NTCH urged the FCC to ensure that the FCC order streamlining tower construction rules near AM stations prohibits retroactive rule application. The order was approved by commissioners this year (CD Aug 20 p4). The order has changed the legal landscape for existing tower owners and operators “by promoting unlawfully retroactive application of the new rules in certain situations,” said NTCH in a petition for reconsideration posted Thursday in docket 93-177 (http://bit.ly/1dxstCq). The FCC’s retroactive action injects a potentially massive new cost into the tower financial equation “that could never have been anticipated by either the tower owners or the tenants on the towers; the entire basis of the economic relationship will have been upset,” it said. “Neither NTCH nor the public at large was provided notice of the potential for retroactive application of the new protection scheme.” The FCC had no comment.
NBCUniversal needs “reasonable access to peer deals” to “avoid forcing parties into costly and burdensome arbitration,” said the unit of Comcast about the benchmark condition in the 2011 FCC order letting the companies combine. It noted in an ex parte filing that the commission is reviewing a clarification order. The companies have said they can’t share content with online video distributors without access to OVDs’ deals with industry peers to NBCUniversal (CD Sept 3 p11). The filing posted Thursday to docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/1cs6tGZ) said participants at the lobbying meeting with Commissioner Mike O'Rielly included NBCUniversal Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Meredith Baker -- an FCC member when the deal was approved -- Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Senior Vice President-Regulatory and State Legislative Affairs Kathy Zachem. As “the success of Wi-Fi has placed great stress on existing unlicensed spectrum resources,” Comcast -- in a separate FCC meeting on the same day as the O'Rielly conversation -- asked top aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for the agency to focus on “enabling additional Wi-Fi access.” That can occur in the 5 GHz band through designating more spectrum for unlicensed use, Cohen and Zachem told Wheeler aides, recounted another ex parte filing that was posted Friday in docket 13-184 (http://bit.ly/19mFBuR). Many connections to high-speed broadband in classrooms likely will be through Wi-Fi devices, the filing said FCC Chief of Staff Ruth Milkman, Senior Counselor Phil Verveer and Special Counsel Diane Cornell were told.
Dish Network continued to urge the FCC to grant its request to choose uplink or downlink operations for its AWS-4 spectrum. If the commission grants Dish’s waiver request, and Dish elects to use 2000-2020 MHz band for downlink, “Dish further commits to comply with any requirements imposed on Dish as an AWS licensee,” the DBS company said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-225 (http://bit.ly/19HiK9M). The FCC hasn’t made a decision on the request, which also asks for a one-year extension to build out a terrestrial network (CD Dec 5 p17). The filing recounts a phone call last week with staffers of the Wireless Bureau.
While a voluntary agreement on cellphone unlocking (CD Dec 13 p3) is an important step, more work needs to be done, said Gene Sperling, assistant to the president for economic policy, in a blog post (http://1.usa.gov/1fbV69l). “The FCC and carriers are doing their part,” wrote Sperling, who also directs the White House National Economic Council. “Now it is time for Congress to step up and finish the job by passing the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, which was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee this summer, and its companion in the Senate. We know this is an important issue to many of you. The Administration will continue to watch it closely in the coming months.” Sperling noted that last March more than 114,000 signed an electronic petition on the White House’s “We the People” platform in support of mobile phone unlocking. Fletcher Heald lawyer Mitchell Lazarus said in a blog post Friday the agreement only goes so far. “While a definite improvement, CTIA’s action solves only part of the problem,” Lazarus said (http://bit.ly/IUf6lN). “If I buy a subsidized phone from Carrier A, I certainly owe them two years of payments on the phone. But I should be able to keep up just the phone payments, and stop paying Carrier A for service as well, if I want to take the phone to Carrier B for service. CTIA’s position does not allow this. T-Mobile is the only major company so far that properly separates the phone and service payments. We hope the others follow its lead.” The agreement also must be adopted into the “CTIA Consumer Code for Wireless Service” and doesn’t mean that a subscriber will be able to readily use a phone on a second network, he said. “CTIA’s letter points out the technical limitations on ‘unlocking': ‘[U]locking’ a device will not necessarily make a device interoperable with other networks -- a device designed for one network is not made technologically compatible with another network merely by ‘unlocking’ it. Additionally, unlocking a device may enable some functionality of the device but not all (e.g., an unlocked device may support voice services but not data services when activated on a different network)."
Industry welcomed two video proposals introduced in the House Thursday, both expected. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., introduced the Video Consumers Have Options In Choosing Entertainment Act, to address retransmission blackouts, with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. And Reps. Steve Scalise, R-La., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., introduced the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act. American Cable Association President Matthew Polka released a statement saying the Eshoo bill “will provide relief to consumers harmed by outdated retransmission consent rules that broadcasters’ [sic] relentlessly abuse, highlighted by a record number of TV signal blackouts and escalating price demands well in excess of inflation.” Public Knowledge praised Eshoo’s bill because it “puts forward a number of creative ideas that, if implemented, would move the video marketplace in a good direction,” Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer said in a statement. “Under the provisions of this bill, not only would viewers be protected from the effects of corporate contract disputes that black out channels from their TV lineups, but they would get more choice in what channels they subscribe to, and could see their monthly fees go down.” The Western Telecommunications Alliance also welcomed Eshoo’s bill, in a statement citing the high video programming prices rural video distributors face. The American Television Alliance, Dish and CenturyLink praised both bills. “While the bills reflect different approaches to reform, they show the ever-growing bipartisan support for immediate action to fix retransmission consent,” ATVA said. CenturyLink supports the efforts of all members behind the bills “to reform the 1992 Cable Act and to make sure consumers aren’t caught in the middle of video retransmission consent disputes,” it said. Dish Deputy General Counsel Jeff Blum pointed to different virtues of the bills, in his statements. The Scalise bill “recognizes that the video laws passed in 1992 no longer reflect the marketplace and are in dire need of reform,” he said. The Eshoo bill “proposes concrete legislative ideas to give consumers greater choice over their programming, tackles the growing problem of bundling of cable channels with network channels, and empowers the FCC with significant authority to curtail blackouts."
The “the unacceptable number of senior level vacancies” currently within the Department of Homeland Security are a “serious threat” to the department’s ability to complete its mission on issues that include cybersecurity, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the House Homeland Security Committee Thursday. More than 40 percent of DHS’s senior leadership positions are vacant or are being filled by a temporary replacement. Nominees for some positions, including Homeland Security Secretary nominee Jeh Johnson, await confirmation in the Senate. The Senate could vote on Johnson’s nomination this week. Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said during the hearing that these vacancies “have a negative impact on mission effectiveness and employee morale.” The Government Accountability Office has found that morale is low across the agency’s departments. Morale within the National Protection and Programs Directorate, which leads DHS’s cybersecurity efforts, scored below the government-wide average, said David Maurer, GAO director-Homeland Security and Justice Issues. Ridge said the White House needs to “better anticipate” vacancies within DHS and vet possible candidates in a “thorough but timely manner,” while the Senate needs to consider nominees “in a timely manner” and not use the confirmation process for “political gamesmanship.” The hearing was a day after McCaul and committee ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., introduced the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696), which would codify DHS’s existing collaboration efforts with the private sector, including information sharing regarding cyberthreats, but would not give the agency new powers. House Cybersecurity Subcommittee Chairman Pat Meehan, R-Pa., and subcommittee ranking member Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., were original cosponsors of the bill (http://1.usa.gov/1gthI9g).
The FCC admonishment stands against the receiver of WHNR(AM) Cypress Gardens, Fla. (CD April 10 p23), said a Media Bureau decision Thursday (http://bit.ly/1aZYwI5). An April request of George Reed to nix the admonishment was dismissed, said the order, signed by Audio Division Chief Peter Doyle. Also, “the April Petition is based on facts that were in existence and known by Reed at the time of his last opportunity to present such matters,” wrote Doyle. Reed had been admonished for not giving the commission a copy of an order about such a transfer of control from a Florida court (CD July 5 p7).
NTCA commended the Rural Spectrum Accessibility Act, S-1776, while slamming the wireless market as “consolidated” and backing spectrum licenses based on small geographic areas. That “would allow smaller carriers like those in NTCA’s membership to bid only for the territory they are interested in serving and ensure rural areas are not ignored when it comes time to deploy services,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield in a statement Wednesday. Two carriers are now “holding 78% of the country’s low-frequency, broadband-capable spectrum and accounting for more than 80% of wireless industry revenues,” Bloomfield said. The bill was introduced and referred to the Senate Commerce Committee before the Thanksgiving recess.
The FCC should try out important rule changes in small-scale “policy sandboxes” before issuing decisions, incentivize efficient use of spectrum, and take steps to attract up-and-coming engineers, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told the IEEE at its Global Communications Conference Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1gt0OYa). “What if instead of always relying on the big reveal, we set up small-scale policy experiments?” asked Rosenworcel. “What if we examined the effects of new rules before unleashing them all at once?” The commissioner pointed to experimental spectrum licenses as an area where the FCC is already encouraging trial phases for new ideas and said the concept might also expedite the authorization process for new radio equipment. “Because the number of devices in this process is expanding, our systems deserve an update to meet this demand,” said Rosenworcel. “By moving new devices through our approval process more quickly we can move them from sandbox to market much faster.” Small-scale policy experiments could also “kick-start” the IP transition, Rosenworcel said. “After all, big issues are at stake -- how to foster deployment, how to spur investment, and how to best serve consumers,” she said. The FCC should work with carriers to come up with location-specific and service-specific IP trials, she said. “Trying them out on a small scale just makes sense.” To increase the efficiency of spectrum, the FCC should hold a contest, with a prize of 10 MHz of mobile broadband spectrum to be awarded to the first person to make spectrum use below 5 GHz 50 times more efficient over the next decade, Rosenworcel said. “Think of it as [White House education incentive program] Race to the Top, the Spectrum Edition,” she said. The prize is worthwhile, because “if the winner can truly use spectrum 50 times more efficiently, they can make their 10 MHz do the work of 500 MHz,” she said. Rosenworcel also said the FCC could benefit from an influx of engineering talent. The commission should establish an engineering analog to its honors attorney program, she said. “By mixing young men -- and women -- with experienced engineers already on staff, the FCC could be better prepared to face the challenges of next generation communications networks,” said Rosenworcel.
Amazon should release the identities and contact information of owners of video programs on its Instant Video service with closed captions that don’t comply with FCC rules for IP video, said Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in an FCC filing Wednesday (http://bit.ly/18EQZ1t). It’s the latest in a proceeding that began last year (CD April 19 p11) with a formal complaint against Amazon submitted by TDI and several other consumer groups over problems with Amazon’s IP closed captions. The FCC should “establish daily base forfeitures for subsequent violations of the rules by Amazon, and issue a forfeiture sufficiently large to make clear that non-compliance with the Commission’s rules is not simply an acceptable cost of doing business,” said TDI. Previous Amazon filings have blamed the captioning problems on the video programming owners (VPOs) which provide content on its streaming video service, but though that information was submitted to the FCC it was redacted from public documents, TDI said. “The Commission’s confidentiality measures are not intended to protect the identities of parties who violate their obligations to make their programming accessible from public scrutiny.” Amazon’s filings don’t provide the information required by a request for confidential treatment, and don’t explain how disclosing the information would harm Amazon, TDI said. It said the commission should “compel Amazon to reveal the identities of VPOs it believes to be responsible for violations of the Commission’s closed captioning” rules.