A Federal Aviation Administration-led (FAA) group of government and industry experts began meeting Tuesday to re-examine the agency’s current policies on portable electronic devices (PEDs). The FAA’s current regulations for commercial flights require that all PEDs be powered off during takeoff and landing. Although the group will consider easing those restrictions and determine ways to protect future aircraft from interference, it will not consider easing restrictions on use of mobile phones for voice calls during flight because of the FCC’s existing rule against that use, the FAA said. The group plans to meet over the next six months and then present its recommendations to the FAA (http://1.usa.gov/W7n7VU). The FAA began seeking input in late August on a possible rule change, although industry experts at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month were uncertain whether the agency would actually drop its takeoff and landing requirement (CD Jan 14 p6). Industry experts in the FAA-led group include: Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC’s office of Engineering Technology; Doug Johnson, the Consumer Electronics Association’s vice president-technology policy; and Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president-global public policy (http://xrl.us/boa35q).
The Eutelsat 70B satellite entered into full commercial service at 70.5 degrees east. Eutelsat transferred all traffic from the Eutelsat 70A to Eutelsat 70B, it said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bnrdkk). With high frequency use, four beams with coverage of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia “are connected to 48 Ku-band transponders, more than doubling capacity at 70.5 degrees east,” it said. Eutelsat 70A will be redeployed to 25.5 degrees east until Eutelsat 25B is launched in the middle of 2013, Eutelsat said.
By opposing AT&T’s petition to launch a “comprehensive empirical inquiry” into the Internet Protocol transition, Cbeyond and several other CLECs are asking the commission to act “adversely to the best interests of American consumers,” said Bob Quinn, AT&T senior vice president-federal regulatory, in a letter Monday (http://xrl.us/boax6n). Quinn said he knows why the CLECs have asked the FCC to reject AT&T’s proposed wire-center trials, in which several telco regulations would be lifted: The CLECs want to slow down technological convergence and IP network upgrades “in order to preserve their own TDM-based business plans as long as possible.” Quinn questioned the CLECs’ argument that extending monopoly-era regulations would give ILECs a greater incentive to invest and innovate in order to remain competitive. He criticized the CLECs’ proposal to impose new IP interconnection obligations. “CLECs present IP-to-IP interconnection as a futuristic endeavor that could never succeed in the absence of regulatory compulsion,” Quinn said. But any Skype user has already experienced the IP interconnection that occurs absent regulation. “Their calls to each other go through -- not because their ISPs have any regulatory obligation to interconnect (they do not), but because it is in their mutual self-interest."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted Dish Network’s petitions for review Tuesday in its case against the FCC to determine whether the commission has jurisdiction to adopt encoding rules for all multichannel video programming distributors, including satellite broadcasters. The court concluded that the FCC “lacked statutory authority to impose these rules,” the opinion said (http://xrl.us/boax54). Dish argued that Section 629 of the Communications Act doesn’t give the commission jurisdiction to adopt encoding rules (CD April 3 p8). The statute doesn’t, by its terms, prohibit the requirement of encoding rules, said Harry Edwards, a senior circuit judge. Rather, any challenge to the agency’s exercise of its direction under it “must take into account the circumstances presented and the commission’s explanation for the action in question,” he wrote in his opinion. It said the commission failed to explain how requiring satellite carriers to adopt encoding rules “was necessary to assure the commercial availability of converter boxes and other equipment pursuant to Section 629.” The court said the filing from NCTA supporting the commission’s position isn’t persuasive. NCTA “adopts a more circumspect view of the FCC’s authority,” acknowledging the obvious implausibility of interpreting Section 629 “as empowering the FCC to take any action it deems useful in its quest to make navigation devices commercially available,” it said.
CenturyLink is continuing its fight for a ruling of statewide effective competition in New Mexico, a proceeding before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission that’s many months in the process and that would open a path for less regulation of the company. But the telco’s approach “is not simple but simplistic, is not straightforward but results-driven, and defies common sense,” said the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal executive agencies in a joint post-hearing reply brief this week (http://xrl.us/boax6i), which argued that wireless is no substitute for landline service. Often there’s no real competition for CenturyLink, it said, noting its “rates, service quality and terms” depend on the proceeding’s results. But the findings “command a finding of effective competition,” CenturyLink said (http://xrl.us/boax6x). It cited “basic facts of CenturyLink QC’s [Qwest Corp.] access line loss, the paltry share of customer locations within the CenturyLink QC network footprint that subscribe to CenturyLink QC service, and ever-increasing wireless substitution.” Commission staff argued (http://xrl.us/boax6z) that the PRC should deny CenturyLink’s petition and try to foster regulatory flexibility in other ways.
Arris said it agreed to sell about 10.6 million shares of itself to Comcast for $150 million. The sale will close in connection with Arris’s purchase from Google of Motorola Mobility’s cable vendor business, Arris said. At that point Comcast and Google will each own about 7.85 percent of Arris’s shares, it said.
The U.S. needs “smarter” tech innovation policies to capture the digital economy’s economic advantages and improve long-term growth, said Brookings Institution scholars Darrell West, Allan Friedman and Walter Valdivia in a paper released Tuesday. Such policies should be “front and center” in Congress’s tech policy agenda, they said. They recommended a set of eight policies, including strengthening tech infrastructure through investments in broadband, data centers and cell towers, as well as improved access to spectrum. West, Friedman and Valdivia plan to seek meetings with policy advisers in Congress and the White House to move their ideas into legislation, Brookings said (http://bit.ly/VIxG4i).
NAB attorneys met with FCC Media Bureau and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staff to push for “flexibility” in delivering accessible emergency alerts to viewers, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/boax5m). The rules involve providing audio alerts to make on-screen emergency messages more accessible to people who can’t see them. They also asked the officials to delete school closings, changes in school bus schedules and non-imminent weather condition alerts from certain accessibility requirements. “These types of information, which are not of immediate urgency, should not be required to be transmitted aurally on the second audio stream, although broadcasters certainly should continue to have the flexibility and discretion to transmit them aurally if appropriate,” the notice said.
Verizon workers turned to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to stop a pending layoff of 201 technicians, whose jobs the union said are critical for Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 827 filed a petition with the regulators Monday, it said (http://xrl.us/boaxto), calling for “an expedited public hearing and [to] issue a stay order on Verizon’s plan.” The union is safeguarding consumer interests, said Local 827 President Bill Huber, who in a statement alleged that “Verizon is more interested in reducing labor costs than they are at providing reliable dial tone and data service to their customers and, as a result of this bad management decision, consumers are being neglected in favor of Verizon’s singular focus on quarterly reports for stockholders.” The layoffs are slated for Feb. 9, the union said. The board declined comment, saying it hadn’t received the petition. “Verizon operates in an extremely competitive industry, and we continuously adjust our work force based on the needs of our customers and the needs of our business,” a spokesman for the telco told us. “While we have made every effort to reduce head count through voluntary means, any targeted reductions will not impact our ability to serve our customers or jeopardize our focus on repairing our own critical infrastructure impacted by Hurricane Sandy.” Huber was unavailable for comment, and the union was unable to supply a copy of the petition. Verizon notified the union of its termination plans Jan. 8 by email, Huber said on the union’s Facebook page Tuesday (http://xrl.us/boaxz2). “The Union has requested bargaining dates to continue discussions,” he said. “We are scheduled to meet next week.”
Comments on an FCC proposal to require holders of attributable broadcaster stakes to provide a Social Security number to the agency to get an identification number for biennial ownership forms are due Feb. 14, replies March 1, in docket 07-294, said a commission notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register. A rulemaking notice this month proposed to end special-use FCC registration numbers, which allowed an entity listed as an owner of a station on a Form 323 to not provide a Social Security number (CD Jan 4 p5).