The FCC’s newly reconfigured Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet June 23, starting at 1 p.m.. in the Commission Meeting Room, said a notice in Wednesday's Federal Register. The last CSRIC met the final time in March (see 1703150058). The FCC rechartered the group in April for a new two-year term, though with no focus on cybersecurity issues (see 1704100059).
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will appeal a federal district court opinion that Charter VoIP is an information service that may not be regulated. The commission informed U.S. District Court in St. Paul of its appeal to the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a Wednesday notice (in Pacer). With the FCC never ruling definitively on how to classify interconnected VoIP, observers see the case as having big implications for whether states also may regulate internet-based voice communications.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) names businessman and ex-state Rep. Damon Baldone (D) a commissioner for the state Public Service Commission; he succeeds Commissioner Scott Angelle, resigned; Baldone serves until a special election ... Office of Science and Technology Policy alumna Renee Gregory joins Willkie Farr as counsel, Communications & Media Department ... New at Uber: Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei as senior vice president-leadership and strategy, reporting to CEO Travis Kalanick and partnering with Chief Human Resources Officer Liane Hornsey.
Incumbent telcos lobbied FCC General Counsel Brendan Carr and others on the companies' position that interexchange carriers can't use tariffed access services and then seek refunds on grounds they routed intra-major trading area wireless traffic using such services to LECs. CenturyLink, Cox Communications, Frontier Communications and Windstream representatives noted in the ex parte filing posted Monday to docket 01-92 that a federal judge granted an LEC motion to dismiss Sprint and Verizon's federal claims in an intercarrier compensation fight between LECs and interexchange carriers over such wireline-wireless traffic (see 1511200070). The commission shouldn't take any action inconsistent with the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, said the members of the LEC Coalition. The LECs also met with Wireline Bureau staff. Sprint and Level 3 asked the FCC to reiterate that long-distance companies (inter-exchange carriers) don't owe local phone access charges for wireline-wireless traffic (see 1605110056).
Local authorities feel underrepresented on the FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee and fear they won’t be able to support industry-dominated BDAC's recommendations, local officials said in interviews this week. “The deck is stacked and it’s not in local government’s favor,” said local government attorney Ken Fellman, a member of the FCC Intergovernmental Advisory Committee (IAC), which represents local, state and tribal interests but has no members on BDAC. Industry disagreed the BDAC is balanced against local voices.
Regulating broadband providers under Title II of the Communications Act is more anachronistic than most argue, said Tad Lipsky, acting director of the FTC Competition Bureau, at the Free State Foundation conference Wednesday. Many in industry say reclassifying saddled broadband providers with a regulatory approach from 1934 when the Communications Act was passed, Lipsky said. In reality, the regulation is modeled on the Interstate Commerce Act, signed by President Grover Cleveland in 1887, he said. The act “has been the model for all of the economic regulatory agencies at the federal level in our history,” he said. “I’m a cheerleader for the light regulation approach,” Lipsky said. “I endorse the philosophy that the temptation to look at the problems of a dynamic and quickly developing industry, and to immediately apply the structure of economic regulation” to guard against future problems “has been a fail.” The Interstate Commerce Commission was eliminated in 1996 and the Civil Aeronautics Board was terminated earlier, he said. “It is in many respects a dubious and highly questionable … system of regulation.” Tom Pahl, acting director of the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau, remembers an era when people had party-line phones, his parents had to visit travel agencies to plan family trips, and there were no YouTube videos on performing simple household repairs. “My teenage son cannot even imagine living under those circumstances.” Pahl said. The internet transformed daily life, he said. “In large part, a free-market, limited-regulatory approach has fostered this transformation while protecting consumers from harm.” The FTC is protecting data security, bringing hundreds of privacy and data security cases, Pahl said. The cases “involved offline and online information and companies large and small,” he said. “They covered all parts of the internet ecosystem, including social networks, search engines, ad networks, online retailers, mobile apps and mobile handsets.” If the FCC returns broadband to a Title I regime, the FTC is “ready, willing and able to protect the data security and privacy of broadband subscribers,” Pahl said. “We have a wealth of consumer protection and competition experience and expertise, which we will bring to bear on online data security and privacy laws.” The standards would then apply to all internet companies, not just ISPs, he said. “Our approach would ensure that the standards the government applies are comprehensive, consistent and pro-competitive.” Companies would be held responsible for the promises they make to consumers and accountable for the misuse of information, he said. “We hold companies responsible for not having reasonable data security practices.”
FCC Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn backed means-testing USF support for broadband/telecom service in high-cost areas. It's "time to fix a fundamental structural defect" in the program, which is the subsidization of communications access for people "who don't need or deserve governmental assistance," they said in a rare joint blog post Wednesday. They sought comment on various questions and hope to bring the issue before the commission "in the very near future." O'Rielly recently said he and Clyburn were working on a draft item (see 1705180061). Representatives of Chairman Ajit Pai, USTelecom and NTCA declined comment.
The FCC’s FY 2018 budget request includes plans for an additional $6 billion spectrum auction, to take place between 2025 and 2027, but offers no more details. Industry lawyers, including former FCC and Capitol Hill officials, said at this stage, the FCC goal may be mostly aspirational and government doesn’t appear to be focused on a particular band. The budget document proposes to extend FCC auction authority to 2027, from a current expiration of 2025. “The Budget proposes to require the auction of additional spectrum by 2027 and further extend the FCC’s auction authority solely to allow this auction to proceed,” it said.
Montana penalties may be unlikely against Republicans for calling voters with recorded endorsements for U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte (R) by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, despite a Montana law banning robocalls. Enforcement of the state prohibition is difficult, Montana’s authority on political ethics told us Thursday. However, complaints are possible under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a TCPA attorney said. Gianforte also faced criticism after reportedly body-slamming a reporter asking questions about healthcare at a campaign event.
The Trump administration FY 2018 budget request would cut FCC funding by about $18 million. The White House unveiled the documents Tuesday, and several stakeholders said Congress won't take up the proposal as drafted. The funding measure comported with a previous outline and moved to nix funding for the CPB, including a small portion of funding as part of a winding-down process.