 1710100066 and 1710110070).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai appears unlikely to change course on a Lifeline draft before commissioners meet Thursday, observers told us, with several expecting a 3-2 vote along party lines. Critics sounded the alarm on a draft Lifeline item on the agenda, warning of "an attack" on the low-income broadband and voice subsidy program. The draft orders and notices "would kill wireless service for most tribal lands in the U.S. immediately and then for millions of other Americans in the following months," said Consumer Action, National Grange and a tribal advocate.
David Redl, once he finally takes office as NTIA administrator, is expected to help the Trump administration articulate its spectrum policy more clearly. The White House has been mostly quiet so far, especially compared with the Obama administration. The Donald Trump White House is expected to be more skeptical about sharing, favoring exclusive-use licenses, but hasn't released position statements (see 1706090053). One factor that should help Redl is that he used to work with, and is considered close to, Grace Koh, who has been at the White House since February as special assistant to the president for technology, telecom and cybersecurity policy, though someone higher in the administration also will have to take an interest for spectrum to rise higher on the list of Trump priorities, industry officials said.
The FCC’s draft ATSC 3.0 order is expected to be approved 3-2 on a party-line vote, and the few changes since it was circulated last month will largely favor broadcasters, industry and eighth-floor officials told us. MVPD groups lobbied hard for changes to the 3.0 transition plan, but broadcast and pay-TV officials said the final version would include few changes favoring their positions. Sinclair executives, meanwhile, downplayed privacy concerns with 3.0 (see 1711140046).
ICANN's decision to study potential impact of name collisions on security and stability of the domain name system is a positive step, said Donuts Vice President Communications Judith McGarry in an interview. Donuts is one of several registries that applied for generic top-level domains .home, .corp and .mail in the last round of applications, but ICANN held up the names over concerns they're at high risk of conflicting with internal or private name spaces such as corporate servers. The problem is caused by ICANN's mistaken belief DNS names are universal, global identifiers, said former board member Karl Auerbach, now InterWorking Labs chief technical officer.
ATSC 3.0 is something CTA has “worked on really hard with the broadcasters,” and any opposition to FCC commissioners’ expected vote this week authorizing voluntary deployment came “out of the blue,” President Gary Shapiro told a CES Unveiled New York news conference Thursday. This week, criticism of the draft continued, including from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, as Chairman Ajit Pai defended moving 3.0 forward and an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel stood by her boss' concerns.
BALTIMORE -- State members of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service are ready to recommend how to revamp USF contribution, said State Chair Chris Nelson at a NARUC meeting. State members met unofficially Sunday without their FCC counterparts, Nelson told us. Monday, the NARUC Telecom Committee delayed voting on two competing Lifeline resolutions, but voted for a draft resolution to support requiring direct dialing of 911 in hotels and other enterprises.
Stakeholders criticized proposed FCC wireline broadband infrastructure actions in a draft item on the agenda for Thursday's commissioners' meeting (see 1710270040). Consumer groups, industry parties and others opposed changes the draft would make to agency rules adopted in past orders on technology transitions, copper retirements and telecom service discontinuances. Electric utilities voiced concern about possible FCC efforts to further drive down pole-attachment rates. The objections were in filings posted Monday and last week in docket 17-84, including on meetings before lobbying restrictions took effect Thursday.
The FCC is expected to consider an NPRM on the future of spectrum above 95 GHz as early as the Dec. 14 commissioners’ meeting, industry officials said. The date could slip until January, but a draft is almost ready, they said. The FCC asked preliminary questions about the very-high frequency spectrum as part of the July 2016 spectrum frontiers order and Further NPRM (see 1607140052).
Indications the Justice Department is pushing AT&T for divestitures as part of its proposed buy of Time Warner (TW) (see 1711080047) point to Justice swinging back toward favoring structural rather than behavioral conditions for problematic deals, experts said. On the behavioral remedies on vertical deals in recent years, such as Comcast's buy of NBCUniversal, "most people think they're failures," said University of Baltimore Venable professor of law Robert Lande. The Obama administration was more favorable to employing behavioral conditions than was the George W. Bush administration, experts said, citing the Bush administration's 2004 antitrust guidelines. DOJ didn't comment Monday.