House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., offered a bill Thursday to modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The bill proposed new requirements for government monitoring of wire and electronic communications, uniform rules for providing notice when electronic communications are monitored, and creation of new and modified reporting requirements for federal agencies. A Nadler spokesman said the bill is similar to the Senate Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments of 2011 (S-1011) but does not include any provisions for geolocation information.
Project Concord asked the FCC to make Comcast pay the costs the online video distributor incurred during a lengthy arbitration over how it can license NBCUniversal movie and TV programming (CD July 13 p11). An arbitrator decided all parties acted ethically during the proceedings. But Project Concord’s attorneys, who include former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, wrote that the positions taken by NBCUniversal during the arbitration were “contrary to the plain language and intent of the [Comcast-NBCU] Merger Order, and reveals that NBCU believes is cannot prevail on the merits, but rather by outspending, outlasting and attempting to intimidate and discriminate against a competitor in the OVD market."
AT&T Missouri claimed victory after the Missouri Public Service Commission (CD Aug 2 p8) and the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (CD July 30 p5) ruled that Halo Wireless violated its interconnection agreements with AT&T in both states. “Commissions in Missouri and Wisconsin both held that HALO Wireless was in violation of agreements with AT&T and other carriers,” an AT&T Missouri spokesman said Thursday. “We are pleased with the commissions’ decisions to deny the complaints of HALO Wireless and grant the counterclaim AT&T put forth. We are in the process of reviewing the details of these rulings. Similar proceedings are underway in several other states as well as federal bankruptcy court, and we await the decisions in those cases.” Halo has said it’s no longer in a position to comment on the proceedings in light of its July 19 liquidation proceedings as part of Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The House voted 414-0 Thursday for H.Con. Res. 127, supporting attempts to preserve “the multistakeholder governance model under which the Internet has thrived.” The resolution urges the NTIA director and the State Department coordinator for international communications and information policy to continue to advance “the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi stakeholder model that governs the Internet today” as the nation prepares for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The resolution (http://xrl.us/bni6f8) is sponsored by Reps. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., Fred Upton, R-Mich., Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. It’s expected that nations like Russia and China will introduce International Telecommunications Regulations proposals regarding the Internet at WCIT. In a statement on the House floor Wednesday, Eshoo urged lawmakers to vote in favor of the resolution to protect the current model of open Internet. Several “nations including Russia are set on asserting intergovernmental control over the Internet -- leading to a balkanized Internet where censorship could become the new norm,” she said. “While there is no question that nations must work together to address challenges to the Internet’s growth and stability ... these issues can best be addressed under the existing model.” The U.S. must “defend the current model of Internet governance” at the WCIT conference, she said. “The very fabric of the free and open Internet is at stake.” Eshoo reminded her colleagues that the bipartisan resolution “reflects a viewpoint already shared by the Obama administration, the FCC and the U.S. delegation to the WCIT.” Earlier this week, Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation to WCIT, said the delegation plans to block any proposals to interfere with multi-stakeholder structure and openness of the Internet (CD Aug 2 p1). Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced the Senate counterpart to the House resolution in June (http://xrl.us/bni6jb). “An international regulatory regime goes against the very nature of the Internet and its purpose of sharing ideas and connecting people,” Rubio said in a statement when the resolution was introduced (http://xrl.us/bni6jq). “The United States must lead an international effort to prevent authoritarian governments and regimes from diminishing Internet freedom.” The resolution was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Earlier this week, Rubio unsuccessfully offered the resolution as an amendment to the Cybersecurity Act (S-3414). Americans’ privacy rights online and off precede the Constitution, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Thursday morning before the House vote at a TechFreedom event held at the Heritage Foundation. A person’s right to privacy “pre-exists” the Constitution, he said: “If you believe in God, a creator, it comes in a natural way, it’s yours. These are unenumerated rights.” Giving legal immunity to telecom companies is “bad for privacy” and it was a “mistake” for the government to do so in the PATRIOT Act, Paul said. “I'm not for suing companies, but I'm not for telling companies they can do whatever they want to their consumers and they can run over their consumers by abdicating their contracts,” he said. “That’s what happens with immunity. If you give companies immunity, then they are not going to pay any attention to their contracts.” Lawmakers need to reverse the trend “that says the Fourth Amendment does not apply to your third-party records,” he said. “Should you have Fourth Amendment protections for your own protection? And I think you should. ... The bottom line is I don’t want people trolling though my records.” Paul said the Internet should be regulated by the market, not the government and particularly not the U.N. Paul’s concerned that countries like Russia and China are proposing ideas at the WCIT, scheduled to meet in Dubai in December, that could permit them to “shut down” online content and dissent, he said. “I really don’t want Russia and China having much of a say in what happens with regulating the Internet.”
AT&T believes a report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on spectrum suffered from the lack of industry involvement, Vice President Joan Marsh said on the company’s policy blog Thursday. “The PCAST membership did not include a single wireless carrier, a single equipment manufacturer or a single chipset maker, and the Report’s recommendations surely would have been strengthened by perspectives from the companies that are currently investing billions to develop and deploy advanced wireless networks and technologies,” she said (http://xrl.us/bni6jj). The report also “readily acknowledges the benefits that have flowed from the current exclusive licensing regime, yet gives little credit to the massive private investments that those licenses permitted -- investments that are the foundation of U.S. wireless leadership today,” she said. “Licensed spectrum offers a critical cornerstone of certainty on which billions of dollars of capex have been and will continue to be committed. The report’s preferred model -- shared, secondary, unlicensed access over a small cell network -- leaves unanswered significant questions about how that model will attract capital.” The report also puts unjustified faith in sensing technologies, before they have been proven to work, Marsh said. “In fact, the FCC has refused to rely on sensing technologies for access to TV white spaces even though that radio environment -- with its fixed high power services -- is ideal for that approach,” she said. “And while the Report cites developments in the white spaces as evidence that the technology is maturing, consumer products in that space have been long promised with limited actual delivery.” The report has been controversial since it was released last month (CD July 23 p1).
Time Warner Cable doesn’t have any major programming contracts expiring in the next year or two, CEO Glenn Britt said during the company’s Q2 earnings teleconference Thursday. “We of course have not made a practice of disclosing what deals have come up,” he said. “But I think it’s safe to say we have done a lot of long-term renewals and don’t have a lot of big stuff coming up in the next year two.” Britt said he sees the potential for a large revenue opportunity around home health monitoring. “There’s a lot going on in healthcare, and I don’t think we've begun to fully understand the implications of the healthcare act, and how it’s going to change behavior,” he said. “I think it’s going to lead to a lot of opportunities for monitoring health conditions” and reporting that information back to doctors and hospitals, he said. Those things “are just a glimmer now” but over time they could be a bigger opportunity to Time Warner Cable’s new home monitoring business than the home security features it’s deploying now, he said. The company lost 169,000 residential video subscribers during the quarter, leaving it with about 12.5 million. It added 59,000 broadband subscribers during the quarter to end with 10.7 million and 45,000 phone customers for a total of 4.95 million. The pay-TV business is mature, but there’s no deying it’s a great business, Britt said. Despite recent subscriber losses, nearly 90 percent of U.S. households buy pay-TV service, he said. “There are very few products that that many homes buy that’s discretionary,” he said. “The basic product we're selling … is really enormously successful.” Q2 sales increased 9.3 percent to $5.4 billion. Profit increased 7.6 percent to $452 million. The results largely beat analyst expectations in a quarter that’s typically the weakest in the pay-TV sector, Phoenix Partners Group analyst Robert Routh wrote investors.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Thursday on four separate applications by AT&T to buy spectrum licenses. The bureau set up a pleading cycle on the sale of 13 Cellular Market Area licenses in the lower 700 MHz B-block in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas from David Miller to AT&T (http://xrl.us/bni6hs). Petitions to deny are due Aug. 16, oppositions Aug. 27 and replies Sept. 4. All the deals have the same pleading cycle (http://wireless.fcc.gov). The bureau also sought comment on the proposed sale of two lower 700 MHz C block licenses from ComSouth to AT&T, covering CMAs in Georgia; the sale of a single 700 MHz C-block license in Colorado from Farmers Telephone to AT&T; and the sale of a single 700 MHz B-block license in Pennsylvania, from McBride Spectrum Partners to AT&T.
T-Mobile’s proposed spectrum swap with Verizon Wireless “is the best way to serve the public interest and benefit consumers,” T-Mobile Senior Vice President Tom Sugrue said on the company’s blog. “We will obtain more spectrum in key markets to compete more effectively with Verizon and other carriers, and that competition in turn will help keep a check on pricing and promote innovation,” he said (http://xrl.us/bni5jx). “T-Mobile continues to believe the best way to alleviate the spectrum crisis would be to reallocate and auction those substantial blocks of spectrum held, but inefficiently used, by broadcasters, federal users, and others. When essential inputs are plentiful, companies can get down to the business of competing on the things that really matter to consumers, instead of competing for the scarce resources needed to provide services. In this intensively competitive environment, however, T-Mobile does not have the luxury of waiting for more commercial broadband spectrum to be brought to market or seeing how the regulatory process will play out. That is why we got together with Verizon and figured out a way to move the ball forward.” Sugrue noted that even the parties that have challenged the swap at the FCC acknowledge the public interest benefits. “Getting more spectrum into the hands of T-Mobile will be good for consumers in the long run, especially as we ramp back up in the marketplace to compete on an LTE platform,” he said. “In these days of scarce spectrum alternatives, T-Mobile has to fight for every megahertz it can get. The sooner these transactions are approved the better for all."
Public Safety Spectrum Trust Chairman Harlin McEwen said Tuesday night’s order on 700 MHz public safety waivers appears to move the FCC in the right direction (CD Bulletin July 31). “The commission’s order is helpful in resolving a number of pending questions from the waiver recipients and waiver applicants,” he said Wednesday. “It appears the commission has attempted to more closely align the previous FCC orders relative to a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network with the Public Safety Spectrum Act. The commission has revised some of their previous actions to acknowledge the new law and to clarify the commission’s position. While it terminates the previous waivers and waiver applications it also provides a path forward for those waiver entities who, prior to passage of the Spectrum Act, had progressed significantly in the implementation of their systems and that can demonstrate they will not be an impediment to the actions of the FirstNet to implement a nationwide network.” The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials “supports the Commission’s order addressing limited deployment of public safety broadband networks as being generally consistent with APCO’s initial comments in this proceeding,” President Gregory Riddle said in a written statement.
Bright House CEO Steve Miron met separately with commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai and their aides, and an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to discuss retransmission consent, the basic-tier encryption proceeding and an NCTA petition to let cable operators buy CLECs, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bni2gz). On basic-tier encryption, Miron said it’s unfair to let DBS operators encrypt all their service tiers while requiring cable operators to deliver the basic tier unencrypted, the notice said.