John Eggerton

American Cable Association president Matt Polka and top ACA policy staffer Ross Lieberman were among a group representing rural broadband who met with new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai Jan 26, his second meeting with outside groups since being named chairman this week. It was a continuation of Chairman Pai's pledge to focus on closing the digital divide. Also at the meeting were Mike Romano of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, Alex Phillips and Stephen Coran from the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, Steve Berry and Rebecca Murphy Thompson of the Competitive Carriers Association, and Martha Duggan of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

According to an FCC official, "participants raised several ideas for closing the digital divide and expressed strong support for proposals he made as part of his Digital Empowerment Agenda." For his part, Chairman Pai at the meeting "pledged to continue working closely with these organizations to bring digital opportunity to all Americans."

The Republican sponsor of a bill to put conditions on municipal broadband buildouts in Virginia has recrafted the bill after Gov Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) said he would veto it, according to a group opposing the bill. The bill allows for municipal buildouts but only targeting unserved areas, which it defines as an average speed of less than 10 Mbps download speed, 1 Mbps upload. It also requires an independent study to identify unserved areas before any buildouts and puts conditions on overbuilding of any existing service at any speed. The municipality must also provide access to rights of way on a first-come, first-serve basis to commercial providers and can't cross-subsidize its broadband with regulated utility money.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which backs municipal broadband buildouts, says the bill still does nothing to help connect rural Virginia. It says that while the bill allows for buildouts, it is a way for "big cable companies" to limit broadband competition in Virginia.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai had his first official meeting with outside parties as chairman with a diverse group of stakeholders in closing that digital divide, apparently. The meeting was held with Kim Keenan of the Multicultural Media, Telecom, and Internet Council, Rosa Mendoza of the Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership, Carlos Gutierrez of the LGBT Technology Partnership, and Debra Berlyn of the Project to Get Older Adults OnLine (GOAL).

The chairman was said to have solicited ideas for getting broadband to all Americans. He also asked for input on proposals in his Digital Empowerment Agenda. Among other things, Chairman Pai wants Congress to create Gigabit Opportunity Zones to "provide financial incentives for internet service providers to deploy gigabit broadband services in low-income neighborhoods, incentivize local governments to make it easy for ISPs to deploy these networks, and offer tax incentives for startups of all kinds in order to take advantage of these networks and create jobs in these areas."

Democratic Sens are asking AT&T and Time Warner to prove that their proposed merger is in the public interest, given that they plan to structure the deal so that it does not need Federal Communications Commission review. While the Justice Department looks at deals for antitrust issues, the FCC goes beyond that to also look at the public interest benefits, or negative impacts, of media mergers.

Sen Al Franken (D-MN), a member of the Antitrust Subcommittee, led a baker's dozen of Democrats in a letter to the companies saying that the public deserves to know what is in the deal for them, FCC review or no. "To achieve greater transparency for regulators, lawmakers, and American consumers, we ask that you provide us with a public interest statement detailing how you plan to ensure that the transaction benefits consumers, promotes competition, remedies all potential harms, and further serves the public interest through the broader policy goals of the Communications Act,” the Sens said. They say they would like the statement by Feb 17.

New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is a long and strong opponent of former Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to revamp the set-top box marketplace to boost online video competition and would be unlikely to exhume that push, but the Republican leadership of the House Commerce Committee want him to put a nail in the coffin.

In a letter to Chairman Pai, House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), Communications Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Commerce Committee Vice Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), and every Republican member of the Communications Subcommittee asked him to officially close the docket on the proceeding. "The regulatory overhang of the set-top box regulation has cast a shadow over investment and innovation in traditional video programming delivery," they said. "[W]e urge you to close the proceeding and permit the industry to innovate and serve consumers free from the restrictions of a government-chosen platform." They said it would generally be a good idea to close all inactive dockets and that in this particular case it should be closed as an "unnecessary regulatory threat to content creation and distribution industries" and to signal to video program distributors "that they can bring technological advances to set-top boxes and video delivery without fear that the Commission overturn them by regulation."

The American Cable Association has filed an opposition to broadcasters' request that the Federal Communications Commission reconsider its decision in the Quadrennial ownership rule review to retain local ownership limits on broadcast stations, saying broadcasters are rehashing arguments that the agency has already rejected. The deadline for filing was Jan 24. After the FCC, in a politically divided vote, decided to leave most media ownership rules intact, the National Association of Broadcasters, Nexstar and Connoisseur Media petitioned the FCC to reconsider that decision. The NAB initially challenged the decision in court, but after Donald Trump won the presidency and a Republican FCC was taking over, it decided to shift the challenge to the FCC (it could not simultaneously pursue a court challenge). The ACA suggested that shift or not, broadcasters don't have a case.

Looking to trump President Donald Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure spending plans, Democratic lawmakers unveiled their own plan that calls for spending big bucks to expand "high speed and affordable broadband" in both unserved and "underserved" areas, including funding for both middle-mile (backbone) and last-mile wired and wireless deployment. The Democratic plan calls for a $20 billion investment, which the Democrats say will result in 260,000 new jobs.

Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL) was a key co-sponsor of the spending plan. "To close the rural-urban divide, and to push toward ubiquitous access to high-speed broadband, we will invest $20 billion to fund the build out of high-speed broadband in unserved and underserved areas. This funding will be available to projects currently eligible under programs at both the Department of Commerce and the US Department of Agriculture. We also propose expanding the programs to enable grant recipients to use grant funds to deploy various types of infrastructure capable of offering, middle-mile, last-mile wired and wireless broadband access, and adding evaluation criteria in the awards process to ensure that the funding goes to the most effective and efficient uses. Finally, we propose ensuring additional funding is available to help upgrade our nation’s aging 9-1-1 system and other critical infrastructure technology."

The Copyright Alliance, which represents content creators, has asked President Donald Trump to stand up for copyright protections here and abroad, pointing out he has a personal interest in that protection.

In a letter to the President, the group pointed to Trump's own IP. "Throughout the long history of our country, few, if any, Presidents have had a more sizable and diverse copyright portfolio than you," they said. "[The Apprentice, for example]. Your experiences as a businessman have afforded you insights into the value and importance of copyright and how copyright protections help drive the US economy and create millions of well-paying jobs and small businesses." It said that it was important the copyright owners get free market value for their work, free of undue government regulations, and in the limited cases where the government does deem it necessary to set royalties, that fair market value still applies.

Republican Federal Trade Commission member Maureen Ohlhausen, who is reportedly President Donald Trump's choice as interim FTC chair, said she has not met with the President but says the FTC should focus its energies on real harms, rather than speculative harms. She also says she has taken a page out of Trump's Art of the Deal for how to proceed. She was speaking at the State of the Net annual conference, though she did not confirm her status as acting chair. Current FTC chair Edith Ramirez is leaving Feb 10, which will leave only two commissioners, Ohlausen and Democrat Terrell McSweeny. Ohlhausen said that part of focusing on real harms is through case selection, as well as not sending the wrong signals to the market about companies that did not get it "quite right" while trying to innovate. If you make a privacy promise, keep it, and take "reasonable steps" to protect privacy, she said.

Federal Communications Commission general counsel Howard Symons is exited the FCC Jan 20 after three years, most of it as vice chair of the incentive auction task force. Symons was named general counsel back in July after general counsel John Sallet left to join the Justice Department as deputy general counsel for litigation in the antitrust division. The general counsel is the top legal advisor to the commission. Its attorneys represent the FCC before appeals courts, recommend decisions in adjudications, and helps provide the legal underpinnings for decisions like reclassifying ISPs under Title II. Before joining the FCC, Symons chaired the communications practice at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo and was senior counsel to the house Telecommunication (now Communications) Subcommittee. The exit comes as the spectrum auction Symons helped shepherd met its benchmarks for closing after the current stage of the forward auction.