Large incumbent LECs cheered a petition by USTelecom for forbearance from enforcement of several “outdated” legacy telecommunications regulations, in comments filed Monday, but others wanted to ensure that ILECs still comply with some reporting rules that they say help competitors and the commission make informed decisions. Several state commissions opposed the petition. While New York regulators don’t oppose the bulk of the petition, they said they're concerned about the potential impact on Lifeline services.
DirecTV and Tribune reached a retransmission consent agreement late Wednesday, they said. The deal restored carriage of Tribune’s 23 TV stations and WGN America network to DirecTV customers Wednesday night. DirecTV said the undisclosed rates reflected a fair market value similar to what it agreed to accept last week before the blackout began (CD April 3 p1). DirecTV has withdrawn is bad-faith retrans complaint at the FCC, said Andrew Reinsdorf, senior vice president-government affairs. Advocates for changing retrans rules said they hoped the impasse highlighted the need to revamp the rules. “To prevent further blackouts, ACA believes the Federal Communications Commission should complete action on the pending notice of proposed rulemaking and that the House and Senate committees should start hearings” to look at designing a new system, said American Cable Association President Matt Polka. The American Television Alliance said the “dispute set a new low, with Wall Street bankers and hedge funds needlessly abusing viewers for their own gains,” saying that will continue to suffer unless there is FCC or congressional action. Hedge funds and Wall Street banks are among the creditors of Tribune, which is in bankruptcy proceedings.
Members of Congress and law enforcement agencies backed Big Bend Telephone Co.’s FCC petition for a waiver of some of the new limits on USF recovery. BBTC says it’s the only voice and broadband provider available in the vast majority of its territory, and all alternative providers in the area rely on the company for backhaul transport services. Both Texas senators, Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, wrote FCC members to describe the “unique circumstances” that make BBTC particularly worthy of a waiver (http://xrl.us/bm2s8s).
Industry and FCC officials said they're watching two FCC dockets to see what parties may reveal their policy positions and potential business plans related to the distribution of video over the Internet. Comments on a proposal by Comcast to clarify how it can access information submitted by online video distributors (OVDs) to prove they can avail themselves of the certain Comcast-NBCU approval conditions were due after our deadline Tuesday. And the Media Bureau issued a Public Notice Friday about the definition of the term “multichannel video programming distributor,” for which comments are due at the end of the month.
Carriers uniformly support the launch of an integrated national database to address duplicate and eligibility concerns for the Lifeline program, according to comments filed in response to a further notice of proposed rulemaking in the FCC’s Lifeline Order. But several carriers, as well as state commissions, were wary of a proposal to use USF dollars to encourage digital literacy, questioning whether the FCC had such authority. States also expressed concerns over privacy issues, the expected cost of the national database, and AT&T’s proposal to let ILECs opt out of the Lifeline program.
Concern over the rollout of a 4G LTE network in rural areas and mobile broadband investment were included in reply comments urging the FCC not to revoke LightSquared’s ancillary terrestrial component authority. Other replies in docket 11-109 claimed that revoking the ATC authority and withdrawing a conditional waiver allowing the company to offer terrestrial-only service would be in the public interest. Some of the companies responding also addressed NTIA’s conclusion that LightSquared’s proposed operations would impact aviation GPS receivers (CD Feb 15 p1). Replies were due Friday.
NTIA’s 1755-1850 MHz report could be bad news for Verizon, SpectrumCo and Cox and their proposed spectrum deal. The long timetables and huge price tags baked into Tuesday’s report mean more pressure on the FCC as it reviews whether to approve the sale of AWS licenses from the cable operators to Verizon, commission officials said.
The House Communications Subcommittee plans to work on cybersecurity, broadband stimulus, market competition and spectrum, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said this week. He also expects to do oversight on the national public safety network. He questioned the need for an FCC rule requiring broadcasters to post public files online, as well as legislation to stop employers from asking for Facebook passwords. His comments came in a recorded show scheduled to be shown this weekend on C-SPAN’s The Communicators.
Verizon defended itself against claims by Level 3 and others who the telco says “mischaracterize Verizon’s special access discount plans and their pro-competitive economic justifications” (http://xrl.us/bmzp86). Level 3 has long argued that the special access market is “broken” (CD July 23/10 p13), accusing Verizon and others of imposing unfair special access contracts (CD Feb 7/11 p13). The Internet backbone company told the FCC last month that incumbent price-cap LECs continue to use “exclusionary and anti-competitive contracting practices to minimize competition in the special access marketplace, thereby ensuring that they can reap the rewards of pricing well above competitive rates” (http://xrl.us/bmzp88). Level 3 asked the commission to declare Verizon’s “lock-up contracts” unlawful under Section 201(b) of the Communications Act.
Asking job applicants to hand over Facebook login information would be prohibited under legislation to be introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., they said, following media reports the practice is widespread among some employers. They asked the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for legal opinions to “determine what protections currently exist and what additional protections are necessary” to safeguard applicant and employee privacy on social networking sites, the senators said Sunday (http://xrl.us/bmzk4o). In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, they said asking for login information and then accessing an applicant’s private information “may be unduly coercive and therefore constitute unauthorized access” under the Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Two courts, including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, have ruled that supervisors can face civil liability under the SCA by requesting logins and then accessing employees’ private information, they told Holder: “The courts’ reasoning does not clearly distinguish between employees and applicants.” In a letter to Jacqueline Berrien, chairman of the EEOC, the senators said private social network information -- “religious views, national origin, family history, gender, marital status and age” -- accessed by an employer “may be impermissible to consider when making hiring decisions” and could be used to “unlawfully discriminate against otherwise qualified applicants.” Asking for such information directly would violate federal anti-discrimination law, and “under the guise of a background check may simply be a pretext for discrimination,” Blumenthal and Schumer said. “Employers have no right to ask job applicants for their house keys or to read their diaries,” Schumer said in a joint statement with Blumenthal. “Why should they be able to ... gain unwarranted access to a trove of private information about what we like, what messages we send to people, or who we are friends with?” said Schumer. The senators’ planned legislation would “fill any gaps in federal law” that allow employers to ask for such information, they said.