Rules that will require device manufacturers to create a simple mechanism to switch between a main program audio feed to an emergency alert on the secondary audio stream are outside the authority granted to the FCC by Congress in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly at Thursday’s agency meeting. The rule was part of a 2nd report and order requiring pay-TV carriers to pass through such screen-crawl TV alerts to tablets and smartphones streaming multichannel video programming distributors' content through the companies' apps, as expected (see 1505120027). Pai and O’Rielly voted with the rest of the FCC to approve the order and an accompanying Further NPRM, but dissented over the simple mechanism portion.
Rules that will require device manufacturers to create a simple mechanism to switch between a main program audio feed to an emergency alert on the secondary audio stream are outside the authority granted to the FCC by Congress in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly at Thursday’s agency meeting. The rule was part of a 2nd report and order requiring pay-TV carriers to pass through such screen-crawl TV alerts to tablets and smartphones streaming multichannel video programming distributors' content through the companies' apps, as expected (see 1505120027). Pai and O’Rielly voted with the rest of the FCC to approve the order and an accompanying Further NPRM, but dissented over the simple mechanism portion.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expects the incentive auction to be well underway a year from now with active broadcaster participation, he said Wednesday. He also defended the net neutrality order as creating a flexible, not dictatorial, broadband Internet framework. The planned takeover of Suddenlink by a European company showed that the regulation wasn’t chilling investment in the U.S., he said in a Q&A session with Accenture Managing Director Shahid Ahmed at the management consulting firm’s Network Summit.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expects the incentive auction to be well underway a year from now with active broadcaster participation, he said Wednesday. He also defended the net neutrality order as creating a flexible, not dictatorial, broadband Internet framework. The planned takeover of Suddenlink by a European company showed that the regulation wasn’t chilling investment in the U.S., he said in a Q&A session with Accenture Managing Director Shahid Ahmed at the management consulting firm’s Network Summit.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expects the incentive auction to be well underway a year from now with active broadcaster participation, he said Wednesday. He also defended the net neutrality order as creating a flexible, not dictatorial, broadband Internet framework. The planned takeover of Suddenlink by a European company showed that the regulation wasn’t chilling investment in the U.S., he said in a Q&A session with Accenture Managing Director Shahid Ahmed at the management consulting firm’s Network Summit.
IHeartCommunications agreed to pay $1 million after admitting to misusing emergency alert system tones, and will follow a compliance and reporting plan, said an FCC news release Tuesday. IHeartCommunications must remove or delete all simulated or actual EAS tones from the company’s audio production libraries, the FCC said. Oct. 24, iHeart’s WSIX(FM) Nashville aired a false emergency alert during the broadcast of the nationally syndicated The Bobby Bones Show, the agency said. While commenting on an EAS test that aired during the 2014 World Series, Bobby Bones, the show’s host, broadcast an EAS tone from a recording of an earlier nationwide EAS test, the commission said. This false tone was sent to more than 70 affiliated stations airing the show and resulted in some of these stations retransmitting the tones, setting off a cascade of false EAS alerts on radio and TV stations in multiple states, it said. IHeartMedia did not immediately return a request for comment.
FirstNet held an industry day Thursday in Reston, Virginia, at which staff sought to answer basic questions from public safety officials and others involved in the launch of the network. “This is a great day for FirstNet because we’re continuing to progress on our strategic road map,” said acting Executive Director TJ Kennedy. The most important thing is to focus on FirstNet’s mission of building a national broadband network for first responders, he said. “It’s the most important thing at every step through this process, no matter where you fit.” It’s easy to “get hung up” on the details and whether FirstNet “is the perfect solution” for everyone, Kennedy said. The goal has to be that when “significant” incidents occur, like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, “we have the capacity and we have the capability to ensure that the prioritized traffic of public safety is able to get through,” he said. FirstNet wants feedback on how to make its proposal better and to launch a network that public safety can afford, he said. “We are looking for solution-oriented discussion.” Kennedy emphasized that the goal remains “nationwide” coverage. “We need to meet public safety requirements,” he said. “I say this in almost every talk I go to -- priority and preemption during emergencies for public safety. We need to make sure that it works when and where public safety needs it to work.” The network has to be resilient and reliable, but also affordable, he said. “There’s an important balance there.” The network has to be built to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, but upgradable as technology advances, he said. “We are not looking to do something customized and one-off that would prevent that from happening,” Kennedy said. FirstNet will continue to seek comment after its pending request for proposals process is completed, through the deployment of a network, he said. Kennedy also spoke in a C-SPAN interview about the network's prospects, and said it may never reach the most remote U.S. areas (see 1505130055). Kennedy said in a news release after the event that FirstNet is pleased with the attendance in person and online. “It shows there is a great deal of interest from market participants and the public safety community in establishing the best possible network for public safety," he said.
House Republicans haven't kicked off negotiations with Democrats over what a new Communications Act should look like, five months into this Congress and 18 months after launching an initiative to update the act, Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told us. She and other Capitol Hill observers described a partisan struggle within the House Commerce Committee in recent months, wracked with net neutrality debates as committee Republicans decided a comprehensive rewrite bill wasn’t in the cards (see 1504290037). Some Republicans pushed back on the idea of increased partisan rancor and the semantics of what constitutes outreach on the overhaul’s development, but industry lobbyists doubted the prospects of an update, regardless of form.
CEA President Gary Shapiro used a “super panel” on the future of TV at the ATSC Broadcast TV Conference Thursday to challenge NAB President Gordon Smith to declare that NAB plans to seek no “further delays or modifications” in the FCC incentive auction schedule. Smith responded that there wouldn’t be any delays, repeating what he said at the NAB Show that broadcasters want the auction to go forward.
CEA President Gary Shapiro used a “super panel” on the future of TV at the ATSC Broadcast TV Conference Thursday to challenge NAB President Gordon Smith to declare that NAB plans to seek no “further delays or modifications” in the FCC incentive auction schedule. Smith responded that there wouldn’t be any delays, repeating what he said at the NAB Show that broadcasters want the auction to go forward.