The FCC Technological Advisory Committee (TAC) put heavy emphasis on recommendations for getting wireless and wireline for broadband built more quickly in its interim report released Monday. The report also stressed the role femtocells could play in more-efficient use of spectrum. TAC Chairman Tom Wheeler said members of the group continue to meet frequently and more recommendations, including several on the future of IPV6, are coming, likely this summer. The initial report made eight recommendations.
A House Democrat seeking to increase the disclosure requirements of third-party political donors and advertisers sued the Federal Election Commission over a 2007 rule change in that area and also petitioned it to open a rulemaking on a related issue. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., filed suit in the U.S. District Court, D.C., alleging the FEC violated administrative procedure in adopting a 2007 rule that eased electioneering communications disclosure rules. Van Hollen also asked the agency to quickly amend its independent expenditure disclosure requirements “that has similarly allowed groups to [raise] millions of dollars … while keeping secret the donors whose funds are used to pay for the ads,” the Campaign Legal Center said in a press release. From 2007 to 2010 Van Hollen was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The Federal Trade Commission will complete its analysis of the news business within “the next month or so” and the tone of the report may not be as bleak as it first appeared, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said at a Federal Communications Bar Association luncheon Wednesday. “I'm not so worried about that,” Leibowitz said. “There are a lot of great stories about new start-ups.” The report will likely suggest that the government help the news industry by putting more information online and may look at competition rules, Leibowitz said.
Sprint Nextel has become an affiliate member of the Rural Cellular Association, RCA said Tuesday. The announcement comes two days before AT&T is expected to formally seek FCC approval for its proposed purchase of T-Mobile. Sprint and RCA have emerged as two of the likely top opponents of the merger. “This is a very timely addition to RCA’s membership,” said RCA President Steve Berry. “A stronger membership will certainly help ensure that our voices are heard at the Federal Communications Commission, on Capitol Hill, and at the White House and other parts of the Executive Branch.” Sprint has “many issues of mutual concern with RCA members,” said Vonya McCann, Sprint senior vice president.
The FCC doesn’t need to expand the scope and scale of its broadband information gathering program, said Verizon, T-Mobile, SpeedNet, and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions in reply comments released Friday. But local and state regulators at NASUCA, New Jersey and the District of Columbia said they need more information to regulate telecom effectively. The comments were posted to dockets 11-10, 07038, 08-190 and 10-132. The commission collects information on the telecom industry through the so-called form 477, but it opened a rulemaking proceeding asking whether the form should be expanded to extract data on broadband speed, prices and practices around the country.
Two senators took issue with the interference potential of LightSquared’s wireless service with GPS operations. They asked colleagues to join in petitioning the FCC to be more involved in the review process. Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., sent a “dear colleague” letter to the rest of the Senate on Thursday asking for support in pushing the agency to more closely oversee LightSquared’s testing. LightSquared is reviewing the interference potential through an FCC-required working group that includes wireless, GPS and federal interests. That group is supposed to present a final report to the agency by June 15.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The FCC aims to adopt a universal service overhaul by August, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “Over the next few months, we'll be able to significantly reform this program,” he said Thursday night at the Commonwealth Club civic forum. Genachowski mentioned the Universal Service Fund (USF) more than intercarrier compensation. But the matters are intertwined in a February rulemaking notice and a blog post last month by the commissioners that he discussed.
States supported a bill to overhaul FCC sunshine laws that prevent more than two commissioners from sharing a room outside of a public meeting. The bipartisan House bill (HR 1009) was introduced last month (CD March 11 p18) by Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. In a letter late Wednesday to bipartisan leaders of the subcommittee and parent Commerce Committee, state members of Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service asked for a clarification that the bill also cover deliberations and informal meetings of joint boards and conferences. “The incredible inefficiencies in deliberations imposed by the current law on full commission deliberations also plague the work of these Congressionally-mandated bodies,” the state members said. “Currently, FCC commissioners must rotate their participation during face-to-face meetings and conference calls of such Joint Boards, causing continuous inefficient repetition of prior conversations and positions."
The FCC should allow an “appropriate transition” before implementing Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, Frontier Chief Legal Officer and former commissioner Kathleen Abernathy told staff in meetings earlier this week. “This transition would ensure stability during the reform and ensure that Frontier can continue investing hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve the Commission’s goal of deploying broadband to rural America,” Abernathy told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s adviser Angela Kronenberg, according to an ex parte notice filed on dockets 09-51, 07-135 and others.
Some rural telcos are worried that cuts to the Rural Utilities Service budget in the fiscal 2011 continuing resolution could upset rural broadband investment. But other groups are breathing a sigh of relief that the budget deal, up for a House vote Thursday, dropped a proposal to prohibit the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. The resolution would fund the government through September.