John Eggerton

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing a federal data privacy law -- and displayed the same political divide that appeared in a House hearing earlier in the week. Republicans and industry witnesses warned against a "patchwork" of potentially conflicting state privacy regimes, perhaps most notably the California privacy law that takes effect in 2020. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and various witnesses from the telecommunications and computer industries talked throughout about needing strong federal regulation, addressing concern that stronger state regulations

The House Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing on privacy showcased both the bipartisan call for federal legislation and the reason a bipartisan bill will be no slam dunk. Republican representatives talked about privacy, but also about the need to protect small businesses, the targeted-ad based internet economy, and talked up the wisdom of preempting state attempts to regulate privacy that veer into the feds lane.

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) agreed with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that the FCC's latest Sec. 706 broadband deployment report shows "significant progress" in closing the digital divide. "This report shows that the FCC’s efforts to reduce regulatory burdens are helping more Americans gain access to broadband and bringing us closer to finally closing the digital divide,” Ranking Member Walden said.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association has proposed a three-step method for improving the broadband availability data the Federal Communications Commission uses to direct Universal Service Fund subsidy money:

1. Polygon shapefiles, instead of proposed address-based reporting, could be achieved  as early as 2020.
2. FCC to use crowdsourcing to backstop the reported data
3. Focus on pinpointing unserved areas, which the shapefiles will help do. 

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR), Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH), and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Ranking Member Cath McMorris Rogers (R-WA) wrote to Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) to engage on three network neutrality bills the Republican Reps have offered up, describing them as a "menu of options to get started" on a "bipartisan solution." 

The recently passed 2019 Appropriations bill (the bill that avoided a second government shutdown) was a massive tome that included directing the Federal Communications Commission to provide a "full analysis" of its treatment of market modification petitions. Those are petitions by broadcasters or satellite operators or county officials to modify a market so that satellite viewers in a Nielsen market that crosses state lines can get local news and sports from TV stations from another Nielsen market in their own state instead.

The major takeway from the House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger was that regulators are having to reconcile wildly divergent views of the impact of the deal. According to the various witnesses at the hearing on the deal:

The American Cable Association said a number of the Federal Communications Commission legacy regulations "frustrate the public interest by imposing anti-competitive burdens on smaller operators." That came in comments to the FCC on its latest biennial review of telecom regulations, which it is charged with reviewing and modifying or jettison ones that are not, or no longer, in the public interest. ACA is particularly focused on the regulations on implementing the Universal Service Fund.

Republicans signaled that they are offering up at least three versions of legislation that would reimpose network neutrality rules, but without doing so under Title II common carrier regulations they argue are a relic of the monopoly phone days. Democrats weren't jumping to embrace the bills while activist groups said those legislative efforts were, at best, woefully lacking and at worst fake efforts promoted by broadband industry lobbyist "shills." The bills are the Open Internet Act of 2019, introduced by Rep.

The Senate Commerce Committee drilled down on the 5G rollout in a hearing titled "Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the United States." It was the first hearing of the committee in the 116th Congress, and the shadow of Chinese tech in US telecom loomed large over the proceedings.