The FCC Media Bureau granted a Time Warner Cable petition Monday to exempt TWC from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for four communities in Texas, said a Media Bureau order (http://bit.ly/19dCL7M). TWC’s petition cited competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects just under 67,000 households in the communities of Laredo, El Cenizo, Rio Bravo and Webb County. The bureau also granted an effective competition petition from Comcast (http://bit.ly/1eQlrKD) for 10 communities in Washington. Comcast’s petition also cited competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects around 60,000 households, including the communities of Enumclaw, Maple Valley and Auburn.
A new Senate bill proposing changes to the FCC USF is “confusing” on first glance, NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay told us, giving his personal take on S-1766, the USF Equitable Distribution Act of 2013. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., introduced the bill before the Thanksgiving recess, prompting praise from FairPoint in a statement last week (CD Dec 2 p10). The bill would make sure that rural states keep at least 75 cents for every dollar of USF contribution. Ramsay said the states that would be benefit are the rural ones that are net donors to the USF, but the states that are not designated as rural -- which the bill defines as ones in which “the total population density is not more than 200 people per square mile” -- will have to pay the difference, whether they are net donors or recipients to the USF. Most states -- 35 -- have fewer than 200 people per square mile, according to the 2010 census. Ramsay doubted it would be “politically palatable to come up with differing [USF] surcharges for different states,” leading him to speculate that there might be a hike in surcharges across the board if such a bill is passed. But an aide to Ayotte last week told us the bill would not increase the size of the USF, and the bill text contains language specifying that nothing should be construed as “requiring an increase in amounts collected by providers of interstate telecommunications from consumers for the purpose of making contributions.” Ramsay noted this language and suggested the FCC might only be able to make changes on the allocation of USF funds rather than the collection, which would still mean that non-rural states fund the difference. He questioned how the FCC would actually implement the language, saying that’s open to various possibilities.
The TPP will be a useful trade agreement only if it holds all involved nations “to the very highest standards” when it comes to issues such as protecting intellectual property rights and guaranteeing transparency in government procurement, said an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report released Sunday (http://bit.ly/186stv9). TPP’s final ministerial meetings will be this month, the report said. “It would be a mistake for the United States to enter into a substandard TPP that offers only weak IP protections or that permits countries to maintain mercantilist practices; doing so would in fact be worse than not joining the agreement.” Part of strengthening IP protection should include adopting a common definition for “trade secrets,” the report said.
FCC inaction and broadcast consolidation are exacerbating “skyrocketing” retransmission rates, said Mediacom in an ex parte letter addressed to Chairman Tom Wheeler’s chief of staff, Ruth Milkman. “Neither the consolidation that is occurring in local television markets nor the increasing demands for retransmission consent compensation are benefitting the public,” said Mediacom. “Rather, they are benefitting the bottom line of the stations’ corporate parents,” said the filing. Rising retransmission consent fees are driving the increased consolidation by giving broadcasters an incentive to acquire stations they can then leverage against cable companies in retrans negotiations, said Mediacom. Broadcasters can finance station acquisitions through the increased retransmission consent revenue such transactions generate, said Mediacom: “The result is an ongoing cycle of station acquisitions, increased retransmission consent fees, and reductions in local content -- all to the detriment of consumers.” Broadcast consolidation is also a threat to the incentive auction, because it concentrates the available spectrum in the hands of just a few owners, the filing said. The FCC should require the parties in broadcast transactions to produce hard data showing that “the proposed transaction will provide measurable benefits to the public, not just to the parties’ bottom lines,” said the filing. “If the Commission under Chairman Wheeler does nothing else, it should stop accepting at face value the broadcasters’ claims that increased concentration of station ownership and/or control, both at the local level and nationally, is good for consumers and society as a whole,” said the filing.
The FCC shouldn’t revise its sports blackout rule, said the National Football League in an ex parte filing Friday. Blackouts are “rare, isolated, but necessary” to make sure local fans can enjoy “premier sports,” said the filing (http://bit.ly/1chLUQT). “The FCC’s sports blackout rule, coupled with the network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules, provide a necessary counterbalance to the compulsory copyright rule,” said the NFL, calling it “unfair and unwise to get rid of these safeguards.” The league doesn’t have the option to resolve local blackout issues through negotiation because the NFL doesn’t have contracts with individual local broadcasters and cable systems, the ex parte said. The NFL has recently changed its ticket policy “to provide its member clubs additional options in engaging their fans and communities,” but these changes don’t provide a basis for revision of the FCC’s sports blackout rule, said the filing.
Splitting Cyber Command leadership and National Security Agency leadership is a “good” idea, said Michael Hayden, a former CIA and NSA chief and now principal at the Chertoff Group, speaking on Fox News Sunday. The possibility has been raised on Capitol Hill as Congress and the White House revisit the rules governing U.S. intelligence agencies and surveillance practices. Splitting the position would allow a civilian leader to run the NSA. Hayden credited the wisdom of dividing the position, now embodied in one person, as not about “the concentration of power” but due to the “overburdening of responsibilities."
The U.S. Trade Representative is supporting the ability of third parties in Trans-Pacific Partnership countries to formally object to a patent at the initial application phase, said the office in a news release Friday. A leaked U.S. chapter on intellectual property rights showed the Obama administration was pushing stringent intellectual property language that promotes big business over consumer access to products and information, said WikiLeaks and other advocate groups that had criticized what they called the secretive nature of TPP talks. Meanwhile, a medicine intellectual property rights (IPR) policy change the USTR seeks (http://1.usa.gov/1k2YPXK) shows that office is amenable to negotiating data exclusivity time frames, said Sean Flynn, associate director of American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, in a blog post (http://infojustice.org/archives/31498). “This is consistent with reports of various groups talking to the White House and Members of Congress that they are being told that although the USTR has offered a 12 year data exclusivity provision in the TPP, it does not expect to get that provision in the final agreement.” Vice President Joe Biden started Sunday on a six-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region that includes a Tuesday summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, where the two leaders are expected to discuss TPP negotiations, said the White House. Biden is also scheduled to meet with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Friday. South Korea formally expressed Friday its intent to join TPP negotiations (CD Dec 2 p12).
Wireless technology has opened cars up to new possible breaches and invasions of privacy, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told 20 auto manufacturers. His Monday letter (http://1.usa.gov/1bdEXMk) asked the companies several questions, including how many wireless entry points their vehicles have, how companies test vehicles’ vulnerabilities and what monitoring is being done to detect cyberthreats or hacking. The letter also asked privacy questions about what data the companies collect, including geolocation information, and how any sale of information to third parties works, as well as details on any requests for information from government agencies. “As vehicles become more integrated with wireless technology, there are more avenues through which a hacker could introduce malicious code, and more avenues through which a driver’s basic right to privacy could be compromised,” Markey said in the letter. “These threats demonstrate the need for robust vehicle security policies to ensure the safety and privacy of our nation’s drivers."
CenturyLink asked the FCC to stay its inmate calling service (ICS) rules “pending a final decision by the courts,” in a petition filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/18VEX7m). The order “imposes de facto rate-of-return regulation,” said CenturyLink, an ICS provider. CenturyLink said the order is unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny because the commission didn’t provide a “reasoned justification” for applying its new regime to existing ICS contracts. The commission also based its decision to impose rate-of-return regulation on “a misreading of judicial precedent, invoking a presumption in favor of rate-of-return regulation that lacks a legal basis,” CenturyLink said. CenturyLink said it was the fourth ICS provider to request a stay pending judicial review. The FCC last month denied requests for stay by Global Tel Link and Securus.
The FTC will host three seminars starting in February on the benefits and privacy concerns raised by three new information collection practices, said the agency in a Monday news release (http://1.usa.gov/1jc3kS5). The topics are mobile device tracking, alternative scoring products and consumer-generated and controlled health data. The mobile device tracking seminar is scheduled for Feb. 19, and will explore the emerging practice of tracking customers’ movements in retail stores via their mobile devices (CD Dec 2 p1). “In most cases, this tracking is invisible to consumers and occurs with no consumer interaction,” the release said. The alternative scoring products seminar on March 19 will deal with the data broker practice of offering customer scores to companies to predict customer traits such as the likelihood a customer has committed identity fraud; the credit risk associated with a loan application; and how to most successfully collect a debt, said the release. “Consumers are largely unaware of these scores, and have little to no access to the underlying data that comprises the scores.” The seminar on consumer-generated and controlled health data doesn’t have a confirmed date. It will cover the privacy implications of websites and applications that collect and analyze health information from users. The public can submit comments on each of these topics until a month after the seminar (http://1.usa.gov/18b91eF). The commission said it will release staff reports after each seminar.