A split panel of federal judges has upheld the FCC net neutrality order that reclassified broadband service under Title II of the Communications Act. In a 184-page document of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judges David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan wrote the majority opinion finding FCC arguments reasonable and denying all petitions for review of its order, while judge Stephen Williams dissented in part and concurred in part (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler cheered the ruling, which Commissioner Ajit Pai said it disappointed him, and USTelecom had no immediate comment.
While DirecTV's scaled-down request for complaints from the FTC Consumer Sentinel system is more proportional to the needs of the case, the agency might need to produce random samples of complaints from companies now no longer part of DirecTV's request, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James of San Francisco in an order (in Pacer) Thursday. The judge said the agency and the direct broadcast satellite company must confer to determine which companies' complaints the FTC will produce and an appropriate sample size for each company. DirecTV and the FTC have been fighting over consumer complaint documentation (see 1603090012 and 1603040021) as part of the commission's 2015 lawsuit against DirecTV for allegedly not properly communicating early cancelation fee terms to subscribers (see 1503110042). DirecTV had sought Consumer Sentinel data on 10 multichannel video programming distributors, with the court directing the parties to agree on a more limited production. In her order, James said DirecTV now is seeking all 231,802 complaints for Charter Communications, Comcast and Dish Network, while the FTC was proposing samples for three companies of DirecTV's choosing, and that the FTC sampling proposal "more closely comports with [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26] demand for proportionality."
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler laid out another defense for his set-top box rulemaking before lawmakers, this time in response to critics. The letter’s Friday release follows a Thursday news conference of Capitol Hill Democratic defenders (see 1606090066). Some saw it as inappropriately attacking NPRM critic Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., who has led Democrats in opposition.
The House FY 2017 FCC funding bill retained its policy riders curbing the agency’s net neutrality order, mandating a pause to the set-top proceeding and mandating FCC process overhaul Thursday as it advanced to the floor. Appropriations Committee Republicans shot down Democrats' attempts to modify the Financial Services bill during the long full committee markup, approving the bill 30-17.
The FCC will move to a new location if the General Services Administration wins a claim brought against it by the commission's current landlord, said a motion filed in the case by Trammell Crow, a Washington, D.C., real estate development company. Trammell Crow received a letter from the GSA naming it the "apparent successful offeror" to be the FCC's new landlord, but the lease won't be awarded until the bid protest by current FCC landlord Republic Properties is resolved, said Trammell Crow in a motion to intervene in the Republic Properties case filed in U.S. Federal Claims Court. If Trammell Crow wins the lease, the FCC would move to Trammell Crow's Sentinel Square development north of Union Station, reported the Washington Business Journal. The commission's lease at the Portals will expire in October 2017.
The FCC got conflicting advice in response to a May rulemaking proposal on a narrow aspect of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act -- providing an exception for companies hired by the federal government to collect funds that are owed the government (see 1605090037). Congress provided a special exemption for federal debt collectors in last year’s budget deal, the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA).
DALLAS -- With several areas of contention between spectrum users over using or sharing bands, FCC intervention may be needed, said panelists at a Telecommunications Industry Association conference. Examples include whether Ligado's building a terrestrial LTE network will interfere with GPS devices and whether those devices are themselves operating as intended (see 1605230031), the pending FCC draft order that would let Globalstar in phases build out its terrestrial broadband product (see 1606030041), and contested claims over whether carriers using LTE-unlicensed will interfere with cable operators and others' Wi-Fi services (see 1605060033). To incentivize parties at odds over contested spectrum to come to a solution, the FCC could try to convince opponents that reaching a deal will be better for them than not, said spectrum specialists and an industry lawyer at TIA 2016 Tuesday.
The FCC plans at its June 24 meeting to consider an NPRM aimed at streamlining and increasing the transparency of executive branch reviews involving commission license/permit applicants with foreign ownership interests. The FCC also plans to vote at the meeting on an order to require undersea cable operator licensees to report communications network outages, said a tentative agenda issued Friday. Also on tap is an order on hurricane alerts.
Qwest was within its rights when it compelled arbitration of interconnection agreements with a CLEC, a federal appeals court confirmed. In an opinion Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed two district courts’ judgments in favor of Qwest and state regulatory commissions in Arizona and Oregon. North County Communications, a CLEC, sued incumbent Qwest for seeking arbitration at the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Oregon Public Utility Commission of the carriers’ interconnection agreements . The CLEC said the commissions shouldn’t have forced North County into binding arbitration on Qwest’s request. But district courts in the two states supported each commission’s authority to arbitrate the agreements. The 9th Circuit agreed, saying in Tuesday’s order that the language in Qwest and North County’s previous 1997 interconnection agreement gave each party the power to compel arbitration by state commissions if negotiations between the parties failed to resolve their disputes. The 9th Circuit also rejected North County challenges to six provisions in the 2011 interconnection agreements. The court said the commissions didn’t violate the 1996 Telecom Act, nor were their actions arbitrary or capricious.
With the EU top data watchdog lining up against Privacy Shield, some observers said the proposed EU-U.S. trans-Atlantic data transfer agreement is on shakier ground -- and the opposition could delay its approval. European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli's opinion issued Monday came days after the European Parliament issued a resolution saying that both sides need to continue negotiations to fix "deficiencies" on weak data protections and a complex redress system (see 1605260024).