A lawyer for Fletcher, Heald spelled out some of the unwritten policies the FCC Media Bureau’s Video Division applies to its evaluation of shared services and joint services agreements among broadcasters. The policies are something of a moving target, because they're not codified and could change without notice, Steve Lovelady wrote on the law firm’s blog (http://xrl.us/bmzh7y). “There’s no guarantee that the staff won’t perceive in your particular deal some reason to change things up along the way without telling anybody (including you) in advance.” In the past, staff analyses of such deals have hit on three major elements of a station’s operation, he said: programming, financing and personnel. Because FCC rules attribute a cognizable interest to any party that supplies more than 15 percent of the total weekly programming to a station, that 15 percent threshold, or 25 hours per week in a 24/7 station, is an important limit, he said. In the past, FCC “staff has insisted that each station licensee must retain control over the entertainment programming aired on its station,” Lovelady said. Staff also appears to have concerns with agreements where the service providing entity owns or controls more than 80 percent of the asset value of the station receiving services, he said. Staff has indicated that a recipient of services must keep at least two full-time employees on its payroll, he said. One of them must be a manager with “full editorial discretion,” he said. “Parties looking to enter into SSA/JSA arrangements should exercise caution,” he said. “The staff’s ad hoc approach ... usually implemented through informal conversations, has not resulted in a substantial body of written precedent."
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) has removed a proposal from his executive budget that would have protected VoIP providers from state regulation. The absence of law would lead to regulatory uncertainty, service providers said. Unions and consumer groups had opposed the VoIP proposal.
The FCC delayed the deadline two weeks to April 17 for replies on the quadrennial media ownership rulemaking notice, giving nonprofits that oppose industry mergers and consolidation about half the extension they sought last week (March 26 p16). “While an extension is warranted here, we find that the request for an additional 30 days in which to file reply comments is unnecessarily long,” said an order Monday signed by Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake for docket 09-182.
That video streamed to Xbox 360s through Comcast’s soon-to-launch Xfinity VOD app won’t count toward its broadband subscribers’ data usage raise net neutrality concerns, Public Knowledge said. Comcast said in FAQ about the forthcoming service that the video is streamed to the Xbox over its private IP network, not the public Internet, and therefore isn’t subject to bandwidth caps (http://xrl.us/bmzh6n). “This type of arrangement is exactly the type of situation the Federal Communication Commission’s rules on the Open Internet were designed to prevent,” Public Knowledge CEO Gigi Sohn said. “This is nothing less than a wake-up call to the Commission to show it is serious about protecting the Open Internet,” she said. “It also shows, once again, that the Commission should take the first steps toward understanding data caps.” Comcast said its policies for the Xbox 360 fully comply with the commission’s open Internet rules and the company’s own commitments to an open Internet. “Any XfinityTV service that travels over the public internet, including XfinityTV.com and our Xfinity TV app on mobile devices, counts toward our data usage threshold,” a spokeswoman said. On the other hand, the Xbox 360 service is delivered in a way that’s similar to typical VOD delivery, she said. “Your Xbox essentially acts as an additional cable box for your existing cable services ... as a result, our data caps do not apply.” Comcast may be right that the practice doesn’t violate FCC rules, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said. “Unfortunately, such anti-competitive tricks may be allowed by loopholes in the FCC’s Open Internet rules, proving once again that the FCC failed to deliver on the promise of real Net Neutrality.”
The California Public Utilities Commission wants to improve public access to all CPUC documents, said an agency proposal Monday. As part of the proposed process to streamline access to public records, the CPUC will treat all documents as public information unless a company can show why they should be subject to a disclosure exemption. The commission will automatically disclose to the public and post on its website records of completed safety-related investigations upon the conclusion of the investigation, as opposed to requiring a vote of the commissioners to make such documents public. The agency will create a comprehensive online index that describes the records maintained by the agency and explains whether, and how, they may be located. An online safety portal to house safety-related records and information will also be created. The portal will describe the CPUC’s safety jurisdiction and inspection, investigation, and enforcement activities; and provide access to safety related records.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are indisputably on the rise in the U.S., up as much as 45 percent each year, fueled by “low-cost, freely distributed DDoS attack technologies,” Neustar said in a report released Monday. But despite the increase, many companies aren’t protecting their networks and have continuing misconceptions about the nature of the problem, the Internet technology vendor said (http://xrl.us/bmziai). “Tools such as the low orbit ion cannon (LOIC), a favorite piece of attack software, let anyone with a computer unleash a deadly barrage,” the report said. “For as low as $67 a day you can even rent a botnet.” One misconception is that attacks are mostly political, the result of so-called “hacktivism,” the report said. “While such attacks grab headlines -- which is exactly their purpose -- Neustar finds the bulk of attacks still stem from other sources, namely extortionists, cut-throat competitors and others who strike for profit. Industry experts agree that many of these attacks go unreported.” Companies are loath to go public about attacks, Neustar said. “Customers flee, sales drop and stock prices follow suit.” About 10 percent of attacks target the domain name system (DNS) level, though many organizations lack adequate DNS protection, Neustar said. “If your DNS servers are located on-premise, sharing a network connection with all your other devices and servers, a DDoS attack translates to a complete outage,” the report said. “If you're on the shared DNS platform of a registrar or hosting company, your risk is just as large. To protect their other customers these vendors will black hole you, turning off service until they decide the danger is over.” While some attacks have grown more sophisticated, “brute force network-level attacks haven’t gone away,” Neustar said. “In fact, attackers are increasingly using a blend of tactics, mixing both network and application strikes. They seek blind spots in the security architecture, probing relentlessly to try and take you offline.” Where the attacks come from can be hard to pin down, with China, Ukraine, India and the U.S. heading most lists, the report said. “Thanks to a rise in spoofed IP addresses -- those with IP packets whose sources have been forged -- you can’t always be sure where the trouble starts. Without advanced IP technologies, it can be difficult to know an attacker’s actual location. In truth, tracing an attack’s origin doesn’t always contribute substantially to mitigation.”
It’s unfortunate AT&T blamed T-Mobile’s call center layoffs on the government’s blocking of the first company’s purchase of the second (CD March 26 p7), Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said late Friday. T-Mobile started losing customers and distributors when the takeover attempt started, she said. The company’s ads and marketing were “frozen” as the deal approval effort dragged on, and customers left, she said. “Now they face getting those customers back and investing in their network.” Sohn claimed that had AT&T closed the deal, perhaps ten times as many jobs would have been lost as the 1,900 job cuts disclosed last week by T-Mobile, citing AT&T’s history of layoffs following transactions.
ByLight was awarded a General Services Administration contract under the Custom SATCOM Solutions - Small Business (CS2-SB) program. The $900 million, five-year award “provides satellite engineering and integration services, and customized communications solutions to U.S. government agencies,” the commercial satellite firm said. CS2-SB can be used by any federal agency and it includes “global end-to-end solutions with any combination of fixed satellite service,” mobile satellite service and/or service-enabling components such as terminals, teleport and terrestrial backhaul.
Across Texas, nearly half of adults use cellphone, laptop, tablet or home wireless broadband, according to a survey by Connected Nation. Florida and Texas have the highest mobile broadband usage among the 10 states surveyed by the group, it said. Iowa has the lowest usage (32 percent) among the 10. About 11 percent of adults in Texas, or 2.1 million, subscribe to mobile broadband instead of home broadband service, the survey said. That includes about 932,000 Hispanic, 294,000 African American, and 834,000 low-income Texans. Meanwhile, 53 percent of Texans who access broadband via their cellphones are “very satisfied” with their current service, with another 42 percent reporting they are “somewhat satisfied.” The other states surveyed are Alaska, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee. Altogether, Connected Nation surveyed 27,086 residents across these 10 states in 2011.
No one opposed a request by News Corp. for an FCC waiver allowing Fox’s Spanish-language network to represent affiliates in their ad deals. Cocola Broadcasting, in the latest comment in docket 12-31 on the request for MundoFox, backed the waiver, as did earlier filings (CD March 9 p17). “Cocola needs a strong partner to help make this new venture a success which is why we need the FCC to grant Fox’s request for a waiver,” said the charter affiliate of the network that’s slated to start in 2012 (http://xrl.us/bmzhq9). “Spot advertising is the lifeblood of a local television station and we need Fox’s expertise to help us compete for advertising dollars in the marketplace."