House Republicans expect to bring the Innovation Act (HR-3309) to the House floor Dec. 4, said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government and regulatory affairs, and another industry source, in separate emails to us. That would follow close behind a House Rules Committee meeting on the bill set for 3 p.m. Tuesday in H-313 of the Capitol. Proposed amendments to the bill are due to the Rules Committee by 4 p.m. Monday, the committee said. The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill last week 33-5 (CD Nov 22 p13). HR-3309 would curb so-called patent litigation abuse.
NARUC’s resolution adopting a white paper on cooperative federalism did not address how the FCC should handle the jurisdictional implications of the IP transition on state-federal cooperation, said Free State Foundation Legal Fellow Sarah Leggin in a paper released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jGjQY8). The resolution, adopted by NARUC Nov. 20 (CD Nov 21 p20), calls for better cooperation between federal and state regulators to “ensure the reliability of telecommunications networks and the satisfaction of consumer needs,” said Leggin. The FCC needs to declare “its exclusive jurisdiction” over the economic regulation of IP-based networks, she said. The interstate and international nature of IP-based services make jurisdictional determinations “impractical, if not impossible,” said Leggin. “Subjecting service providers to dual regulatory regimes will likely impede the continued upgrading and build-out of such advanced networks,” she said. Despite the “fundamental changes” to the technological landscape, the NARUC Presidential Task Force on Federalism and Telecommunications, which wrote the paper and resolution, suggested the FCC, states and NARUC members continue to focus on the basic goals of the Telecom Act for consumer protection, interconnection and call completion, public safety, evidence based decisionmaking, broadband adoption, access and affordability and universal service, said Leggin.
Three members of the Senate Intelligence Committee slammed a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill that recently cleared their committee. The FISA Improvements Act (S-1681), a product of Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., passed 11-4. It “would explicitly permit the government to engage in dragnet collection as long as there were rules about when officials could look at these phone records,” wrote Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., in a joint New York Times op-ed Tuesday (http://nyti.ms/1b2KEwt). “It would also give intelligence agencies wide latitude to conduct warrantless searches for Americans’ phone calls and emails.” They all voted against Feinstein’s proposal during the Oct. 31 committee vote. Feinstein recently attached the FISA Improvements Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (CD Nov 25 p10), and these senators also proposed their own NDAA amendments on surveillance law. Wyden, Udall and Heinrich touted their Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act, S-1551, which they say would end bulk collection of phone metadata, create a constitutional advocate for the FISA court and amend FISA Section 702, among other changes. That bill now has 13 co-sponsors, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who introduced a similar proposal called the USA Freedom Act a month after they did. Leahy’s bill (S-1599) has 18 co-sponsors, including all three of these Senate Intelligence members. “We will push to hold a comprehensive reform debate on the Senate floor,” the three said in the op-ed.
Tennessee lawmakers pushed back against the possibility of airline passengers chatting on their cellphones while in the air. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., threatened to drop a bill stopping the FCC from authorizing the change. The FCC is expected to vote on an NPRM on the topic at its December meeting and has defended the move as a technical one (CD Nov 25 p1). Airlines can still regulate whether passengers can talk on their cellphones, according to the FCC. “The FCC commissioners will earn the gratitude of the two million Americans who fly each day by deciding: text messages, yes; conversations, no,” Alexander said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1dyNBwr). He described at length passengers “trapped” and listening to “yapping,” a situation in which “the Transportation Security Administration would have to hire three times as many air marshals to deal with the fistfights.” Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., circulated a letter to colleagues Monday requesting that the Federal Aviation Administration maintain the ban on cellphone talking. “I invite you to join me in sending a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration urging that it maintain its ban on cell phone calls in flight regardless of whatever decision the FCC may make,” Cohen said. He said allowing cellphone calls will make flying less safe and create a “markedly less pleasant flying experience.”
A software upgrade to allow IPv6 support for more than 4 million Arris TG852/862 wireless gateways presently used by the Comcast broadband network was released, said Arris in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1hg9EbW). The software upgrade will allow “operators like Comcast to plan its transition [sic] and deploy IPv6 support incrementally,” it said. Leveraging customer premises equipment “that is software upgradeable and that can handle both IP versions has been critical to our success, and our extensive IPv6 rollout on CPE complements our DOCSIS 3.0 based Cable Modem Termination Systems, which Arris also develops and supplies to Comcast,” said John Brzozowski, Comcast chief IPv6 architect.
World Trade Organization efforts to seal a package of agreements lowering trade barriers and clarifying rules for acceptable trade barriers for approval at the Bali 9th ministerial summit that’s slated for Dec. 3-6 collapsed this week, said U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke, to the WTO General Council on Tuesday. The intransigence of certain, unspecified nations prevented progress on critical brackets, said Punke, according to a U.S. Trade Representative news release (http://1.usa.gov/1icrP3E). “Indeed, we agree with the assessment of the Director General that the Geneva process has run its course. Further work here, even if there were time, would run the risk of yet more hostage-taking,” said Punke. “Nor should this body contemplate rewarding the intransigent few with new concessions. We took the Director General seriously when he said that we've been in the end game -- and we left our best offer on the table.” Among other areas of unresolved issues, the Information Technology Agreement expansion negotiations broke down on Thursday.
Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks customers who subscribe to Showtime can now watch the network live and on demand for free through their computers or mobile devices, said TWC and Showtime in a news release Tuesday (http://on.mktw.net/1dyA5sR). The subscribers can watch the East and West Coast feeds of Showtime through Showtime’s authentication service, Showtime Anytime, on any computer, iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets or Kindle Fire anywhere in the U.S., said the companies. TWC and Bright House subscribers will also be able to watch current and past seasons of Showtime original series on demand through the app in addition to movies, sports, documentaries and specials, said the companies.
Communications Daily won’t be published Thursday, Nov. 28, because of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Our next issue will be dated Friday, Nov. 29.
The SES-8 satellite launch is delayed to Thursday. “SpaceX observed unexpected readings with the first stage liquid oxygen system and is taking corrective action,” SES said in a press release (http://bit.ly/Ijvfll). The satellite was scheduled for launch by SpaceX Monday on the Falcon 9 rocket, it said.
The European Commission will slam U.S. mass surveillance activities but give the Obama administration time to address its concerns about the Safe Harbor data transfer agreement, the Financial Times reported Tuesday (http://on.ft.com/IkThwi). It made public excerpts from a leaked version of a report due out Wednesday that it said showed internal EC divisions over how strongly worded the document should be, but that made clear that U.S. companies will have trouble doing business in the EU unless the U.S. stops spying. The report outlines several policy options for Safe Harbor: maintain the status quo; strengthen the system and launch a review of how it’s working; or suspend or revoke it, the FT said. “Given the weaknesses identified, the current implementation of Safe Harbor cannot be maintained,” the EC excerpt said. “As a matter of urgency, the Commission will engage with the US authorities to discuss the shortcomings identified,” it said. “Remedies should be identified by summer 2014 and implemented as soon as possible,” with a broader review of Safe Harbor to follow, it said. Among other things, the EC also wants a provision that would stop U.S. law enforcement agencies from accessing any data collected by U.S. tech companies unless they go through “formal channels,” the FT blog said. There’s also a demand that EU citizens be protected against spying in the same way Americans are, it said.