Pay-TV programming encoding rules, not a “major concern to cable companies,” help consumer electronics made by other companies be compatible with the operators and so are important to consumers, said Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer. He told us PK wants the FCC to reinstate encoding rules as they existed before a federal appeals court in January ruled for the company now called Dish Network and against the commission in reversing a decade-old order based on a cable/CE pact in which DBS didn’t take part. That U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision, EchoStar v. FCC, was the subject of an FCBA event Monday, where multichannel video programming distributor lawyers said new encoding rules are unnecessary because of what’s happening with innovation in third-party CE devices used by MVPD subscribers (CD Nov 19 p6). “The court’s decision was on procedural matters” and “so there is nothing stopping the FCC from bringing its rules on this subject -- not just the encoding rules but also CableCARD-related rules -- back into full force,” said Bergmayer Tuesday. The waiver Charter Communications got in April from having to use CableCARDs to separate security and navigation functions “was broader than what Charter asked for, and broader than what the court required in its decision on the encoding rules,” he said. PK supports a TiVo request for the FCC to bring back rules after EchoStar, commented the group on the petition in September (http://bit.ly/I3n8t7). “Encoding rules remain important for device interoperability."
The House Communications Subcommittee is inviting all five FCC members for a December hearing, said Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. He hasn’t met FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler or Republican Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, both confirmed earlier this month, he told reporters Thursday night. Walden emphasized the changes to the video market and an upcoming hearing on FirstNet, touching on a wide range of topics during the news briefing. Also of concern are the FCC’s spectrum auctions and the agency’s operations under Wheeler. The hearings on FCC oversight and FirstNet were expected (CD Oct 18 p3).
As the FCC communications agenda advances, “we must continue to focus on access to affordable and reliable broadband networks,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Friday at a Washington telecom event by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Citizenship Education Fund. There’s an ecosystem around the mobile apps industry “generating billions of dollars” for the U.S. economy through the mobile apps marketplace, she said. People steeped in political strife leveraged social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter “to ask for help, to make us aware of what’s going on, [and] to report sometimes awful human rights abuses,” she said. What these platforms have in common is that “they rely on broadband networks,” she said. “We've got to do a better job to ensure that the teachers, students and millions of citizens who rely on libraries every day, take their kids to school every day … have the tools and the broadband capacity that they need to compete and succeed in this digital age."
Long overdue, Phase II of the Connect America Fund has several open questions about its implementation, attorneys told a Federal Communications Bar Association audience Thursday evening. Originally scheduled to be in place by the end of 2012, the second phase will provide five years of USF support to price cap carriers in return for a statewide commitment to build out networks that can provide voice and broadband service. But many questions are still up in the air, panelists said, from how the cost model will work to what approach the competitive bidding process will take.
New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who took office Nov. 4, has yet to have to make a hard or controversial decision, and plenty will follow, but instead has been busy setting a tone for his chairmanship. That started his second day when Wheeler met with staff, promising he would be open to ideas and plans to be the kind of chairman who walks the halls at the commission. The same day he released a lengthy blog post (http://fcc.us/1cCIDhM) offering his broad view on the role the FCC must play in a changing world.
The FCC should refrain from setting one-size-fits-all requirements for the E-rate program, and use its limited E-rate funds responsibly instead of simply aiming to double the fund’s size, parties said in reply comments.
The role the FCC will play “in the changing communications landscape” will be a top focus of new Chairman Tom Wheeler, he said in a blog post Tuesday, based in part on his opening remarks to staff at the agency’s headquarters that day. Wheeler offered his first comments since taking office the previous day, though he didn’t address FCC policy at a more detailed level. Many industry observers are awaiting the Wheeler commission’s first big decisions to get more of a bead on the new chairman’s regulatory philosophy (CD Nov 1 p1). The speech itself was closed to the public.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said on her last business day as acting chairwoman that she leaves that job with her head held high, proud of prison calling reform, 700 MHz interoperability and other things she accomplished since taking the reins in May. Clyburn said both issues “languished” at the commission for many years. Clyburn acknowledged that agency staff are still digging out from the 16-day federal shutdown the first half of October. “I tell people all the time I'm a very unlikely person in this job, even as a commissioner or in this acting chair capacity for the next couple of hours,” Clyburn said Friday.
The nation’s two largest inmate calling service (ICS) providers asked the FCC to delay implementation of the prison calling order until they can seek judicial review. Global Tel*Link and Securus argued that in requiring ICS rates to be cost-based, the order imposes what is essentially rate-of-return regulation without warning. That’s contrary to administrative rules that require public notice and comment, they say. Reducing high per-minute calling rates to and from prisons was a major priority for acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, who had been pushing for action since long before she became interim head of the agency.
Tom Wheeler is getting ready to take command at the FCC next week after being confirmed along with Michael O'Rielly to the commission seats Tuesday night. Wheeler is expected to be sworn in Monday morning, FCC officials said. In the intervening days the administration has to complete paperwork to confirm the appointment, a process that generally takes several days, and will likely finish getting rid of any remaining financial entanglements, said current and former officials. Wheeler is also expected to unveil some of his key staff selections early in the week, officials said.