FCC efforts to spur wireline broadband advances sparked a strong response, as scores of parties submitted a wide range of views on a rulemaking notice and related items aimed at removing barriers to fiber network deployment. Telecom, cable and fiber providers generally supported the commission's direction, backing steps to ease pole attachments. Incumbent telcos also sought reduced copper-retirement regulation, but CLECs and consumer and labor groups opposed relaxation. Numerous localities and some state interests opposed possible FCC pre-emption of their oversight, and the electric utility industry objected to any heavy-handed pole-attachment intervention, though some supported "one-touch, make-ready" (OTMR) changes if properly conditioned.
Broadcasters are confident the national ownership cap will be relaxed, ownership rules will be rolled back, and broadcasters will continue to grow through M&A, said panelists at S&P Global Market Intelligence’s TV & Radio Finance Summit Thursday in New York. “Consolidation will continue,” said Nexstar Broadcasting President Tim Busch. “Consolidation has to happen,” said Heartland Media CEO Robert Prather. “There’s got to be somebody like Sinclair and Nexstar that has the clout” to push back against the more powerful networks, Prather said. There have been $4.3 billion worth of deals so far in 2017, compared with $5.2 billion in 2016, said S&P Global analyst Robin Flynn: “We anticipate seeing strong M&A momentum.”
Federal users are still showing some reluctance to work with FirstNet, Kraig Moise, chairman of the Public Safety Advisory Committee’s Federal Working Group, told the full group Thursday. The committee represents public safety interests. FirstNet is becoming a reality, said FirstNet Vice Chairman Jeff Johnson at the PSAC meeting. Johnson said he would be surprised if in the end every state and territory doesn’t opt in. The meeting was livestreamed from San Antonio. Meanwhile, states are considering their next move.
NTCA and USTelecom asked the FCC to give rural telcos broadband USF contribution relief while the agency seeks to revise the subsidy system's assessments of industry for funding. The commission should provide "targeted, temporary forbearance from the application of USF contribution requirements ... with respect to broadband Internet access transmission services provided by RLECs pending the completion of comprehensive USF contributions reform," they said in a petition Wednesday in docket 06-122. The groups sought the USF contribution relief for such RLEC broadband services until the commission decides whether any and all broadband services "should be required to contribute to support of federal USF programs or completes some other form of contributions reform." They said regulatory forbearance would have a "de minimis effect" on USF contributions. RLECs are being subjected to "discriminatory and anti-competitive treatment" under a 2005 wireline broadband order that allowed them to offer broadband on a common-carrier basis -- to recover costs for such service via access rates and USF -- but only if they agreed to make USF contributions, NTCA and USTelecom said. Other providers haven't been required to make USF contributions, even under the 2015 net neutrality order that reclassified broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service because the agency provided USF contribution forbearance, they said. A federal-state joint board is looking at USF contribution issues in an effort to make recommendations to the FCC for possible changes. The FCC, CTIA, NTCA and Public Knowledge didn't comment.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai advances Lisa Fowlkes (see 1706130059) to chief-Public Safety Bureau, where she was acting chief ... Wilkinson Barker hires Anne Swanson, ex-Cooley, as partner; she has worked on drone, tech and communications issues ... NAB hires Josh Pollack, ex-White House aide under President Barack Obama, as vice president-government relations, effective July 10 ... With Verizon completing (see 1706130048) purchase of the operating business of Yahoo, the assets are combined with its existing AOL business to create a new subsidiary, Oath; ex-AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is CEO of Oath, which is part of Verizon's Media and Telematics organization; Marni Walden is Verizon president-media and telematics; Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer resigns from Yahoo.
House Communications Subcommittee members agreed during a Tuesday hearing that more needs to be done to improve cybersecurity of wireless infrastructure and mobile devices. Political parties diverged on how government should be involved. Republicans touted importance of private industry driving the push for communications sector-wide cybersecurity improvements, while Democrats lamented the FCC's recently reduced cyber role. Symantec Senior Policy Counsel Bill Wright and other industry experts said mobile devices are an increasingly attractive target for hackers, and improvements to their cyber protections should become a top priority.
Federal judges shot down key parts of an FCC order that limited inmate calling service charges without regulating ICS provider "site commission" payments to correctional authorities. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated caps on intrastate ICS rates, use of industry-averaged cost data in setting rate caps, and exclusion of site commissions from industry costs. It remanded rate caps, ancillary fees and site-commission costs for further agency consideration. Judges Harry Edwards and Laurence Silberman approved the ruling and Cornelia Pillard largely dissented in Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461 (see 1706130012).
The California Public Utilities Commission may oppose the FCC on wireline and wireless infrastructure NPRMs and notices of inquiry. California commissioners plan to vote Thursday on proposed staff comments to the FCC, said an agenda. Staff asked permission to comment that the FCC is “reading its authority more broadly than the statutory language warrants,” said the draft comments released Friday. “Plain language of §253(d) does not give the FCC the power to promulgate rules to preempt state and local regulations.” The FCC “must act through case-by-case adjudication, not a blanket peremptory rulemaking,” it said. Staff disagreed that the FCC should remove or reduce copper notice requirements. The federal regulator shouldn’t reduce from 180 days the waiting period for a certificate to terminate service, and should keep a prohibition on disclosing network change information until after public notice, the draft said. “Absent this rule[,] an ILEC planning to retire copper could notify an affiliate which could lay fiber where a competitor already has a wholesale agreement, potentially putting that competitor out of business.” The FCC should maintain protections ensuring that disabled customers can continue to communicate on IP networks, and shouldn’t remove 2015 standards for discontinuance of legacy services and replacement services, it said. “Customers might lose free access to 911, or service functionality or coverage, or access to relay service.” Also on the agenda for Thursday’s CPUC meeting, commissioners will vote on opening a rulemaking to consider whether text messaging is a telecom service that must pay into state USF and other programs (see 1705150040). And commissioners will vote on whether to extend until Aug. 23 the deadline to align state LifeLine with changes to the federal low-income program.
Building and real-estate groups backed a bid for FCC pre-emption of a San Francisco code that requires multi-tenant buildings to allow occupants to request access to competing communications service providers (see 1612150006). Initial comments "overwhelmingly support" the petition of the Multifamily Broadband Council to pre-empt Article 52 of the San Francisco Police Code, which "conflicts with federal law, will impede broadband deployment and infrastructure investment in multiple dwelling units ('MDUs') and will increase prices and reduce service quality for MDU residents," replied the National Multifamily Housing Council. Most replies were posted Friday and Monday in docket 17-91. Initial comments (see 1705190040) showed Article 52 "will harm competition, MDU residents, and building owners in San Francisco" by stripping "providers of the ability to secure financing for broadband deployment," replied MBC. Others filing replies backing the petition were: Alliance Residential; Camden Property Trust, Essex Property Trust; InfoSmart Partners and Converged Service Partners; Mill Creek Residential Trust; Sares Regis Group, Sequoia Equities and RealtyCom Partners; and a group of 24 apartment owners. San Francisco replied that the advocates of the petition largely ignored that it concerns whether federal law and FCC regulations pre-empt Article 52: "While many of the proponents ask the Commission to find that Article 52 'conflicts' with federal law and Commission policy, they provide scant legal analysis and nothing supporting such a finding. Rather, they urge the Commission to find that the policy reasons for adopting Article 52 are misguided and that San Francisco’s law, while intended to foster competition, 'discourages competition' and 'infrastructure investment' in [MDUs]. ... What is clear from the proponents’ comments is that they like the status quo." Industry providers and property owners backing the petition want the FCC "to allow them to continue to operate under the exclusive access agreements they have enjoyed," San Francisco said. Also filing replies in opposition to the petition were Boston, Fiber Broadband Association and Incompas. Article 52 is a "pro-competitive, barrier-removing local ordinance, with a now-proven track record for helping providers gain access" to MDUs, Incompas replied. FCC members tentatively plan to vote June 22 on a notice of inquiry that would seek comment on ways to improve competitive broadband access in multi-tenant buildings (see 1706010049).
The FCC Technological Advisory Council met for the first time Thursday under Chairman Ajit Pai, with a new focus on types of issues Pai has emphasized, including cutting regulation and broadband deployment. TAC was a favorite of then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who chaired the group before he was a commissioner. Pai, meanwhile, is visiting Plains states (see 1706080041). Although some complained afterward of a possible tilt toward deregulation under the TAC, others defended its tack under Pai.