The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted a one-year extension Wednesday of the FCC waiver for advanced communications services (ACS) accessibility rules to a basic class of e-readers, in an order in docket 10-213. E-reader makers had sought a waiver extension for an ongoing period of time, while groups representing the blind and vision impaired had opposed any extension of the initial one-year waiver (see 1411120048). The e-readers in the narrow class are primarily designed for reading text-based digital works, even though they're capable of accessing ACS, the bureau said. It won’t require e-reader manufacturers covered by the waiver to comply with section 14.20, 14.21 or 14.31 of the commission’s rules until Jan. 28, 2016. The bureau urged manufacturers to consider accessible design early on in development stages in future generations of e-readers "to provide ACS as one of their primary functions." "We're disappointed to hear that, but we're glad they haven't granted a permanent waiver," said a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. "We don't feel that e-readers should be exempt at all [from ACS rules]. The content of e-readers is 1s and 0s, so it's not inherently visual and can be rendered as pure Braille or other formats." The federation will submit further comments to the FCC, he said. A lawyer for the Coalition of e-Reader Manufacturers that had sought the waiver extension for Amazon, Kobo and Sony declined to comment.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., may bring back congressional reauthorization of the FCC, he said Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute headquarters in Washington. “When I talk about reauthorizing the FCC, that hasn’t been done since 1990,” Thune said, expressing a desire to “see if we can get Congress back in the habit of regularly reauthorizing the commission.”
President Barack Obama’s push in November for reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service reshaped the focus of the FCC, which at the time appeared headed to a vote as early as December, stopping short of fundamentally changing how ISPs are regulated (see 1411100033), officials said. More recently, Obama has weighed in hard, urging the FCC to use its authority to remove barriers to municipal broadband deployments (see 1501140048).
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., reintroduced one of two primary promised FCC process overhaul bills Monday -- S-253, which the longer title said is a “bill to amend the Communications Act of 1943 [sic] to consolidate the reporting obligations of the Federal Communications Commission in order to improve congressional oversight and reduce reporting burdens.” It has no co-sponsors listed and was referred to the Commerce Committee, where Heller is a member. A Republican Senate staffer confirmed to us that this is the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act and emphasized Heller's desire to strike a deal with Democrats to advance the bill. The staffer framed it as a simple bill about good governance and said it could have real traction in this Congress. The House approved a companion version of the bill last Congress, but it never advanced in the Senate. Heller didn't solicit co-sponsors, nor is the reporting bill intended to affect FCC authorities, the staffer said. Heller emphasized that same point to then-Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., at a markup session of different legislation last fall, referring to potential concern over how the bill affected Telecom Act Section 706. Heller told us in December he planned to consult with House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., early in the year about their plan to move forward with FCC overhaul legislation (see 1412240031). He and Walden have backed the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act and the FCC Process Reform Act. Walden spokespeople had no immediate comment about possible forthcoming House companion legislation. A spokeswoman for Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told us in December that FCC reporting and process overhaul legislation would be given “due consideration” this year, citing bipartisan backing in the past for those bills and saying efficient FCC operations would be a committee priority. Heller hasn't issued any news release about S-253, nor has the bill text been released or posted online.
NTIA won’t use its “appropriated funds to terminate the IANA functions contract with ICANN prior to the contract’s current expiration date,” said Administrator Larry Strickling at the State of the Net conference Tuesday. It was NTIA's first public statement on Congress' December funding measure prohibiting the agency from using its funds on the IANA transition. “Nor will we use appropriated dollars to amend the cooperative agreement with Verisign to eliminate NTIA’s role in approving changes to the authoritative root zone” before Sept. 30, said Strickling. “On these points, there is no ambiguity.”
NARUC filed an appeal with the Supreme Court Monday of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision upholding the FCC’s USF/intercarrier compensation order (see report in the May 27 issue). NARUC's petition for writ of certiorari sought review of the lower court decision, which the group said upheld the FCC’s “radical interpretations of the Communications Act that fundamentally restructure” the telecom sector. NARUC said it's seeking court clarification of whether statutory construction rules in the Communications Act and the 1996 Telecom Act “place any limits on either the FCC’s or a reviewing Court’s interpretation of agency authority.” The group is also seeking a decision on whether Chevron deference allows the 10th Circuit to confirm a change in the definition of “reciprocal compensation” that directly conflicts with the 1996 Telecom Act.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in March he didn’t see interconnection as part of the net neutrality proceeding. Yet there's a growing sense the net neutrality order when circulated next month will include rules on ISP interconnections with other networks, said several advocates involved in the debate in interviews. "There's a concerted effort to include interconnection and reading the tea leaves it appears Netflix will win, but maybe Wheeler will stand by his stated position that interconnection is separate from net neutrality,” said a former Capitol Hill staffer now working for an ISP provider. The agency declined comment.
Dealing with interconnection in a net neutrality order is unnecessary, Verizon Vice President-Federal Regulatory Affairs Maggie McCready and other company officials told FCC Associate General Counsel Stephanie Weiner, Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Matthew DelNero and Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan Jan. 15, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-28 Wednesday. Arguments by Netflix “and its allies” that broadband providers have incentives to thwart the open Internet at interconnection points are “misplaced,” Verizon officials said. “Internet interconnection has always been handled through an unregulated system of voluntary commercial agreements," said the ISP. "This flexible approach has been a resounding success that has encouraged investment and provided flexibility for innovative interconnection arrangements that accommodate new business models, new types of Internet traffic and changes in end users’ preferences.” Paid direct interconnection agreements are a “longstanding way to ensure a high quality connection and adequate capacity, particularly where traffic flows are not balanced,” the company said. “These arrangements ensure great service for mutual customers, and help to cover a portion of the costs associated with the content provider’s traffic.” Verizon also said it's not using paid prioritization, but if the commission were to adopt rules prohibiting it, the outlawed practice should be defined as broadband providers charging a fee to deliver bits faster than the bits of others over the last mile. Under that definition, the rules would not apply to arrangements other than in the last mile. Any rules on throttling should be focused on intentionally slowing particular traffic based on “the traffic’s source, destination, or content,” Verizon said, not impacting the option consumers have to slow all Internet traffic after reaching a certain threshold of data usage to avoid overage charges. The company reiterated its opposition to a Communications Act Title II approach and said forbearing from parts of the section is no “no panacea to address the many harms that would result from reclassification.” Opposition to forbearing from certain sections of Title II shows that the end game” of reclassification proponents “is not rules to ensure an open Internet, but regulation for regulation’s sake,” Verizon said. Also representing the company at the meeting were William Johnson, associate general counsel, Roy Litland, assistant general counsel-legal regulatory affairs, and David Young, vice president-public policy. The American Cable Association in a letter to the commission posted in the same docket also urged the commission, if it reclassifies broadband providers including cable operators as telecom providers, to “take immediate action” to eliminate or reduce higher pole attachment rates telecom providers can be charged compared to cable operators. While the commission reduced the disparity between attachments rates paid by telecom carriers and cable operators in 2011, “there can still be a considerable disparity when a pole owner uses the actual average number of attachers on its poles in the formula, rather than presumptions provided in the Commission’s rules,” ACA said. The association reiterated its stance that small ISPs should be excluded from reclassification, or if they are reclassified, they should be foreborn from Title II’s requirements (see 1501130049).
Commissioner Mike O’Rielly urged the FCC to “take a step back” from its work on new net neutrality rules because “Congress is actively working” on legislation that would address the issue. “There is absolutely no reason why the commission needs to rush” to write new net neutrality rules, O’Rielly said Wednesday during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. “There is still no evidence of a market failure or harm to consumers. There are no pending claims of potential net neutrality violations.”
GOP lawmakers unveiled their net neutrality discussion draft Friday, codifying several net neutrality protections, as expected. The seven-page bill is intended to pre-empt the FCC’s Feb. 26 net neutrality vote, creating net neutrality protections without relying on the Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband the agency is expected to rely on. Prominent Democrats pushed back against the GOP proposal, urging FCC action instead.