The FTC and other federal civil law enforcement agencies shouldn't stand in the way of changes that "improve" the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, former Commissioner Julie Brill said during a recent interview. In September, Brill issued a separate statement from the agency when a commission official testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She said the proposed changes to ECPA wouldn't hamper the FTC's current or future investigations. She feared the commission's proposal to carve out a separate "judicial mechanism" to obtain content from service providers could potentially lead to invasion of privacy.
States may sue the FCC over the commission’s Lifeline order, pending a review of the text of the final order, NARUC President Travis Kavulla said in an interview on Friday. At its Thursday meeting, the FCC approved by a 3-2 vote an order that would extend USF low-income subsidies to broadband (see 1603310056). While states support a broadband expansion, they have disagreed with the FCC’s decision to shift potential responsibility for verifying Lifeline broadband provider eligibility from the states to a national third party, sharply condemning the proposal in a March 17 letter ultimately signed by 96 state commissioners (see 1603180052). Before the FCC vote, the National Governors Association and NASUCA voiced concerns about where the order leaves states. Capitol Hill Democrats were revealed to be heavily involved in lobbying the agency hours before the vote. After the vote, rural telco/RLEC groups NTCA and WTA also voiced concerns about the Lifeline order.
At a Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee lunch Friday, speakers predicted that Congress will wade more deeply into privacy over the summer, as the FCC takes comments on its NPRM. The FCC is likely to push forward with ISP privacy rules while FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler remains in office, Paul Gallant, analyst at Guggenheim Partners, said in a note to investors Friday. But Gallant also saw a note of hope for ISPs in comments by Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who voted for the NPRM Thursday (see 1603310049).
The FCC rejected a TracFone counsel's appeal to view Lifeline enforcement records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The agency denied an application for review filed by Mitchell Brecher of Greenberg Traurig seeking to reverse a 2014 Wireline Bureau decision. The bureau had denied his FOIA request that sought information relating to FCC notices of apparent liability (NALs) against his firm's client TracFone and 11 other companies for apparently violating Lifeline USF rules by obtaining subsidy support for more than one subscriber from the same household. Brecher narrowed and clarified his request to three categories of records, but the bureau said the documents were exempt from FOIA disclosure. The full commission agreed in an order Tuesday, with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly partially dissenting. He said he agreed the records were exempt from FOIA release but dissented from the application of Exemption 5 to communications between the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. He said USAC was neither part of the FCC nor a separate federal agency, but an independent, private nonprofit corporation. "FCC-USAC communications are clearly neither intra-agency nor inter-agency communications protected by the deliberative process privilege, and should not be treated as such," he said in a statement attached to the order. Brecher didn't comment.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a proposed declaratory ruling on a petition from Broadnet “that would, if adopted, clarify whether the TCPA [Telephone Consumer Protection Act] applies to calls made by federal government officials when they are acting in their official capacities,” he told House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, in a March 16 letter released this week. “It would also address the work of contractors who are acting as agents of the federal government. The draft decision discusses both the meaning of the term ‘person’ in the TCPA and how the Supreme Court’s Campbell-Ewald decision applies to the issues raised by the petitioners before the Commission.” Wheeler said he thinks the FCC should affirm the TCPA doesn’t apply to federal government officials acting in that capacity but that would require a full FCC vote.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler offered a bevy of defenses and explanations to Capitol Hill on his Lifeline program overhaul and broadband privacy regulation NPRM, both set for votes Thursday at the FCC’s meeting. The agency released Wheeler’s responses to multiple lawmakers Wednesday on the items, as governors slammed the Lifeline overhaul plan and Charter Communications defended it.
Though Tuesday evening is the final deadline for broadcasters to enter their spectrum in the incentive auction and has been billed by the Incentive Auction Task Force and Chairman Tom Wheeler as the start of the auction for months, no actual bidding is likely to happen for more than a month, according to statements by Chairman Tom Wheeler and IATF officials. The window for broadcasters to tell the FCC what they'd like to happen to their spectrum in the auction -- called the initial commitment window -- opened Monday at 10 a.m. EDT, and will close Tuesday at 6 p.m. Broadcasters that don't make an initial commitment to sell all their spectrum or relocate to VHF by Tuesday's deadline will be repacked, the IATF has said. To give broadcasters a chance to test the sign-up process, the commission made it available for a preview period starting last week.
Charter Communications won conditional OK in Hawaii for its acquisition of Time Warner Cable subsidiaries, leaving California at the state level needing to approve Charter buys of TWC and Bright House Networks. The scope of the Hawaii PUC review didn’t include BHN and was limited to an indirect transfer of control of TWC’s Information Services and Business subsidiaries to Charter. After the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission order Thursday, the overall deal requires approval by the FCC and the California PUC.
The FCC got its way for now in what lawyers called an unusual court case they said Thursday will help one station sell all its spectrum in the incentive auction. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously with one abstention gave Gray Television a stay Wednesday of a Superior Court March 2 preliminary injunction (see 1603110074) requiring the broadcaster reinstate to its past condition for WAGT Augusta. Officials and court records said that would have meant the station, which Gray agreed to sell in the auction so the company wouldn't have a duopoly in the market, couldn't be included in the auction that starts Tuesday. Instead, it would have been restored to a discontinued joint sales agreement with Media General.
Ligado's planned LTE network carries potential "serious and negative consequences" for AWS-3 spectrum use, SNR Wireless said Wednesday, urging the FCC to look into such problems before considering the former LightSquared's proposal. In a filing Wednesday in docket 12-340, SNR said Ligado's plans to relinquish its rights to use 1545-1555 MHz and to seek access to the 1675-1680 MHz band (see 1512310016) carry multiple interference issues for AWS-3 licensees like it. The designated entity which has been affiliated with Dish Network said interference issues include that the total amount of energy received at earth stations receiving signals from geostationary operational environmental satellites and polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites in the 1675-1710 MHz band will increase, and the Ligado-commissioned interference analysis doesn't look at the effect of licensed commercial AWS-3 uplink operations in 1695-1710 MHz. And the AWS-3 interference analysis done by the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC) didn't look at commercial downlink operations in 1675-1680 MHz, SNR said. The proximity of 1675-1680 MHz commercial downlink operations to 1695-1710 MHz commercial uplink operations heightens the likelihood of AWS-3 base station receiver overload or of out-of-band emissions causing base station interference, SNR said, adding that the FCC and AWS-3 auction bidders didn't contemplate those interference scenarios before the auction. The CSMAC process set up recommended protection distances around meteorological earth stations that commercial AWS-3 operators in the 1695-1710 band had to coordinate within, and Ligado's proposal -- by adding to the interference at federal users' earth stations -- would eat up some of the interference budget AWS-3 licensees have now, SNR said. "Ligado's proposal is therefore flawed because it will be impossible to allocate any interference budget amount to its proposed use without also 'stealing' interference budget from AWS-3 spectrum acquired at auction on the basis of an interference budget allocation that was codified in the FCC's rules." SNR said Ligado's LTE plan makes it tough to reconcile interference federal users see between AWS-3 operations and 1675-1680 MHz base station operations. In a statement Wednesday, Ligado said, "The communications industry routinely addresses spectrum coordination and co-existence issues, resolving them through the FCC process, standards bodies, and discussions between the various stakeholders. The issues raised occur frequently in spectrum discussions -- recent examples include bands affected by AWS-4. We look forward to a public comment process to discuss these types of issues with all affected stakeholders."