May 2014

Verizon filed a response to opposition filed for our copper retirement in Ocean View (VA) and Belle Harbor (NY). As of April 2014, fewer than forty of Verizon’s customers in Ocean View and Belle Harbor remained on copper facilities.

Customers in these two wire centers -- which cover more than 15,000 homes -- have already overwhelmingly made the decision to move to either Verizon’s fiber-based services or to competitors. Completing the migration to Verizon’s more advanced and reliable fiber facilities, and retiring the legacy copper loops and the switches in these wire centers, is not just a logical and efficient step, but it is also an incremental one.

There has been no valid objection to the copper retirement filed by customers living or working in these areas or by providers serving them, and no request for an extension of time made. The claims raised by the very few commenters (none of which is specific to these two wire centers) have no merit under the circumstances here. Most of the customers remaining on copper-based services in these two wire centers today are purchasing plain old telephone service, or POTS.

Following copper retirement, they will continue to receive the same traditional POTS service over fiber on the same terms and conditions and at the same or better price as they received over copper. There is no change in the underlying features and functionalities in their service: voice mail, collect calling, and other features will continue to work just as they did over copper; customers will continue to be able to use fax machines, medical monitoring devices, and home alarms; and accessibility services -- such as relay services used by customers who are deaf or hard of hearing -- also will continue to work as before. There will be no change to customers’ ability to call 911: public safety answering points will receive the same E911 information as before.

Pandora and Sirius XM already pay far more in copyright royalties than AM/FM stations, but that’s not stopping the music industry from demanding that Congress force the digital radio services to pay even more.

SoundExchange, a royalty collection service, announced a heart-tugging campaign called “Project 72.” The campaign is to back the “RESPECT Act,” a law proposed by Reps George Holding (R-NC) and John Conyers (D-MI) that would require digital radio services to pay performance royalties for pre-1972 recordings.

As it stands, Sirius and Pandora don’t pay to perform these early recordings since they are not covered by federal copyright law. The industry claims the issue is one of fairness, arguing that the earlier recordings deserve the same protection as the later ones. Sounds fair, right? After all, what sort of philistine wouldn’t pay those dear old musicians for their oldies?

Alas, it’s not that simple. As I’ve explained before, the vagaries of copyright law mean that Pandora doesn’t pay for pre-1972 recordings -- but neither does any other radio service. What’s more, the digital services are paying large sums to play post-’72 performance rights, while AM/FM stations (which are much richer) pay nothing at all. And, in any case, everyone must pay the songwriters and publishers for the pre-1972 works.

All the RESPECT Act would do is exacerbate these irrational distinctions between traditional and digital radio services (and possibly put Pandora and Sirius XM out of business altogether), while failing to solve the music industry’s deeper problem, which is the permanent decline of CD sales.

Public Knowledge’s Jodie Griffin said, “Public Knowledge supports protecting pre-1972 sound recordings under federal copyright law, but this bill fails to give pre-1972 recordings actual copyright protection and fails to solve the uncertainty created by a patchwork of state laws. Pre-1972 sound recordings should be addressed in a comprehensive approach that considers the many current issues in music licensing. Pre-1972 sound recordings should be given actual copyright protection that lasts for the lifetime of the author. That protections should be balanced by limitations like robust statutory licensing, mechanisms to help users locate authors, and reasonable damages. Additionally, users that are currently relying on limitations in state laws today should be given notice and time to adjust to the new regime. Finally, the windfall that results from new licensing requirements should go the actual artist, so the statutory splits that often currently give half of the collected royalty payments to record labels should be adjusted to increase artists' share of the royalties.”

New research released by Connect Minnesota shows that statewide, 74.93% of Minnesota households have access to fixed broadband at a minimum of 10 Mbps download/6 Mbps upload. However, the data show only 57.07% in rural areas have access at that speed. The data show availability increases since last October in all speed tiers reported by Connect Minnesota as part of the State Broadband Initiative program.

• 74.93% of Minnesota households can access fixed broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps download/6 Mbps upload -- the minimum speed threshold for Minnesota’s goal of ubiquitous broadband availability; when mobile broadband is included, 82.78% of households have access at the state’s speed goal* (excludes satellite). However, only 57.07% of rural households can access these broadband speeds (62.70% including mobile), illustrating the gap in Minnesota rural broadband availability.
• 89.27% of Minnesota households can access broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload (excludes mobile and satellite services); when including mobile, the percentage increases to 99.51% availability at this speed tier. However, only 75.99% of rural households can access these broadband speeds (excluding mobile and satellite services), indicating a disparity between the urban and rural broadband landscape in the state; when including mobile, rural availability jumps to 98.85%.
• 96.66% of Minnesota households can access fixed broadband at speeds of at least 3 Mbps download/768 Kbps upload – the speed threshold used by the FCC in making Connect America Fund determinations; if mobile is included, 99.89% of households have access at this speed tier (excludes satellite). Fixed broadband availability at these speeds decreases to 92.36% when examining just rural households; if mobile is included, 99.73% have access (excludes satellite).
• Broadband at higher download speeds is now available to more households; 50 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload is available to 81.36% and 100 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload is available to 79.78% of Minnesota households (excludes mobile and satellite services).

When the Federal Communications Commission voted to restrict television broadcasters’ use of joint sales agreements (JSAs), we warned that this decision would lead to “less ownership diversity” and “more television stations going out of business.”

Unfortunately, just two months later, this is coming to pass. Now, Sinclair Television Group announced its intent to surrender to the Commission for cancellation three television station licenses in the Charleston, South Carolina and Birmingham, Alabama markets. Sinclair reported that it was unable to find a viable buyer for any of these stations. As a result, it appears that these three stations will soon be going dark.

So what has the Commission’s decision wrought? Instead of increasing the number of African-American-owned television stations, we are driving stations off the air. This will mean job losses, less service to South Carolinians and Alabamians, and less ownership diversity. We do not see how such an outcome possibly serves the public interest, and we hope that the Commission will take action immediately to correct its misguided restrictions on JSAs.