Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., will introduce a bill to limit how law enforcement agencies can make bulk data requests and to require warrants for geolocation information requests and wireless data protections, his office said Monday in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/18iSsQd). He released responses from eight carriers which gave him information about the requests they receive. The carriers received more than a million requests for wireless data from law enforcement agencies in 2012, Markey said in a statement. Markey said he backs legislation “so that Americans can have confidence that their information is protected and standards are in place for the retention and disposal of this sensitive data.” The carriers Markey queried were U.S. Cellular, Sprint, T-Mobile, Leap Wireless /Cricket Communications, MetroPCS, Verizon, AT&T and C Spire Wireless. The proposed bill would force the FCC to create rules limiting how long carriers can hold onto customers’ data. Law enforcement agencies would also have to be more up front about how many requests they issue. Markey’s queries and proposed law also target “'cell phone tower dumps,’ in which carriers provide all the phone numbers of mobile phone users that connect with a tower during a specific period of time,” said his release. There were about 9,000 such tower dumps in 2012, it said. Markey also outlined the money the carriers receive as compensation for requests: “AT&T received $10 million; T-Mobile received $11 million; and Verizon less than $5 million in just 2012 alone.” Markey criticized the unclear policies on data retention and pointed to AT&T holding data for five years. Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote a Slate op-ed (http://slate.me/1gTx58i) slamming the practices and said it’s “long past time for Congress to update our electronic privacy laws.” The quantity of agency requests to carriers is “staggering,” she said, lamenting the lack of clear policies on how the data are used. The ACLU slammed the practices in its own separate news release (http://bit.ly/1bszip4). “There is an easy fix to part of this problem,” said ACLU Washington Legislative Counsel Chris Calabrese. “President Obama and members of Congress should pass legislation that updates our outdated privacy laws by requiring law enforcement to get a probable cause warrant before service providers disclose the contents of our electronic communications to the government."
The Utility Reform Network (TURN) filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission Friday asking the PUC to put a stop to AT&T’s “unreasonable” rates (http://bit.ly/1bsKeTJ). Since Jan. 1, 2011, AT&T’s basic service rates have been deregulated, and AT&T’s flat and measured service rates have increased 40 percent and 73 percent, said the TURN complaint. Since the PUC granted major increases to the price caps of ILEC basic service rates on Jan. 1, 2009, AT&T’s flat and measured service rates have increased 115 percent and 222 percent, it said. “Competitive forces are not imposing sufficient constraints to ensure that AT&T’s basic service rates meet the requirement of Public Utilities Code Section 451 that ‘all charges demanded or received’ by a public utility such as AT&T ’shall be just and reasonable,'” said the complaint. TURN’s complaint was signed by 35 California customers. The complaint calls for the PUC to order a reduction in AT&T’s rates to make them comparable to other carriers, at $20 for flat service and $14 for measured service. AT&T did not comment.
The Dec. 20 deadline for Form 323 biennial ownership reports conflicts with a planned power outage at the FCC mandated by the Washington, D.C., Fire Code, said the Media Bureau in a public notice Monday. The power outage will start at 7 p.m. Dec. 20, and take down all of the commission’s online filing systems, which means all biennial ownership reports must be received before the outage begins, the bureau said. Filers are encouraged “to submit their Form 323 filings well in advance of the deadline whenever possible,” said the bureau. The commission offers guidance on completing the forms at www.fcc.gov/form323.
In nearly half of all designated market areas in which DirecTV carries local signals, DirecTV “must negotiate with a party controlling multiple Big Four affiliates, often through arrangements that circumvent the commission’s ownership rules,” DirecTV said in an ex parte filing in docket 10-71, which included an analysis of DMAs (http://bit.ly/18wXczt). The analysis focused on DMAs where broadcasters are able to negotiate for two or more Big Four affiliated stations, it said. The filing recounted a meeting with FCC commissioners Ajit Pai, Michael O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn and staff from Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office. DirecTV representatives also stressed “the spiraling fees being demanded by broadcasters for retransmission consent,” it said.
The Michigan Public Service Commission reversed an arbitration panel determination, in an order Friday, and it will now require AT&T to initiate IP interconnection with Sprint (http://bit.ly/1aP7Y0K). AT&T Michigan argued in the arbitration that it was unable to provide Sprint with IP interconnection because the applicable equipment was owned by a “separate, but affiliated, out-of-state” company, said the order. Without intervention from the PSC, Sprint in the order said “it will be forced to use inefficient and expensive TDM technology to the financial detriment of the company.” According to Section 251(c)(2) of the 1996 Telecom Act, AT&T Michigan is required to provide IP-to-IP interconnection in the same way that it requires TDM interconnection, said Sprint. AT&T said this interconnection requirement does not extend to IP interconnection, and this legal question is “currently pending” before the FCC in a rulemaking proceeding. The PSC acknowledged the FCC’s rulemaking, but it said the FCC did not ask state commissions to “refrain from deciding on the issue.” State commissions are not required to delay their decisions on IP interconnection pursuant to the 2nd Circuit Court’s decision in Southern New England Telephone Company v Comcast Phone of Connecticut, Inc., decided earlier this year, said the PSC order. The PSC said AT&T Michigan failed to provide a reasonable argument on why Sprint’s proposed IP interconnection is not technically feasible, said the order. AT&T Michigan alleged that the softswitch used to provide IP service to its customers was owned by its out-of-state affiliate SBCIS, and is not part of the AT&T Michigan’s network. The PSC said AT&T Michigan and SBCIS work together to operate a network for IP and TDM-based telephone exchange service, and AT&T Michigan is still required to provide Sprint with IP interconnection. In addition, AT&T Michigan can’t use the location of IP softswitch as a reason to deny Sprint access to IP interconnection, said the order. “Based on the Commission’s view of the facts in this case, it appears AT&T Michigan is feigning inability to provide IP interconnection in order to avoid its Section 251(c) obligations,” said the order. The Michigan PSC should be congratulated for promoting “modern and efficient” IP technology implementation, said Charles McKee, Sprint vice president-government affairs, in a statement. “By ruling that AT&T must allow carriers to interconnect using IP, the Commission has taken an important step in providing customers the benefits and efficiencies of IP technology,” said McKee. “Sprint is also pleased that the Michigan PSC ruled favorably on other pro-competitive provisions of Sprint’s proposed interconnection agreement that will allow Sprint to exchange traffic with AT&T more cost-effectively.” Comptel General Counsel Angie Kronenberg said she also applauded the Michigan PSC for siding with Sprint. “As the PSC found, there is no reason why states should wait for further action from the FCC,” she said. “It is critical that states use their authority granted by Congress to address interconnection when parties cannot agree.” AT&T Michigan did not comment.
Projected global ad spending growth for 2014 was reduced to 4.6 percent from 5.1 percent due to economic gridlock in the U.S. and the eurozone crisis, said GroupM in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1clekpM). It said U.S. ad investment is expected to increase from 2013 some 2.9 percent to $161 billion in 2014. “Ad spending in 2014 will enjoy a slight bump thanks to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, with spending coming mostly from existing budgets,” said GroupM Chief Investment Officer Rino Scanzoni. “But overall we estimate only marginal U.S. growth on a comparable component basis."
Cablevision and the Game Show Network want to continue delaying their program carriage case until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a decision on a cert petition submitted by Tennis Channel (CD Nov 29 p19) asking the justices to overturn the Comcast v. FCC decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “The meaning and reach of the evidentiary standards set forth in the Comcast Cable decision are thus potentially subject to further review,” said GSN in a joint status report submitted to FCC Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel Friday (http://bit.ly/1jEYIV3). Both GSN and Cablevision said they needed the Comcast verdict and its effect on program carriage law to be finalized, either by a denial of cert or a Supreme Court decision, to proceed with their case. The Cablevision/GSN case has been on hold since June, while the parties waited for other carriage disputes to resolve, with Tennis Channel’s complaint against Comcast (CD May 29 p1) the last remaining question mark. In the joint status report, the companies suggest that they be allowed to wait for the Supreme Court process to finish, and to submit another joint report either within 60 days of the Dec. 6 filing or 10 days after the Supreme Court resolves the Tennis Channel matter, whichever is earlier.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., planned to have introduced legislation Monday to stop people from talking on their cellphones on airplanes, he said, delivering on a threat other lawmakers have made in recent weeks. Shuster calls his bill the Prohibiting In-Flight Voice Communications on Mobile Wireless Devices Act and posted online a bill copy (http://1.usa.gov/19wPeDy). The legislation focuses on domestic commercial flights and forbids any phone conversation when the plane is in flight. Shuster’s office cited the FCC draft NPRM to review whether, from a technical perspective, such phone conversations should be allowed. “For passengers, being able to use their phones and tablets to get online or send text messages is a useful in-flight option,” Shuster said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1ktm4uo). “But if passengers are going to be forced to listen to the gossip in the aisle seat, it’s going to make for a very long flight,” he said. “For those few hours in the air with 150 other people, it’s just common sense that we all keep our personal lives to ourselves and stay off the phone.” The bill doesn’t mention the FCC or the Federal Aviation Administration, and directs the secretary of transportation to issue rules banning inflight conversations.
Economist papers on retransmission consent filed by NAB have “assorted deficiencies, flaws and problems,” Mediacom said in comments in docket 10-71. The notion that there are 565 separate and distinct national networks “that could serve as substitutes for the popular programs of a Big-Four network carried by a station that is shut off during a negotiating impasse is ridiculous on its face,” it said in reference to a 2010 study by Navigant Economics for NAB. Many of the networks are unavailable on most cable systems and describe themselves as “national” only because they would like to be nationally, rather than locally or regionally, distributed, “but that dream has not been realized and is unlikely to be in the foreseeable (or even unforeseeable) future,” it said. Many of the channels offer highly specialized programming “that would not be considered by the typical viewer as a substitute for popular broadcast network shows,” it said. The Navigant paper’s conclusion “that market conditions preclude broadcast station owners from charging supra-competitive retrans fees is intellectual snake oil,” it said. Mediacom also referred to NAB’s letter last week as “just another instance of spin-doctoring.” Cable interests have distorted NAB’s arguments “and largely reiterated discredited claims and calls for government intervention into the retransmission consent market, even where the commission has no authority to act,” NAB said in that letter (http://bit.ly/J7XXX0).
WikiLeaks released more documents that it said came from the ongoing negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This marks the second time it’s released documents related to the negotiations (CD Nov 14 p21). The “secret TPP documents” show “the state of negotiations as the twelve TPP countries began supposedly final negotiations at a trade ministers’ meeting in Singapore this week,” it said. WikiLeaks said one of the documents describes work by the U.S. to get other countries to adopt U.S. stances, while the other document lists, “country-by-country, the many areas of disagreement remaining.” The U.S. Trade Representative’s office had no comment.