AT&T’s proposed elimination of long-term contracts for special access services (CD Nov 26 p3) would harm competition and hurt consumers, several CLECs said in filings Monday. The competitive providers asked the FCC to reject the proposal, which they claim is effectively an attempt to raise prices. Some said they're heartened by Chairman Tom Wheeler’s remarks Monday (CD Dec 3 p1) on the importance of regulating during market failures. The special access market, they say, is a prime example of a failed market. An AT&T spokesman told us IP is a “superior” technology and will offer a “cost advantage” over current technologies. He directed us to a blog post last week by Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory Bob Quinn (http://bit.ly/IdRQPS), which cites the benefits of moving from TDM to IP-based services.
A U.S. proposal that could curtail what so-called social welfare groups spend on ads about political candidates on the Internet, radio and TV and put on their websites is raising concerns among some industry lawyers and advocates for disclosure by such 501(c)(4) tax-exempt groups. The advocates want such ads considered “political intervention” and subject to limits for a longer period before elections than being proposed Friday by the Treasury Department and IRS. And an advocate and a lawyer for tax-exempt groups doesn’t think online communication should fall under that limit as the agencies proposed in an NPRM. Broadcast lawyers said they worry the rules if put into place could limit spending by groups other than candidates in the runup to elections, which has been a growth area for TV stations. That’s all according to interviews with those experts Wednesday.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Kris Monteith, acting chief of the agency’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB), will be among the FCC officials who will speak Dec. 6 at an agency-sponsored mobile health innovation expo. The event, sponsored by the CGB, will examine the use of mobile devices in improving healthcare, the FCC said Tuesday. The expo will “bring together innovators and federal agencies to showcase mobile health products and solutions and provide resources for mobile health pioneers and entrepreneurs,” the FCC said. Verizon Communications, the National Institutes of Health and Qualcomm Life are among the participants expected. The expo will run from 10 a.m. to noon in the Commission Meeting Room at FCC headquarters (http://fcc.us/IrfB6w).
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Tuesday he was considering a bill that would stop an FCC NPRM that would propose to give airlines leeway to allow in-flight use of cellphones for text, data and voice. (See separate report below in this issue.) The backlash from Congress, some in the airline industry and members of the public began last week when the FCC said it would vote on the NPRM at its Dec. 12 meeting. Chairman Tom Wheeler has since said the NPRM would allow further in-flight cellphone use but wouldn’t mandate it, leaving the decision with the airlines (CD Nov 25 p1). Former FCC officials and communications industry groups tell us they believe the agency is justified in pursuing a possible rule change given recent technological advances -- and that Wheeler and the FCC shouldn’t remove the NPRM from its agenda because of recent public criticism. They also say Wheeler won’t likely back down.
The “nuclear option” invoked in the U.S. Senate Thursday will likely add three President Barack Obama-appointed judges to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but that new Democratic majority is unlikely to strongly improve the FCC’s chances in defending net neutrality rules, industry observers told us Friday. Stifel Nicolaus analysts said the 7-4 D.C. Circuit Democratic majority could make it easier for the FCC to appeal a negative ruling by the three-judge panel that heard the case in September. But industry attorneys said that wouldn’t make a meaningful difference in the outcome, which could ultimately be determined by the Supreme Court.
New York Public Service Commission staff issued recommendations for telecom companies based on “lessons learned” from superstorm Sandy (http://bit.ly/I79p4w). Staff called for the emergency plans of telecom companies to be updated to reflect operational changes and improvements following the storm. The report said staff will continue to participate in state and federal level proceedings intended to improve wireless service resiliency and redundancy and the reporting of outage information to better support emergency services and public communications during emergency events. The report said telecom companies staffed their recovery efforts “to the best of their abilities,” and it found no “specific company effort inadequate.” The report said staff will make a recommendation for telecom restoration crews to have improved access to affected areas. Wireless and cable carriers improved their outage reporting compared with Hurricane Irene, but staff said improvements were still necessary. Despite Sandy being forecast “well in advance,” staff said outreach and repeated discussion was required with some companies during the event to “obtain substantive and timely outage and restoration information.” This becomes especially important for wireless carriers “whose service is relied upon most by emergency responders and the public for communication during emergency events,” said the report. Companies are asked to review the recommendations and provide a written response, within 60 days in case 13-M-0025, on plans to implement the recommendations and provide the status of any other initiatives implemented from lessons learned following Sandy.
The White House waded into one of the biggest issues facing the FCC and Chairman Tom Wheeler as it finalizes rules for the incentive TV auction -- whether the FCC should impose restrictions limiting bidding by Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Tom Power, deputy chief technology officer for telecommunications, said the whole administration supports a controversial April filing at the commission on spectrum aggregation and competition (CD April 15 p7) by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. But Power also indicated that the White House wasn’t trying to tell the FCC what to do. Power spoke at a forum sponsored by the New America Foundation.
Pennsylvania residents could see major changes to their wireline services in the state if the Legislature votes for a bill that would eliminate carrier of last resort obligations (COLR) for local exchange carriers in competitive areas and limit the USF, said industry, two Pennsylvania Public Utility commissioners, the state’s consumer advocate and other interested parties at a House Consumer Affairs Committee hearing Thursday. House Bill 1608, sponsored by Rep. Warren Kampf (R), would remove the PUC’s oversight of ILECs, and it would allows ILECs to self-declare whole exchanges as competitive. The bill would end the state’s USF on Jan. 1, 2019, and prevent the PUC from raising the amount of money contributed to the fund each year.
NARUC formally adopted resolutions on federalism and surveillance at the closing session of its annual meeting Wednesday. The resolution on federalism says cooperation and collaboration between state and federal regulators is the best way to ensure communications services remain universally available, affordable and reasonably comparable across the country. Approval marked the end of a yearlong effort to produce an update of a white paper on federalism and telecom in the 21st century. The resolution passed with small grammatical changes and a new clause to recommend that states retain a “prominent role in all decisions related to USF,” added by the telecom committee Monday (http://bit.ly/1h2MSEs). The resolution on government surveillance was significantly changed in committee to say telecom carriers have a obligation to protect customer proprietary network information (CD Nov 19 p13). The staff subcommittee, composed of state commission staff, significantly changed a resolution on cramming to include cramming and porting in its Sunday meeting, but it decided to recommend it to the telecom committee, made up of state commissioners (CD Nov 19 p11). The telecom committee decided to table the resolution until its February meeting in Washington, D.C. for further discussion.
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., plans to cite what he sees as struggles with FirstNet Thursday. His opening statement on a FirstNet hearing will cite the uncertainty that existed when the subcommittee reviewed FirstNet in March. “Unfortunately, rather than seeing those concerns wane as FirstNet has gained its footing, FirstNet finds itself embroiled in allegations from within that it lacks transparency and suffers from potential ethical conflicts,” Walden will say. “As a result, FirstNet is currently under investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce. Suffice it to say, this is not a confidence inspiring development.”