FirstNet General Manager Bill D'Agostino offered an olive branch to the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council at its meeting Tuesday. He assured NPSTC he plans to listen to public safety as the network is built. D'Agostino was named GM by the FirstNet board last month, at the same meeting where board member Paul Fitzgerald, sheriff of Story County, Iowa, said that public safety has been kept too often on the sidelines as plans for the network take shape (CD April 24 p1).
The White House issued notice that the national emergency with respect to Yemen will continue for one year, until May 16, 2014. “The actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Yemen and others in threatening Yemen's peace, security, and stability continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” said the notice.
Dish General Counsel Stanton Dodge will appeal to lawmakers Tuesday for retransmission consent reform and characterize broadcaster opposition to Dish’s DVR Hopper service as anti-consumer. His written testimony circulated among lobbyists ahead of the Senate Communications Subcommittee’s second “state of” communications hearings under Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. The hearing comes as lawmakers prepare for the December 2014 expiration of Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and the arrival of a new FCC chairman. Dodge and Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Begmayer will tell lawmakers that the outdated rules that govern the video market are hurting consumer choice and the public interest. Meanwhile, representatives from NAB and NCTA plan to say the video marketplace is working well and there’s little need for regulatory change, according to their prepared testimony.
The FCC Technology Transitions Policy Task Force released its much anticipated public notice on Internet Protocol transition trials Friday, but stopped short of approving AT&T’s proposal for wire center trials. Instead, if trials as proposed by AT&T come at all, they would only follow completion of a comment cycle set up by the task force Friday. Commissioner Ajit Pai called the notice a “missed opportunity.”
The FCC should take steps to improve competition in the closed-captioning industry, Media Captioning Services (MCS) told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FCC staff in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/16kmAs0). The company said large programmers are “preferencing a few dominant closed captioning firms,” which is squeezing out the smaller companies that MCS says are the bulk of their industry. The company said this leads to decreased funding for schools that train captioners and court reporters. MCS blamed the large programmers’ “anticompetitive” business practices for steadily declining compensation for captioning, “despite the FCC requirement for video programmers to provide increasing levels of captioning.” MCS said the decline in pay combined with the decreasing availability of training has led to parents “disincenting” their children from entering the closed captioning business. During the meeting with Clyburn, “the ability of the closed captioning industry to meet real time captioning requirements at quality levels needed by Deaf and hard of hearing viewers, including the ability to meet peak demands at times of national and regional emergencies, was noted as a significant risk in the near future,” said the ex parte. MCS asked the FCC to study how often video programmers are using smaller captioning companies and to consider that use when broadcast licenses come up for renewal.
The FCC approved a rulemaking that proposes giving the commercial space industry faster, more assured access to the 420-430 MHz, 2200-2290 MHz and 5650-5925 MHz spectrum bands during space launches. The FCC also proposes various options to improve interference protection for communications between commercial satellites and federal users on the ground. An accompanying NOI examines the space industry’s broader spectrum needs. The NPRM and NOI were approved Thursday by the commission by a 4-0 vote.
"In 2013, we see a new set of priorities,” said National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Sherry Lichtenberg of recent IP-focused deregulatory state legislation. NRRI is an affiliate of NARUC, and Lichtenberg released a new review of state deregulation laws Wednesday (http://bit.ly/YFJuHQ). These “different” 2013 laws have a clear and focused message, she said: “Thou shalt not touch VoIP or IP-enabled services -- even if we haven’t defined them.”
State telecom deregulation will continue and may not harm consumers, argued National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Sherry Lichtenberg in a paper to be released Wednesday. NRRI is an affiliate of NARUC. “It is clear from the number of bills passed since Indiana’s 2006 deregulation bill, as well as the bills pending in 2013, that deregulation will continue, either individually, state by state, or via FCC forbearance,” the 72-page paper said. It’s an update to a survey of legislation she released last summer. Lichtenberg described the legislative survey results and conclusions of this research to us earlier this spring, saying she worries less about deregulation these days (CD March 29 p13). Such deregulation bills have passed or are pending in 70 percent of states, the paper said. The research examines the wave of recent laws and pending bills, such as those limiting state regulation of Internet Protocol-enabled services (CD April 1 p7). It analyzes which telcos are dominant in areas where regulation is being or has been reduced. “Legislation passed or pending in the 22 states where AT&T is the primary ILEC could almost totally eliminate state utility commission oversight of retail telecommunications across the AT&T region,” Lichtenberg’s paper argued. “As the largest carrier in these regions, AT&T has moved aggressively to encourage state legislatures to deregulate both traditional wireline and emerging VoIP and IP-enabled services throughout the territory. AT&T’s key legislative goals appear to be protecting VoIP and ‘emerging IP-enabled services’ from regulation and eliminating the [carrier of last resort] COLR and/or basic service obligations not shared by its more lightly regulated competitors.” Verizon is “least active” in sponsoring these deregulation efforts in its 13-state ILEC area, Lichtenberg said: “Rather than push for deregulation, Verizon appears to have focused its efforts on increasing the penetration of FiOS where it is already available, addressing the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, resolving quality-of-service issues raised by the failure of the 911 system during the 2012 Derecho, and responding to questions about service quality raised in New York and California.” The paper confirms what Lichtenberg told us about the effects of state deregulation: “The early results seem, if not positive, then at least ‘palatable.’ Carriers have not withdrawn service from their traditional markets, including their rural markets. ILECs have not raised prices significantly or eliminated traditional TDM wireline service offerings.” And PUCs and consumers are adjusting, she said. She proposed strategies for these stakeholders, suggesting state regulators work with other agencies to fill in gaps in oversight where regulatory power has been removed or reduced. Lichtenberg is scheduled to present her research Wednesday morning at a USTelecom event on state telecom policy.
CTIA raised questions about a proposed FCC requirement that public safety answering points must provide bounceback messages for 911 calls in cases where they normally can handle emergency texts but are unable to for a given period. The FCC is set to take up an order at its meeting Thursday requiring all wireless carriers and providers of interconnected text message services to give consumers automatic bounceback messages by Sept. 30 when they try to send a text message to a 911 call center that isn’t capable of handling texts. Major carriers must be able to transmit bounceback messages by June 30 under an agreement reached last year between the four major national carriers, the National Emergency Number Association and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (CD Dec 10 p1). One issue that hasn’t been part of public discussions is the PSAP requirement, the subject of recent meetings between CTIA and FCC officials, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/10CoVpM). The mandate isn’t necessary, CTIA said. “The concept of providing PSAP initiated bounce back messages was not previously considered as part of the Carrier-NENA-APCO voluntary agreement,” the group said. “Even if the Commission does require a PSAP initiated bounce back messages, CTIA and the wireless participants noted that a standard method should be developed in order to avoid diverting critical PSAP resources when such bounce back messages are necessary.” CTIA said the requirement would apparently kick in only when “1) the wireless provider offers text-to-911 services to its subscribers, 2) the appropriate PSAP has requested and is accepting such text-to-911 messages sent from wireless subscribers, and 3) the PSAP, at that point in time, determines that the PSAP can no longer accept or process text-to-911 messages and requests that a wireless provider send a bounce back message to its subscribers.” Commission officials noted in December that it will likely be many years before most PSAPs are capable of handling emergency texts to 911 (CD Dec 13 p12).
The White House issued notice that the national emergency with respect to Burma (Myanmar), originally established in 1997, will be extended for one year. "The Government of Burma has made significant progress in a number of critical areas, including releasing hundreds of political prisoners, achieving cease-fire talks with the 11 armed ethnic groups, taking significant steps toward eliminating press censorship, and enabling the participation of opposition parties in the country's political system," President Obama said in a letter announcing the continuation (here).