Section 301 tariffs

House Communications Subcommittee members focused on the TV incentive auction Tuesday during FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s eighth hearing on Capitol Hill this year. That number of appearances “marks a new record,” said Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., saying no FCC chief has testified that much in a calendar year in at least 14 years. The auction is scheduled to happen by the end of 2016’s first quarter, with March 29 the inadvertently released expected date (see 1507200065).

The FCC is working to implement the recommendations of a May GAO report on how the agency communicates with consumers, Chairman Tom Wheeler told Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in a July 15 letter released Friday. The FCC’s report and order on net neutrality from March “commissioned a Federal Advisory Committee, the Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC), to devise a format by which broadband Internet access providers can provide consumers with broadband performance information,” Wheeler said. “The FCC directed the CAC to propose a format so that consumers can make informed choices regarding the purchase of broadband services.” That committee has to submit its proposal by Oct. 31, Wheeler said. The agency is also assessing its Measuring Broadband America effort and “will work with the CAC to better determine the broadband performance information needed by consumers” and incorporate it into that, Wheeler said.

A working group of the FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture (TFOPA) will say in a pending report that deployment of next-generation 911 technology isn't occurring as quickly as it should, said TFOPA officials as the group met for the third time at the FCC Monday. The group got a briefing on the first report to be nearly complete, by the working group for options on a sustainable 911 fee.

Chairman Tom Wheeler said the entire FCC is committed to improving communications for the deaf and blind and others with disabilities, during a commission panel Thursday on the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the fifth anniversary of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). “This is an agency that has so many people that are believers in the kinds of concepts embodied in the ADA and the CVAA,” Wheeler said. The theme of many speakers was that communications have improved markedly since the ADA was passed in the aftermath of the “Deaf President Now” protests at Gallaudet University in 1988.

The Senate appropriations process may threaten the bipartisan net neutrality negotiation that has been ongoing in the Senate Commerce Committee (see 1506040046). The Senate Appropriations Committee approved an FCC funding package Thursday in divided, partisan fashion, with the funding deadline looming. Democrats worry about what the policy rider prohibiting FCC broadband rate regulation may mean. Funding expires Sept. 30, creating the need for either appropriations by regular order or continuing resolution.

Major telecom policy players endorsed 2016 presidential candidates with their pocketbooks this summer. The lion’s share of top executives leaned toward establishment candidates: Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who has polled strongly among GOP contenders. Clinton in particular was flooded with donations from executives from Comcast, Dish and Verizon and from senior aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler himself, according to the latest campaign records released to the Federal Election Commission. Several industry observers told us to expect less telecom change if Clinton wins the White House.

Windstream fired back at AT&T’s opposition to possible FCC IP transition interim rules that Windstream believes are needed to protect competition and prevent business market price hikes. “AT&T’s arguments are unmoored from reality and the law,” Windstream said in an ex parte filing in FCC docket 13-5. Windstream, which is both a CLEC and an ILEC, said that AT&T was ignoring the market downside if CLECs lose affordable wholesale access to ILEC last-mile networks and the FCC’s past reliance on wholesale competition to give ILECs previous regulatory relief. AT&T didn't comment. The FCC announced Friday tentative plans to vote Aug. 6 on two draft orders intended to protect wholesale competition and consumers during the IP technology transition (see 1507160046).

FCC proposals to revise network outage reporting rules drew mixed responses in comments on a March NPRM that were posted Thursday and Friday in docket 15-80. Wireline and wireless carriers welcomed some FCC proposals and opposed others that they said would impose undue reporting burdens on carriers without providing necessary or even useful information. Verizon said the FCC should simplify outage reporting thresholds, apply duties consistently across networks in a competitively neutral and technically feasible way, and focus only on significant network outage events. APCO welcomed an FCC proposal to require reporting of partial 911 outages, but the telcos voiced concern. State regulators generally supported the FCC proposal to share database outage information with states.

Any reinterpretation of multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) to encompass some parts of the over-the-top video world shouldn't come with the FCC directly playing a role in licensing of programming rights for online video distribution, and shouldn't apply to programmers distributing content through applications or services they come up with in house, a group of media companies said in a filing posted Monday in docket 14-261. "New rules seeking to promote innovation and competition in video distribution should not apply to content providers who simply want to continue developing new ways in which consumers can access and enjoy their content," CBS said. Regarding whether the FCC should play a regulatory role in the market for programing rights for online distribution, CBS said that step "would be a troubling and unnecessary influence into private licensing negotiations" and better handled by through existing copyright law than FCC regulation. The ex parte filing followed a meeting last week among executives from CBS, Disney, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox and Viacom and representatives from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's office. Verizon, in a separate ex parte filing on 14-261 posted Monday, said that while it broadly supports including OTT providers of multiple streams of prescheduled, linear video programming in the MVPD definition, those OTT providers shouldn't face "ill-fitted legacy cable regulations, such as franchising, must-carry and technology mandates," as such rules "would discourage the provision of new online video services, undermining the Commission’s goal in this proceeding of generating additional competitive options for consumers." OTT video providers should be subject to such 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act requirements as closed captioning and video description, and the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act's loudness mitigation obligations, Verizon said. The Verizon meeting participants included Leora Hochstein, executive director-federal regulatory affairs, and staff from the Media Bureau and the Office of Strategic Planning.

The Telecom Committee passed five resolutions during its business meeting Tuesday during the NARUC summer committee meetings here in New York. The resolutions will be reviewed by the NARUC board Wednesday afternoon before being voted on by the organization officially. Three of the resolutions covered risk management and best practices for cybersecurity for communications providers, congressional action on the open Internet and eligible telecommunications carrier designations for Lifeline broadband services, as expected (see 1507020054). The resolutions passed with little discussion and had been edited lightly from their original versions.