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July 2016

FCC Meeting Agenda for August 2016 Open meeting

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Thursday, August 4, 2016:

Implementation of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, Section 105, Relay Services for DeafBlind Individuals (CG Docket No. 10-210): The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would convert the National Deaf Blind Equipment Distribution Program from a pilot to a permanent program.

Improvements to Benchmarks and Related Requirements Governing Hearing AidCompatible Mobile Handsets (WT Docket No. 15- 285): The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would implement changes to the scope of the wireless hearing aid compatibility rules.

Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services (WC Docket No. 12-375): The Commission will consider an Order on Reconsideration, responding to a petition filed by Michael S. Hamden, that would ensure that the rates for Inmate Calling Services (ICS) are just, reasonable, and fair and explicitly account for facilities’ ICS-related costs.

Commissioner Pai: FCC Should Not Have Dunned AT&T

Commissioner Ajit Pai of the Federal Communications Commission says the FCC should not have issued a notice of apparent liability and proposed fine against AT&T because it waited too long to take that enforcement action. The FCC has proposed fining the company $106,425 and make it repay $63,760 to the Universal Service Fund for allegedly overcharging two Florida schools for phone service under the FCC's E-rate program. Commissioner Pai was not taking issue with the decision, only when the FCC issued it and the legal reasoning behind it.

"We have issued this Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) too late," he wrote in a published dissent. "The Communications Act imposes a one-year statute of limitations. Like most other statutes of limitations, it runs from when a violation is complete —in this case, when AT&T 'charge[d]' Dixie County and Orange County 'a price above the lowest corresponding price.' According to our records, AT&T last charged Dixie County for the relevant services on July 1, 2014, and Orange County for the relevant services on June 1, 2015. And the last relevant form AT&T filed in conjunction with these charges was October 27, 2014." "So even in the best-case scenario, the statute of limitations ran out 56 days ago, on June 1, 2016," he said.

Apple’s Hard-Charging Tactics Hurt TV Expansion

Apple executives had every reason for optimism when they approached Walt Disney Co. in early 2015 to join the streaming television service Apple planned to launch. Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger is an Apple director and had said he was keen to strike a deal. Disney, which owns channels such as ESPN and ABC, was stunned, though, when Apple executive Eddy Cue made demands that would have upended decades of cable-industry and Hollywood practices, people familiar with the discussions say. In particular, Apple wanted to freeze for several years the monthly rate per viewer it would pay to license Disney channels. TV channels usually get annual rate increases and rely on them to fuel profit growth. Disney balked.

Similar talks with media giants that included 21st Century Fox Inc. and CBS Corp. also stalled. When Apple debuted its newest Apple TV set-top box last September, it announced no streaming TV service. Television is an important part of Apple’s strategy to reignite growth now that sales of the iPhone, the most popular and profitable product in the Cupertino (CA), company’s 40-year history, have fallen for two quarters in a row. Yet some of the same tactics previously used by Apple to such success have hurt its efforts to revolutionize the TV-watching experience, raising pointed questions about how it can revive its growth.

The FCC is pushing Internet innovation forward — and holding it back

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission published a pair of decisions recently that show in sharp contrast the right and wrong ways regulators use their authority to shape the trajectory of disruptive technologies. This time, the continuing evolution of the Internet is at stake.

First, the agency voted to open large amounts of very high frequency radio spectrum for early developers of next generation mobile broadband, known as 5G. The United States is poised to be the first country in the world to take this critical step. In keeping with long-standing US policy, some of the newly allocated bands will be auctioned off to network operators, some will be set aside for anyone to use, and some will be shared. At the other end of the innovation life-cycle, the second decision further delayed the ongoing retirement of the decaying analog telephone network, which has long since been made obsolete by better and cheaper digital technologies. The proceedings have dragged on for more than a decade, and the FCC has once again punted on the final conclusion. The first decision, in short, was visionary. The second, on the other hand, will waste valuable time and resources.

[Downes is a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy]

National Association of Broadcasters: FCC Lacks Authority to Boost Video Described Programming

Broadcasters and cable operators are on the same page when it comes to video described programming. That is providing programming for the blind and sight-impaired is important, that they already overdeliver on Federal Communications Commission requirements—though don't get credit for it (only primetime and children's programming count toward the current 50-hour-per calendar quarter requirement)—but that the FCC's proposed expansion of that programming is beyond its authority.

The National Association of Broadcasters filed comments at the FCC on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), approved last March, to boost the amount of that programming and the number of networks required to provide it. Like the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, NAB has told the FCC that, per statute, it can't increase the number of networks required to provide video described programming and can't apply the requirement to a top five network—or top 10 if another proposed FCC change is approved—after it has fallen out of that ranking (the so-called "no backsliding" provision).

Environmental Protection Agency Tests Future of Public Comments

Collecting public comment on federal rules might get a little easier. An Environmental Protection Agency pilot lets citizens comment on specific paragraphs of proposed rules instead of submitting them via e-mail or in a separate text box. It might seem like a minor feature that should have existed before, but EPA is among the first to test drive it, according to a blog post from General Services Administration tech consultancy, 18F.

Since 2015, 18F and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have been gradually adding new features to the eRegulations system, an open source platform that hosts proposals online. EPA is trying out the comment feature on a rule that would lay out fees for groups using the agency's hazardous waste tracking system; interested parties can choose to comment on specific sections, such as the rule's "scope" or "preamble."

Verizon has made a bold, risky bet on the future of advertising

On July 25th, Verizon, a telecommunications giant that is also America’s biggest mobile operator, announced it would buy Yahoo’s main internet business for $4.8 billion (a price that does not include the firm’s properties in Asia or its portfolio of patents). The sum is paltry compared with Microsoft’s offer of $45 billion in 2008, which Yahoo’s management turned down, arguing that the firm was worth far more. Google and Facebook have invested heavily in technology that allows them to sell digital ads in an efficient, automated fashion. Verizon is hoping to take them on. Advertising is going through (yet another) digital transformation, meaning that marketers are not only spending more money online but also using technologies to buy ad space more efficiently, targeting their message to the specific people they are interested in.

AOL has a smoothly functioning new platform for this, but Yahoo underinvested. Verizon reckons it will be able to use AOL’s technology to sell a lot of Yahoo’s inventory of ads to marketers. All the same, Verizon will be taking on rivals whose main business is advertising, and in which they each have more than a decade of experience. It will need to move nimbly, not something telecoms firms are known for. Another reason why Verizon may struggle to challenge Facebook’s and Google’s duopoly has to do with new plans from the telecoms regulator. Internet-service providers and mobile carriers like Verizon know more about their customers than do Google and Facebook. They know their billing addresses, their precise location at any moment and all their online habits, says Harold Feld of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group.

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