Six of the largest media companies asked the FCC to stay a Media Bureau order requiring online video distributors (OVDs) to disclose the contents of certain licensing agreements when seeking to license Comcast-NBCU-owned programming under a condition of an FCC merger order. CBS, News Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner, Viacom and Disney said the commission should stay the bureau’s order while it considers their joint application for review. The bureau’s order “will not simply result in irreparable harm to the Content Companies and the marketplace for programming, but would contravene sound Commission precedent as well as Federal law designed to protect private business information against the threat of undue disclosure,” they said (http://xrl.us/bn68fq). The order violates the Trade Secrets Act, abrogates private contracts “absent any statutory authority,” and suffers from procedural flaws related to the timeliness of the Comcast request that sparked it, they said. At issue is the so-called “Benchmark Condition” to the FCC’s order approving Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal, which spelled out a procedure by which OVDs could seek access to Comcast-controlled programming after having already reached a similar agreement with an industry peer.
The FCC will provide broadband for nearly 75,000 low-income people who lack service, in 14 projects across 21 states and Puerto Rico as part of its Lifeline broadband adoption pilot program. It'll run 18 months, start Feb. 1 and subsidize service for a year, the Wireline Bureau said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn68f8). The bureau will collect and analyze data in the final three months, it said. The variety of projects will include five wireless broadband projects, seven wireline broadband projects and two that'll offer wireline or wireless, the FCC said. Seven will test discounted service in rural areas, including two on tribal lands, and seven in urban and suburban areas. Tested variables will include use of digital literacy training, equipment types, subsidy levels, speed ranges and usage limits, the bureau said. Lifeline has saved more than $210 million in 2012, the bureau said, saying that’s higher than its target. The FCC reiterated its Lifeline reforms, such as eliminating Link-Up subsidies and putting in place measures to limit one Lifeline subsidy per household. The broadband adoption pilot will cost $14 million, to come from the overall Lifeline savings, the commission said. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said in a separate news release she was pleased with the FCC’s expansion of the Lifeline program for universal broadband adoption. “We must close the digital divide in this country and the FCC moving forward today to establishing a broadband adoption pilot program through the USF will move us closer to that goal,” she said.
The California Public Utilities Commission unveiled a draft (http://xrl.us/bn68ex) and redlined version (http://xrl.us/bn68ez) of its new basic service definition for residential phone customers. The CPUC will vote on the proposed new definition, which is intended to take into account changes to the telecom industry, at its meeting Thursday. The commissioners agreed in recent weeks to try to knit together two proposals different commissioners had introduced earlier in the year and reconcile attention to consumer protections as well as industry concerns (CD Nov 30 p14). The proposed order includes findings of fact on new technologies: “Wireless and VoIP currently offer telecommunications services in competition with ILECs, but do not currently offer basic service,” it said. Wireless and “other alternatives ... serve as partial, but not complete, substitutes for basic service” for now, it added. In the proposal’s conclusions, the CPUC noted that applying technology-neutral rules doesn’t justify “the degrading of essential consumer needs to satisfy the lowest common denominator of service features that carriers may currently be willing to offer.” The proposal’s appendix lays out the different requirements of access, billing, 911, directories and other elements. California companies seeking to qualify as carriers of last resort or to provide Lifeline must adhere to and offer service meeting this basic service definition, the proposal said.
The FCC released an order Wednesday dismissing various petitions for reconsideration filed after the FCC approved Verizon Wireless’s buy of Alltel in 2008 (http://xrl.us/bn68ep), under former Chairman Kevin Martin. The FCC stuck by its guns in its decision in 2008 to include 55.5 MHz of Broadband Radio Service spectrum in the spectrum screen it used to evaluate the merger, over objections by the Rural Telecommunications Group and others. The order dismissed petitions by MetroPCS, nTelos and others asking that the commission “expand or clarify the roaming-related conditions” in the merger order. “Petitioners offer no new evidence demonstrating that the conditions already imposed do not sufficiently ameliorate the specific harms that might result from the transaction, nor do they demonstrate any error in our decision,” the FCC said. “Further, we find that the Commission has since addressed petitioners’ general concerns for the availability of reasonable voice and data roaming arrangements in other proceedings.” The Wednesday order rejected the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition’s arguments that the FCC should impose various net neutrality conditions on Verizon. “PISC has not provided any new evidence warranting the imposition of PISC’s proposed conditions, or demonstrated any error in our decision,” the order said. “As we previously concluded, the proposed conditions are not narrowly tailored to any harm specific to this transaction."
Gigabit Squared will kick off engineering work in Seattle in January as part of its new partnership with the city and the University of Washington, said Acting Chief Technology Officer Erin Devoto during a Wednesday Gigabit Nation podcast. The partnership was announced last week (CD Dec 14 p10) and will utilize fiber connections to a dozen neighborhoods as well as create wireless hotspots throughout certain sectors of the city, all starting in fall 2013. There’s a “Catch 22,” where the U.S. lacks advanced broadband and also the apps that would spur demand for it, said Ed Lazowska, a UW computer science and engineering professor who is the school’s point person on the project. “The tragedy is our nation invented all of this stuff, and we are miles away from being the world leader.” The Gigabit Seattle partnership is a step in the right direction, he said, citing the benefit of such public-private partnerships. He criticized the way private broadband deployment has unfolded generally in the U.S.: “That has not worked.” He called the 12 demonstration neighborhoods in Seattle a “great cross-section” of people, businesses and economics that will call for different uses of the advanced broadband speed. Devoto said Seattle hasn’t “given up on broadband” despite the city’s decision to lease the fiber rather than run its own network. She cited the millions of dollars worth of fiber it’s invested in and is now leasing to Gigabit Squared as a significant asset in the partnership: “We're not putting our money in this, but we are in a facilitator role.” Gigabit Squared understands the need “to create powerful applications that will then drive increased use of gigabit-speeds,” she added, which would help solve the Catch-22 Lazowska described. The Gigabit Seattle partnership will still need to figure out how ISPs will factor into the new networks, she said. Gigabit Squared “agreed they will let other ISP providers come to the table and use their network,” she said. “I don’t think they've settled on one particular ISP at this point. They have agreed they will build an open architecture that will allow other ISPs to provide service.” Gigabit Squared hasn’t established its cost model yet, Devoto said.
Congress could reauthorize the president’s authority to relax export rules on non-critical U.S. satellites this week. Lawmakers are widely expected to consider the final FY13 National Defense Authorization bill which contains a provision to authorize the administration to tailor export restrictions on less-sensitive satellites. The provision is based on recommendations from the Defense and State departments that suggested a transfer of some satellites and equipment from the U.S. Munitions List to the Commerce Control List (CD April 19 p7). The language of the provision reflects bicameral legislation (S-3211, HR-3288) offered by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and outgoing Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. Aerospace Industries Association President Marion Blakey commended the development in a news release Wednesday: “Ending this self-imposed burden on U.S. competitiveness in the global commercial satellite marketplace is critical to our national security and to ensuring the U.S. space industrial base stays second to none.”
Sprint Nextel’s buy of the rest of Clearwire would make the carrier the nation’s biggest holder of spectrum licenses and the deal should get close scrutiny from the FCC, said Roger Entner, analyst at Recon Analytics, in a blog post. The deal would give Sprint control of about 200 MHz across the U.S., of the 547 MHz identified by the FCC as “useable for wireless broadband,” Entner wrote (http://bit.ly/TzITBg). “It will be interesting to see if the FCC evaluates all of the spectrum licensed to Clearwire as the agency reviews the transaction,” he said. “It will also be interesting to see if the largely irrelevant and arbitrary discussion going on inside the beltway about the relative value and utility of above and below 1 GHz spectrum will continue."
Dish Network will increase most monthly fees for its packages by at least $5 effective Jan. 17, seeking to recoup “significant increases” in programming costs, a company spokesman said. Its first increase since 2010 will boost the monthly fee for the America’s Everything package by $15 to $119, the company said. The monthly fee for other packages will increase $5, including America’s Top 120, which jumps to $49.99, while America’s Top 200 and the Welcome Pack move to $64.99 and $19.99. The monthly equipment rental fees for the Hopper and ViP 922 satellite receiver/DVRs will remain at $10, but those for other ViP products will rise to $7 from $6, a Dish spokesman said. Meanwhile, Dish is offering $1 billion in 10-year bonds through subsidiary Dish DBS Corp., to be used for general corporate purposes including spectrum deals, Dish said. Dish last sold debt in September, issuing $2 billion of bonds at 5.87 percent for 10 years, according to a Dish SEC filing.
Sirius XM interim CEO James Meyer will get a $1.3 million base salary to replace Mel Karmazin, who resigned effective Tuesday, the satellite radio operator said in an SEC filing. Karmazin was originally scheduled to leave Feb. 1. Meyer, previously president-sales and operations, signed a four-year contract in 2009 that was scheduled to expire May 1, 2013. That contract was extended to October 2013. The date when he could retire was moved to October 2013 from May 2013, Sirius said. Meyer owns 5.97 million shares of Sirius stock. There is no indication that his appointment is permanent, and an executive search committee that includes Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei and former DirecTV CEO Eddy Hartenstein is continuing to search for a permanent CEO, analysts said, but he is among the internal candidates to replace Karmazin.
TV station ownership attribution was the subject of FCC lobbying, docket 09-182 shows. Broadcasters opposed the forthcoming media ownership order considering a TV station with more than about 15 percent of ads brokered by another outlet to be held by that second company. But cable operators want the rules to attribute more arrangements beyond just those joint services agreements. Companies with the JSAs asked they not be attributed, unlike what a draft Media Bureau order would require (CD Nov 29 p5). The agency should “rethink its intention to adopt a policy of JSA attribution,” or “at most” apply “such attribution only in the top 25 television markets and, in those markets, where the brokering station is an affiliate of the top-four television networks,” Entravision said (http://xrl.us/bn679j). With “an economic gulf between major network affiliates and major market stations, on the one hand, and non-major network affiliates and smaller market stations, on the other,” the latter group need JSAs “to secure the operating efficiencies and cost-saving benefits,” said Entravision, with stations in such deals. If there’s attribution, existing deals should be grandfathered, wrote Chena Broadcasting President Michael Young (http://xrl.us/bn679q). This spring “I signed my life away to buy” KTVF Fairbanks, Alaska, which he said has a JSA “shaped with specific oversight of the FCC staff.” Mid-West Family Stations said it doesn’t want “grandfathered combinations of radio stations” to be “broken up when there is a transfer event” when closely held companies like it pass on stakes when individual owners die or leave the company. Lawyers for the company spoke with aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (http://xrl.us/bn68aa). The American Cable Association (http://xrl.us/bn68ae) and NCTA, meanwhile, continued asking the agency to deem attributable separately owned stations in a market that coordinate retransmission consent talks. That should be “whether such arrangements are formal or informal,” NCTA executives told an aide to Genachowski (http://xrl.us/bn68an). Attributing JSAs would harm stations and viewers and “undermine the Commission’s longstanding goals of competition, diversity and localism,” and isn’t supported by the record, NAB executives told an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell (http://xrl.us/bn68az).