March 2015

The Federal Communications Commission proposed modifying satellite television market rules to enable satellite subscribers to gain access to in-state news and other programming that they currently are unable to receive.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking implements Section 102 of the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014 (also known as “STELAR”). The proposal would, as Congress directed, create regulatory parity between satellite and cable television providers. The Commission proposes to apply the existing cable rule to the satellite carriage context, while adding rules to address the unique nature of satellite television service, such as giving carriers an exception if the resulting carriage is “not technically and economically feasible.” Market modification allows ‎the Commission, on request from a broadcaster or cable operator, to add or delete communities from a particular commercial TV broadcast station’s local television market to better reflect market realities.

The STELAR requires the Commission to issue final rules for satellite television market modification on or before September 4, 2015.

At a House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing, members heard another round of testimony from the dueling duo of network neutrality: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. It was the fourth hearing in seven days during which Republicans have put the FCC’s order to reclassify Internet service as a utility under intense questioning.

The FCC is asking Congress for a 21 percent increase in its budget to account for a move of its headquarters, for consolidation of its field offices, and to improve its information technology infrastructure. But Republicans aren’t convinced an increase is in order, given the amount of time the FCC devoted to an order that they don’t like instead of spending its budgeted resources on Congressionally-mandated priorities. “We have kept your funding low for a few years in hopes that limited funding would push you towards prioritizing the most important work of the agency,” said Subcommittee Chairman Ander Crenshaw (R-FL). Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) asked about how the FCC will deal with cost of litigation “when the big dogs sue” over the net neutrality order. “We maintain a litigation staff at the agency because no matter what we decide and whatever issue people turn around as they have a right to, and ask the court to review it,” said Chairman Wheeler. “The litigation staff is in place and that litigation staff would be used to handle it.” Commissioner Pai suggested there would be other costs to the net neutrality order besides litigation. “There are subsequent rule makings, the FCC order tees up a number of new regulations that will need to be adopted, the adjudication of complaints that might be filed at the commission, as well as any advisory opinions the enforcement is called upon to issue,” he said.

[Commentary] The collateral damage is beginning to pile up from the Federal Communications Commission’s February decision to trigger Title II telephone utility regulation of the Internet.

Just as the FCC was not the final legal authority over Title II regulation of the monopoly telephone system, the FCC is not the final authority over what portions of the Internet ultimately will be captured by Title II regulations of “telecommunications.” That’s because any trial lawyer can sue to require that the FCC’s new re-definitions, like “telecommunications” to capture ISPs’ broadband service, be equally applied under the law to functionally similar services. The courts ultimately will decide much of this, creating potential litigation uncertainty for most every player in the Internet ecosystem.

If broadband is now telecommunications, IP addresses are now the legal equivalent of a phone number, and the Internet itself is now the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) per the FCC’s Internet Order, then are any apps that involve telecommunications of any kind, such as instant messaging, VoIP, or video communications etc., Title II telecommunications as well? Are cloud service telecommunications analogous to broadband telecommunications? Are over the top video streaming providers like Netflix, Google-YouTube, Amazon, etc. offering the functional equivalent of a Title II regulated telecommunications service?

Cleland is President of Precursor LLC, a research consultancy for Fortune 500 companies]

[Commentary] Fifty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, election laws are still in the news. Much of the recent attention has gone to court battles over voter ID laws. But other barriers to voting remain. Although some states allow voters to register right up to Election Day, others require registration as much as one month beforehand.

In the typical state in 2012, registration was closed for three weeks before the election. Some scholars argue that requiring early registration hurts voter mobilization in the final days of the campaign, when interest in the election is most intense. But skeptics counter that most of the people who fail to register in time have little real interest in voting. Our new research shows that there is a lot of last-minute interest. We estimate that keeping registration open through Election Day in 2012 would have allowed an additional 3 million to 4 million Americans to register and vote.

[Alex Street is an assistant professor of political science at Carroll College]