Congressional Democrats are interested in reforming the 1992 Cable Act provisions regarding retransmission consent, said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant in an email Friday. Democrats believe consumers shouldn’t be “penalized when companies cannot agree on retrans prices,” Gallant said, citing comments from Democratic staffers who spoke at the Catholic University Law School communications policy symposium hosted by Wiley Rein last week. One Democratic staffer at the event said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is “concerned that video competition has not lowered pay TV rates” and the committee will “focus on examining how disruptive technologies could benefit consumers,” Gallant said. “Based on the comments we heard yesterday, we think Aereo -- as well as Google/Apple/Amazon if they decide to get involved -- may find a receptive audience among some in Congress for policy recommendations that would help [over-the-top] OTT emerge as an alternative to cable/satellite,” he wrote. Republican committee staffers at the event said there will be more hearings in the coming months to examine the issue and “argued that Congress should not rush into new regulation of the pay TV sector,” Gallant said. “The speakers reinforced our view that Congress is likely to give serious consideration in the next 12-15 months to revising the retrans law and exploring steps aimed at strengthening OTT firms like Aereo,” Gallant said.
The Denver Regional Transportation District asked the FCC for a waiver of some 700 MHz rules relating to efficient use of spectrum, according to a Friday filing (http://bit.ly/Xu4wJ5). “In the 700 MHz public safety narrowband voice spectrum, RTD believes that there will not be a spectrum congestion issue in this band in the next ten-to-fifteen years,” said Communications Manager Tom Hughes in the filing. Thus the FCC’s rules don’t help “the users of this spectrum, nor serves the public’s interest.” He called these FCC rules “inequitable, unduly burdensome, and contrary to the public interest” because taxpayers would have to pay for upgrades that aren’t yet needed.
Tennessee legislators should abandon their proposed “broadband tax,” said Free State Foundation fellow Deborah Taylor Tate, a former FCC commissioner, of pending pole attachment legislation in a Free State email blast Friday. Her piece was first published as a Sunday op-ed in The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/Z6Uysc). She praised the growth of broadband access in Tennessee. “None of this advanced infrastructure is possible without fair and reasonable access to essential facilities, including utility poles,” Tate said. “With some of the highest rates in the entire country -- more than double the national average -- some legislators want to allow further increases to these pole attachment rates on the backs of small and homegrown businesses as well as Tennessee consumers. This is completely out of step with our Southeastern neighbors and with high-tax states such as California and Massachusetts, which have rates 250 percent lower than Tennessee’s.” She attacked the Watson/Matlock bill (HB 1111/SB 1222), which has attracted controversy (CD March 7 p18) in Tennessee. The bill stands opposed to the alternate, telco-backed Freedom to Connect Act (HB 567/SB 1049). The Watson/Matlock legislation, despite some movement, has yet to receive a vote on the floor in either house of the Tennessee Legislature. Electric utilities have supported it. “Rather than erecting toll booths on the information superhighway in the form of a broadband tax, we should be putting out the low-tax welcome mat and encouraging more broadband innovation and investment throughout this great state,” Tate said. Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak also opposed the legislation in a Wednesday Chattanooga Times Free Press op-ed (http://bit.ly/Y34bI4): “If the Tennessee Legislature is truly concerned about its economy and its constituents, then calls for higher pole attachment rates should be rejected, and existing rates should, at a minimum, be reduced to reflect national standards,” he said.
The House Communications Subcommittee plans to mark up legislation this week to codify U.S. policy regarding Internet governance, it said in a news release Friday. The three-page bill, which was expected, would clarify that it is the “policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet,” according to a revised draft of the bill published last week (http://1.usa.gov/10FeUsK). The discussion draft was only slightly modified from an earlier draft of the bill made public in February. The bill echoes language in House and Senate resolutions passed last year opposing the revised International Telecommunication Regulations adopted at the World Conference on International Telecommunications. The non-binding resolutions sought to preserve “the multi-stakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived” (CD Dec 6 p16). Earlier this year House lawmakers said the U.S. must redouble its efforts to combat any further restrictions of the Internet (CD Feb 6 p9). The international community will again take up the debate over Internet regulations this year when the ITU hosts the World Telecommunications/ICT Policy Forum, the World Summit on the Information Society Forum, and the Internet Governance Forum. Passage of the bill would make keeping the global Internet free from government control the official U.S policy “rather than merely a sense of the Congress in light of continued international efforts to regulate the Internet,” said the committee news release. “By strengthening last year’s legislation from a resolution opposing a particular treaty proposal to the official policy of the United States, Congress will demonstrate its commitment to Internet freedom and push back on those nations that might subvert the Internet for their own purposes,” said a committee majority memo published last week. Opening statements will be Wednesday at 4 p.m. in 2123 Rayburn and the subcommittee will reconvene on Thursday at 2:15 p.m., according to a news release. The Telecommunications Industry Association commended the committee’s legislative draft in a separate news release. “Passage of this legislation will confirm that the United States can speak with an even stronger voice against any efforts to place Internet governance under the control of a multi-national body,” the group said.
Bright House Networks and Cox added fully enabled, on-the-go capabilities for Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Time Warner Cable Deportes in Southern California. All network programming can be watched both in-the-home and on-the-go, TWC said in a press release. Bright House, Cox, TWC and DirecTV subscribers in the networks’ home territory can watch the channels on TV, on the networks’ websites and on iOS and Android tablet and mobile devices, it said. Customers who subscribe to a package that includes the two networks can watch them on computers or mobile devices after logging in with a password to verify their subscription, TWC said.
Groups representing U.S. technology companies signaled their disappointment in letters sent last week over a provision in the continuing resolution funding bill passed last month that would restrict U.S. federal acquisitions of Chinese manufactured technologies. The law, P.L. 113-6, forbids the U.S. departments of Commerce and Justice, NASA and the National Science Foundation from using federal money to buy Chinese IT products unless a risk assessment has been done to evaluate each item’s potential for cyberespionage or sabotage. Eleven business groups including the Chamber of Commerce said the provision sets a “troubling and counterproductive precedent” and urged lawmakers to consider a “more constructive approach.” The concerns were expressed in letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The provision could slow the federal acquisition process, bring retaliation from the Chinese government, and encourage other countries to adopt similar laws that would hurt U.S. IT vendors, the letters said. “Given the expedited manner in which this provision was enacted, we ask the Congress to review the security implications and competitive impact of this requirement, and consider a more constructive approach to this issue,” the letter said. “We also seek your support to ensure similar language is not included in other legislative vehicles.” The letter was signed by BSA, the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the Information Technology Industry Council, the Semiconductor Industry Association, the Software and Information Industry Association, TechAmerica, the Technology CEO Council, the Telecommunications Industry Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Council for International Business, and the U.S. Information Technology Office.
Motorola Mobility will use its NAB Show exhibit for its first-ever real-time demonstrations of High Efficiency Video Coding encoding and decoding, the company said Friday. The NAB Show exhibit floor opens Monday for a four-day run. Motorola has been “rapidly moving from creation to implementation” in the two months since the HEVC standard was adopted by the Motion Picture Experts Group (CD Jan 29 p19), the company said. One NAB Show demo will feature a real-time HEVC encoder delivering streaming content to a Google Nexus 10 tablet for real-time decoding and playback, it said. A second demo will showcase real-time HEVC HTTP live streaming to a fourth-generation iPad, it said. A third demo will show an IP set-top box decoding HEVC, it said: “Motorola’s demonstrations will highlight how the compression efficiency of HEVC enables high-quality video delivery over bandwidth-constrained networks to multiple platforms.” Among HEVC’s various advantages is that it can be “a significant factor in dramatically reducing storage costs for in-home and networked DVRs,” the company said. That’s important because Motorola consumer surveys have shown that more than a third of weekly TV-watching is coming through the DVR, it said. Motorola engineers “are using HEVC to test and develop comprehensive standards-based wireless and multi-screen solutions for a diverse base of service providers worldwide,” it said.
DirecTV reiterated that common-law agency principles should govern the question of whether a call was made “on behalf of” a seller, it said in an ex parte filing in docket 11-50 (http://bit.ly/13YcRrh). Attempting to qualify the agency analysis by providing examples of activities “that could indicate the existence of an agency relationship is highly problematic,” it said, recounting a teleconference on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act proceeding with an attorney for the DBS company and staff from FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s office. If the FCC feels the need to provide additional guidance, “it must ensure that such guidance cannot be viewed as outcome determinative, but rather simply reflects matters that can be considered among all of the others relevant to the agency analysis,” it said.
For changes to cable channel buyer group program access rules to work, the FCC should let all mid-sized multichannel video programming distributors participate in such groups, not just MVPDs with fewer than 3 million subscribers, said Cox Communications. Executives met with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau’s front office to share Cox’s concerns (CD Dec 18 p5) on an American Cable Association proposal for the agency to set the buying-group safe harbor threshold, for co-ops and the like to take advantage of program access rules, at 3 million subscribers. ACA’s plan is “flawed,” said a handout from the meeting included in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-68 (http://bit.ly/10A9otT). “Today’s programming market features four MVPDs with more than 12 million subscribers.” ACA’s plan “is premised solely on allowing MVPDs” that are in National Cable Television Cooperative agreements “to enjoy buying group protections,” said the handout. “This narrow result will not remedy imbalances in today’s market.” What matters in getting pricing discounts on cable programming is “the overall size of the buyer -- in this case, the buying group -- not the size of individual group members,” said Cox.
There’s fodder in the recent federal court decision giving Capitol Records summary judgment in its legal fight against digital music resale service ReDigi to support granting the major broadcast networks the preliminary injunction they seek to bar Dish Network’s commercial-skipping AutoHop feature, said lawyers for ABC. The attorneys’ notice of supplemental authority was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New York (http://1.usa.gov/YXPZTX). ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC have sued to bar AutoHop on contributory-infringement grounds, while Dish is seeking a declaratory ruling from the court that AutoHop is legal. In the ReDigi case, a federal judge found that the digital music service violated Capitol’s copyrights by allowing users to copy files to company servers and then resell those files to other users. ABC lawyers attached a copy of the 14-page ReDigi decision to their notice, excerpting a brief passage in which the court discussed how ReDigi’s “volitional conduct” supported granting summary judgment to Capitol. The excerpt reads: “ReDigi’s Media Manager scans a user’s computer to build a list of eligible files that consists solely of protected music purchased on iTunes. While that process is itself automated, absolving ReDigi of direct liability on that ground alone would be a distinction without a difference. The fact that ReDigi’s founders programmed their software to choose copyrighted content satisfies the volitional conduct requirement and renders ReDigi’s case indistinguishable from those where human review of content gave rise to direct liability.” In its order, the court went on to argue that ReDigi played a “fundamental and deliberate role” in which it “affirmatively brokered” illegal transactions, making it an “active participant” in the act of copyright infringement. Lawyers for the major networks have argued Dish has played much the same role in marketing and distributing AutoHop as a copyright-infringing feature on its Hopper DVRs. Dish spokesman Bob Toevs declined comment on the ABC lawyers’ filing. He said in a statement that the AutoHop case “is grounded in the Supreme Court’s 1984 Sony Betamax decision. That decision, and just plain common sense, say that consumers have the right to record television broadcasts and watch that content at their convenience.”