July 2015

AGENDA

FCC CONFIRMS AUG 6 MEETING AGENDA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public notice]
The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Thursday, August 6, 2015. The FCC will consider
A Report and Order, Order on Reconsideration, and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will advance longstanding competition and consumer protection policies on a technologically-neutral basis, and further the technology transitions underway in our Nation’s fixed communications networks that offer the prospect of innovative and improved services to consumers and businesses alike.
A Report and Order that will protect consumers through the transitions from legacy copper networks to modern networks by adopting rules to ensure that consumers have options, and sufficient information about those options, to maintain 911 communications at home during power outages.
An Order on Reconsideration addressing petitions for reconsideration of certain aspects of the Mobile Spectrum Holdings Report and Order. The Commission will take the next step to commencing the incentive auction in the first quarter of 2016 by considering the Procedures Public Notice, which adopts a balanced set of auction procedures that will ensure an effective, efficient, and timely auction. The Public Notice establishes and provides information on final procedures for setting the initial spectrum clearing target, qualifying to bid, and bidding in the reverse and forward auctions.
A Report and Order that adopts technical and operational rules for unlicensed services, including wireless microphone operations, in the broadcast television bands and in the post-incentive auction 600 MHz band. The rules are intended to maximize unlicensed access to spectrum while ensuring that licensed services are protected from harmful interference.
A Report and Order that adopts a plan to accommodate the long-term needs of wireless microphone users by providing new opportunities
for their use in the broadcast television bands and in several other frequency bands.
An Eleventh Notice of Inquiry on whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed and is available to all Americans, including, in particular, elementary and secondary schools and classrooms, in a reasonable and timely fashion.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-confirms-aug-6-meeting-agenda | Federal Communications Commission
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

FCC FLOODED WITH NET NEUTRALITY COMPLAINTS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David McCabe]
Roughly 2,000 complaints about Internet Service Providers have been sent to the Federal Communications Commission by consumers under the FCC’s new network neutrality rules. Consumers filed the complaints through the FCC’s website and selected a menu item labeled “Open Internet/Net Neutrality.” The complaints differ from the formal filings and comments that already appear in the FCC’s public database. The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau reportedly reviews the complaints before sending them to the Internet providers. Companies have 30 days to respond to customers and the commission. Complaints can also lead to action from the agency’s powerful Enforcement Bureau. Consumers showed a frustration with various aspects of their Internet service. Many said that their speeds were being capped, with providers sometimes slowing their speeds or charging them once they used a certain amount of data. “It always seems to cap at 30 which is completely unacceptable,” said one customer in Colorado. “It's frustrating how Comcast thinks they can get away with this. I won't even go into detail about how slow our Internet was before we upgraded. All I'll say is that it was far slower than what we were paying for.”
benton.org/headlines/fcc-flooded-net-neutrality-complaints | Hill, The
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NET NEUTRALITY FILINGS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Mike Snider]
The Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules amount to a "power grab," Internet service providers charge in a court filing. USTelecom, AT&T, CenturyLink, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, CTIA and others filed the brief in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. They are challenging the legality of the FCCs Open Internet order. They argue that the FCC acted illegally and without proper authority in creating a unwieldy new law that could negatively affect the economy. "It is the output of an agency determined (or pressured) to reach a particular result and visibly struggling to devise a post hoc justification for contradicting Congress’s pronouncements, the agency’s own longstanding policy, and real-world facts," according to the brief. "It is, in short, a sweeping bureaucratic power grab by a self-appointed 'Department of the Internet.'" The rules subject broadband service "to too heavy-handed, public-utility-style regulation designed for 19th-century railroads and 1930s telephone monopolies," the brief says.
Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood called the arguments "overheated rhetoric ... that ignores both the law and the way that Internet access actually operates." The ISPs legal filing, he said, exposes "the weakness of their case against enforceable net neutrality protections. Communications law is rooted in principles of protecting users of any communications network against unreasonable discrimination, blocking and interference. The FCC’s net neutrality ruling is legally sound and puts Internet users first.” John Bergmayer, Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge, said, “We are confident that our upcoming brief will thoroughly rebut the carriers' inadequate and off-base arguments, demonstrating why the Open Internet rules are important to protect consumers, free speech and competition. We are confident that our upcoming brief will thoroughly rebut the carriers' inadequate and off-base arguments, demonstrating why the Open Internet rules are important to protect consumers, free speech, and competition, and explaining how the authority the FCC used and the procedures it followed were all lawful.”
benton.org/headlines/internet-providers-call-fccs-net-rules-unlawful-court-filing | USAToday | Public Knowledge
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USDA ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR RURAL BROADBAND ACCESS LOAN AND LOAN GUARANTEE PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Department of Agriculture, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
The Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, announces that it is accepting applications for fiscal year 2015 for the Rural Broadband Access Loans and Loan Guarantee program. In addition to announcing the application window, RUS announces the minimum and maximum amounts for broadband loans for FY 2015. Moreover, the Agency is concurrently publishing a proposed interim final rule that will revise the current Broadband Program regulations. Applications under this Notice of solicitation of applications will be accepted immediately, July 30, 2015 through September 30, 2015, subject to the requirements of the interim regulation published concurrently with this NOSA.
benton.org/headlines/usda-accepting-applications-rural-broadband-access-loan-and-loan-guarantee-program | Department of Agriculture
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FCC'S CLYBURN AT NUL CONVENTION
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn]
Broadband is breaking down barriers to achievement for minorities, people with disabilities, and the poor. But, even as an equalizer of opportunities, even with all of the hope that broadband brings, too many in our community cannot afford to be connected. Too many of our schools and libraries have inadequate broadband speeds. Too many children lack broadband at home to complete homework. We have all heard that relevance, not cost, is the reason many do not have broadband. But as community leaders, you know firsthand that when you ask that proud senior on a fixed income whether she wants to sign up for broadband, her dignity will never allow her to admit that she cannot afford it. She will tell you that she does not need it, but we know that is just not true. Pew Research Center just reported that African Americans have adopted broadband faster than any other group over the past 15 years. But they also reported that of the majority of those without broadband have household incomes lower than $30,000 a year. So we are committed to ensuring that cost is no longer a barrier to broadband adoption, but this will only happen through partnerships with industry, the government, and you.
benton.org/headlines/fccs-clyburn-nul-convention-cost-not-relevance-broadband-roadblock | Federal Communications Commission | Broadcasting & Cable
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FACEBOOK BUILT AN ACTUAL PLANE TO BRING THE WORLD INTERNET ACCESS
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Kurt Wagner]
Facebook has built an actual plane -- a 140-foot, solar-powered, unmanned Aquila -- to serve as a flying Internet hub that will provide Wi-Fi access to parts of the world where connectivity is lacking. The plane isn’t just an idea or a mockup. An actual version of the plane was built in the United Kingdom and Facebook plans to test it, probably somewhere in the United States, later in 2015, according to Facebook’s VP of Engineering Jay Parikh. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has always preached that his goal with the social network is connecting everyone in the world, and part of that challenge is connecting everyone to the Internet. Facebook launched Internet.org a few years back to do just that, and has been trying to provide some emerging markets with free Internet services in hopes of getting them online (and on Facebook). Facebook wants to use a system of lasers to beam data from the ground, to a network of planes in the sky, and back down to people on the ground. The planes, which will fly well above commercial airspace at somewhere between 60,000 and 90,000 feet, will be able to provide wireless access to an area with a radius as large as 50 miles, Parikh said. The operation is still far from complete. Facebook has built just one plane, but hopes to build an entire fleet. That fleet of planes will connect with one another to form a kind of web of connectivity high in the sky. Facebook hasn’t located a specific test location within the US, but Yael Maguire, the engineering director in charge of Facebook’s connectivity efforts, says there are no federal regulations that will prohibit the company from flying the Aquila at the proposed altitude. “Right now, it is really new territory,” he said.
benton.org/headlines/facebook-built-actual-plane-bring-world-internet-access | Revere Digital | the plane – by the numbers | USA Today | Bloomberg
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

E-MAIL PRIVACY ACT HAS SUPERMAJORITY SPONSORSHIP
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The E-Mail Privacy Act has collected 291 co-sponsors, according to the Digital 4th Coalition, which is enough (two-thirds of the House) to fast track the bill under suspension of House rules, which means the House could theoretically approve it without debate or other normal procedural requirements. The legislation, which updates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (of 1986), would require law enforcement and government agencies to get a warrant to access e-mails and other private online communications. Or put another way, Internet service providers could not divulge such information without a court order. "When ECPA was written, the Internet as we understand it did not exist," said bill author Rep Kevin Yoder (R-KS). "Only 340,000 Americans even subscribed to cell phone service. Mark Zuckerberg was only two years old. But as our society and technology has evolved, our digital privacy laws remain stuck in 1986. With our bill now receiving the support of a veto-proof majority of the House of Representatives, the time has arrived to fix that." The House needs to vote on this bill immediately," said Gabe Rottman of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is a member of the coalition. "It is the most co-sponsored bill in this Congress and yet hasn’t been considered by the House or at the committee level. Passage of the Email Privacy Act is long overdue."
benton.org/headlines/e-mail-privacy-act-has-supermajority-sponsorship | Multichannel News
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SEN WYDEN PUSHES BACK ON CYBER, INTEL BILLS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Elise Viebeck]
With just days left before the August recess, Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) is helping to lead a grassroots campaign against the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). The bipartisan bill encourages private companies to share information with the government about cyberthreats after a number of high-profile hacks of federal agencies and firms like Sony, Target and Anthem. For similar reasons, Sen Wyden also placed a hold on the 2016 intelligence authorization bill because of a provision from Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would require social media companies like Twitter to report terrorist activity on their sites to the government. Though they generated little press coverage, the moves underscore Sen Wyden’s willingness to thwart progress on widely supported bills to fight what he considers overzealous government surveillance. Civil libertarians increasingly call Sen Wyden the Senate’s leading voice for Internet privacy, a role that endears and alienates him from different parts of the technology world. Fighting CISA and the intelligence provision has also made Wyden a thorn in the side of leaders from both parties who are eager to demonstrate that they take seriously the tasks of improving federal cybersecurity and hampering terrorist activity online.
benton.org/headlines/sen-wyden-pushes-back-cyber-intel-bills | Washington Post
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GLARE OF VIDEO
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Pérez-Peña, Timothy Williams]
The recording of encounters between the police and the public has begun to alter public views of the use of force and race relations, experts and police officials say. Videos have provided “corroboration of what African-Americans have been saying for years,” said Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law School and a former prosecutor, who called them “the C-Span of the streets.”
benton.org/headlines/glare-video-shifting-publics-view-police | New York Times
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TELEVISION

SENATORS SLAM PAY TV SET-TOP MARKET
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) say information they collected from the top 10 pay-TV providers indicates a continuing lack of choice and competition in the pay-TV video set-top box market. That comes as the Federal Communications Commission works on a downloadable set-top security successor to the CableCARD after its integration ban was legislated away in the STELAR satellite reauthorization legislation. Sens Markey and Blumenthal decried that lack of competition (the ban was scrapped in part because it had failed to prompt a robust competitive box market) and said their info showed that households were spending north of $231 per year on set-top rental fees. The Senators asked for the info last November. “Consumers should have the same range of choices for their video set-top boxes as they have for their mobile phones,” said Sen Markey, who had opposed shelving the integration ban, in a joint statement outlining some of the findings. "When Congress last year regrettably removed the requirement that cable company services be compatible with set-top boxes purchased in the marketplace rather than rented directly from the provider, we doomed consumers to being captive to cable company rental fees forever." “Consumers deserve protection against hidden, hideously vexing fees for set-top boxes,” added Sen Blumenthal.
benton.org/headlines/senators-slam-pay-tv-set-top-market | Broadcasting&Cable
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THIS IDEA BY THE FCC IS TERRIFYING APPLE, AMAZON AND MICROSOFT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Streaming video services by Apple, Amazon and Google have thrived off the idea that they are alternatives to cable TV. Now, the Federal Communications Commission is considering if it should begin to regulate online video services, like they do cable companies. And that's causing anxiety in Silicon Valley. As early as October, the FCC is expected to vote on a proposal that would put some streaming video firms into the same regulatory bucket as multichannel video programming distributors, or cable and satellite TV firms, such as Comcast, Dish Network and Cox. The idea, according to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, is to help online video providers become stronger competitors to cable and satellite firms by making it easier to obtain valuable TV programming for the Web. Under the plan, streaming companies would be able to use the FCC's program access rules to ensure TV networks offer the licensing of their programs. That would allow Apple, for instance, to bring ABC, NBC and Comedy Central to the bargaining table for their programs. Small streaming companies, such as SkyAngel, Pluto TV and FilmOn, are championing the idea. But big tech firms don't like it. The guarantee of getting valuable programs from TV networks might seem like huge benefit for online providers. But for the biggest streaming services, the FCC's proposal would create first-time regulations for their sector. And the fear is that more regulations would come.
benton.org/headlines/idea-fcc-terrifying-apple-amazon-and-microsoft | Washington Post
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OWNERSHIP

STATEMENTS OF COMMISSIONERS PAI AND O'RIELLY ON BEGINNING REVIEW OF CHARTER/TWC/BRIGHT HOUSE TRANSACTION
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly]
We are deeply dismayed that the FCC’s leadership seems unwilling to begin the formal review of the Charter Communications/Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks transaction until Commissioners agree to change the FCC’s procedures for protecting confidential information. We don’t plan to allow this maneuver to deter us from giving careful scrutiny to the important item in front of us, which if adopted, would apply not only to future transactions but all Commission proceedings. Among other things, we believe that the better course would be for the Commission to seek public input on these proposed procedures before moving ahead. Thus, while we are still reviewing the order on circulation, we believe that the Commission should follow the direction that the DC Circuit previously provided in a similar case: "The agency has
access to the relevant documents at issue in this matter and can continue to evaluate the proposed merger....” So let’s start the ‘aspirational’ merger review shot clock and get on with the process.
benton.org/headlines/statement-commissioners-ajit-pai-and-michael-orielly-beginning-review-chartertime-warner | Federal Communications Commission
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

THIS CONTROVERSIAL INTERNET POLICY HAS DIVIDED AMERICANS FOR YEARS. NOW CANADA'S JUST ADOPTED IT.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brain Fung]
Let's play a game. What if any company could go to Verizon and say, "I want to sell Internet service using your FiOS network, but under my own brand"? Under today's rules, Verizon could say no -- and with good reason. After all, allowing rivals to piggyback off of pipes you built and paid for simply gives them an advantage. But under a recent change in Canadian policy, a company like Verizon would have to say yes. It sounds like a small difference. But Canada hopes it will have a big impact, ranging from lowering the cost of Internet access to consumers to generating more market competition. And how it plays out will offer some important lessons for the United States, where the idea has been hugely controversial. Forcing Internet providers to offer their pipes to competitors is a practice known as "unbundling," and proponents believe it addresses many of the problems that consumers often complain about when it comes to their Internet service. So, should you be for unbundling, or against it? Although the United States once flirted with unbundling Internet services, the idea got dropped. Large Internet providers argued that if they're undercut by upstarts that don't have to invest in infrastructure, then nobody will build new infrastructure and connection technologies anymore. "We now have an interesting experiment between the Canadian and American markets," said Blair Levin, a Brookings Institution scholar who helped author a federal broadband plan for the Federal Communications Commission. "I would take the American side of the bet, but it will be interesting to study."
benton.org/headlines/controversial-internet-policy-has-divided-americans-years-now-canadas-just-adopted-it | Washington Post
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GOOGLE APPEALS FRENCH ORDER TO APPLY RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN GLOBABLLY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sam Schechner]
Google is appealing a French data-protection order to expand Europe’s right to be forgotten to its websites world-wide, kicking off a legal tussle over the territorial scope of a rule established in 2014 by the European Union’s top court. The Mountain View (CA) company said it sent a request to France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés, or CNIL, asking it to rescind a May order -- disclosed publicly in June -- that would force Google to apply Europe’s right to be forgotten to “all domain names” of the search engine, including google.com, not just Google sites aimed at Europe, like google.co.uk. The French CNIL said that it will take up to two months to consider Google’s appeal before deciding whether to withdraw its order, or open sanctions proceedings that could lead to a fine of up to €150,000 against the online-search firm. Google argues -- along with some free speech advocates -- that applying the right beyond Europe could open the door to more authoritarian governments attempting to apply Internet-censorship rules beyond their borders.
benton.org/headlines/google-appeals-french-order-apply-right-be-forgotten-globally | Wall Street Journal | | The Hill
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July 2015

NCTA responds to senators' set-top complaints, says consumers already have plenty of choice

Questioning Federal Broadband Spending

Celebrating 20 Years at the Benton Foundation

What We Talk About When We Talk About “Tech Transitions”

Advertisers: US ‘right to be forgotten’ would be legally ‘baseless’

Comcast-owned NBC refused to run commercials for Sling TV's competing streaming service

Women in science and engineering seek their own version of 'MacGyver' on TV

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Questioning Federal Broadband Spending

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Celebrating 20 Years at the Benton Foundation

July 31, 2015 (Net Neutrality Court Filings and Consumer Complaints)