FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski should approve rule changes so cable operators can encrypt the basic tier, Bright House Networks CEO Steve Miron told him. That would give the operator “the needed flexibility to manage its wireline networks to balance increasing demands for more bandwidth-intensive HD programming as well as more robust broadband performance,” an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bmy5em). Genachowski hasn’t decided whether to OK encryption, agency officials have said (CD March 12 p6). Miron wants the FCC to sunset, when it expires this year, the “dual carriage requirement” that TV stations guaranteed cable distribution be available in standard and high definition in some systems, Wednesday’s filing in docket 11-169 said.
The Commerce Department should be “cyber-obsessed,” said Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce Chair Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. To defend against “cyberespionage,” the department should better protect its online systems, she said at a budget hearing Thursday. “Cyberespionage is a very considerable threat,” Commerce Secretary John Bryson said. “We are not fully prepared as a country to address that.” The National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency within Commerce, is working to set technology performance standards “that will apply not just the federal government, not just across the U.S., but likely around the world,” he said.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., failed to gain unanimous consent to pass his bill (S-1945) to allow cameras in the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority whip asked to pass the bill under express procedures requiring unanimous consent on the Senate floor late Wednesday. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., objected because he said it “would be inappropriate” to pass it without a “full debate.” The Supreme Court’s decision last week not to allow recording of the upcoming healthcare arguments (CD March 19 p16) shows why passing legislation is so important, Durbin said. The high court won’t break its “antiquated tradition” even for a case with as much interest as healthcare, he said. “The most powerful court in the land is inaccessible to the public and shrouded in mystery.” Sessions said the justices have opposed opening the court to cameras and Congress should respect that opinion.
The FCC has given Dish Network “a reasonable opportunity to offer wireless broadband service, a prospect that could attract potential suitors and increase the value of its spectrum,” Stifel Nicolaus analysts wrote investors. The agency proposed rules Wednesday (CD March 22 p4) to make the S-band spectrum, recently acquired by Dish and currently allocated for mobile satellite service, available for terrestrial services. The agency does propose to impose a severe penalty for failing to reach 30 percent of the total population in its licensed areas within three years and 70 percent within seven years, Stifel said. A failure to meet the proposed milestone would mean an automatic loss of all license authorizations, a “draconian step” that could complicate “the business plans of Dish or any party eying its spectrum,” the analysts said.
Mediacom invoked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s comments on retransmission consent (RTC) to an American Cable Association conference last week, in the company’s effort to seek new rules. Though Genachowski said the number of disputes is at an ebb, Mediacom is “heartened” he recognized blackouts can hurt small operators, CEO Rocco Commisso wrote. “I want to stress how urgent it is that the Commission take action to address the imbalance in the RTC marketplace,” he wrote Genachowski in a letter posted Wednesday to docket 10-71 (http://xrl.us/bmy5dx). “If only that were true” that the number of blackouts is declining as Genachowski suggested, Commisso continued. “According to our research, consumers in 31 different DMAs [designated market areas] were impacted by RTC-related service disruptions in 2011 and shutdowns have occurred in at least 20 additional DMAs in just the first eleven weeks of 2012,” he wrote. “That is more than double the number of DMAs impacted by shutdowns in the preceding two years combined.” Executives of five other ACA members visited the commission last week to seek action on retrans. Bright House Networks, a larger operator not part of ACA, also is “urging Commission attention to its ongoing review” of retrans, CEO Steve Miron told Genachowski. That’s according to a filing in the docket (http://xrl.us/bmy5em).
The FCC delayed the comment cycle for two weeks on Comcast and NBCUniversal’s request to see online video distributors’ deals with other broadcast, cable and film content owners. That’s several weeks less than CBS, Disney, News Corp., Sony Pictures, Time Warner and Viacom sought, though Comcast and NBCUniversal opposed any delay (CD March 20 p4). Initial comments now are due April 3, replies April 17 in docket 10-56, said a Thursday order signed by Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake (http://xrl.us/bmy5br). Public Knowledge sees “hypocrisy” in Comcast not allowing details of “the world-changing joint venture with Verizon” Wireless to be made public while wanting an OVD “to tell everything about sensitive negotiations it has with other cable providers about carrying programming,” a spokesman for the group said. “Comcast is free to take such a self-serving approach, but the Commission is not,” the nonprofit, seeking release of agreements between Comcast and other cable operators and Verizon Wireless involving spectrum sales and marketing agreements, said in an FCC filing. “For Comcast, the sensitivity of information and the right to redact apparently are determined by a single criterion: what rule best serves Comcast’s interests in a particular situation,” Public Knowledge said Wednesday in docket 12-4 (http://xrl.us/bmy5bz). A Comcast spokeswoman declined to comment.
Cox Media Group completed a studio lighting upgrade by replacing incandescent lights with modern fluorescent bulbs at its TV stations, the company said. The upgrade reduces studio energy consumption by up to 45 percent and prevents more than 780 tons of carbon from entering the environment, it said. The studio upgrade project was completed at WSB-TV Atlanta, WSOC-TV Charlotte, N.C., WFTV Orlando, Fla., and KIRO-TV Seattle, the company said Thursday. The lights produce less radiant heat when highlighting on-air talent and background settings on the set. “The result is a brighter, cooler and more energy-efficient set for the on-air talent,” Cox Media said.
Future FCC data gathering efforts should account for the fact that competitive local exchange companies often save information on commercial buildings served by their networks in a separate database from the one with information on the type of services provided to a particular location, a lawyer for Cbeyond, EarthLink, Integra Telecom and tw telecom reported telling the Wireline Bureau Monday. The agency should be aware that some competitive local exchange companies don’t have three years’ worth of detailed information on the purchase of special access services from third parties, the CLECs said in an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmy4zp).
Tension exists between language in the Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order that requires all frozen support be used for network investment while stating frozen interstate access support (IAS) funding will continue to be treated as legacy IAS, lawyers for AT&T reported telling FCC Wireline Bureau officials Monday (http://xrl.us/bmy4wd). The telco said it supports USTelecom’s position that providers should “immediately be relieved of their legacy eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) designations and obligations where and when they do not receive high-cost support,” said the ex parte filing. The company wants the commission to clarify that new reporting requirements don’t apply to competitive ETCs and frozen support recipients whose high-cost support is being eliminated; that tribal contact requirements apply only to recipients of Tribal Fund support; and that, when the new standardized federal reporting rules apply to a ETC, the commission will preempt all legacy state universal service fund reporting requirements that would otherwise apply to that ETC.
Consensus is forming due to “the structure of spectrum legislation, LightSquared troubles, difficulty extracting federal government spectrum for commercial use and other factors” that the National Broadband Plan’s goal of freeing up 500 MHz over the next decade for broadband “may not be met and that a spectrum policy reset might be in order,” Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeff Silva said Wednesday in a research note. Approval of Verizon Wireless’s buy of AWS licenses from the cable companies “could give added momentum to any policy rebalancing,” he said.