October 2016

Since the set top box deliberations presumably will continue in coming weeks, it seems appropriate and necessary to outline the problem areas I see preventing a conclusion:

Federal Communications Commission Control of the Model License and API: Some have proposed replacing provisions in earlier versions that provided explicit FCC review and approval roles with active FCC monitoring and threats of future action if progress is deemed unsatisfactory.
The Myth of Universal Search: One of the benefits of the item touted by proponents is that it will enable a competitive market in so-called “universal” or “integrated” search apps.
Questionable Feasibility: A key component of this item is a requirement that every multichannel video programming distributor with over 400,000 subscribers develop and support a native app for every widely deployed operating system.
Opening the Door to the App Tax: Today, many of the widely deployed platforms usually receive an upfront fee or cut of revenues from software developers to have their apps made available on these very popular platforms.
Competition from Pirated Content: Programmers and MVPDs have registered valid concerns that the third party integrated search engines contemplated by the item would result in pirated content being displayed in search results alongside legitimate MVPD content.
Substantively, the only way to fix the item is to address the key problems and flaws identified above. Only by doing so would a true app-centric approach be workable for most of the affected companies. More importantly, it’s the only way to get a resolution that would benefit consumers by eliminating the set top box altogether for those interested.

Telecommunication companies Sprint, Frontier Communications and Windstream Services released a joint filing to the Federal Communications Commission expressing their support for upcoming FCC rules that may place price caps on the data services that power transactions at retail outlets and ATMs. They simultaneously urged the commission to adopt a tiered approach to the new rules for business data services, or BDS, that would favor smaller carriers.

The filing marked an about-face for Frontier, which has long resisted changing the market in which bulk data connections are sold directly to businesses from phone companies. Frontier said the latest agreement is satisfactory. “Yesterday’s filing by Frontier, Windstream, and Sprint reflects a consensus approach which affords the smaller price-cap carriers a reasonable transition period to adjust to potential reductions to BDS rates,” spokesman John Puskar said in a statement.

T-Mobile USA has begun throttling mobile hotspot data when its network is congested while giving priority to smartphones and other devices that connect directly to the cellular network. T-Mobile has been notifying customers of the change with a message that says, "We just made your network better again" and that "T-Mobile device data comes first." "We've primed the network for on-device use," the carrier says on its website. "So now when there's congestion, you may notice higher speeds for data on your T-Mobile devices versus Smartphone Mobile Hotspot (tethering)."

Prioritization of on-device data is triggered "at times and at locations where there are competing customer demands for network resources, which may result in slower tethering speeds," T-Mobile also says. That means your smartphone should still be fast, but devices like laptops that connect to the phone's mobile hotspot will get slower Internet access. T-Mobile is making this change as it tries to shift customers from data buckets to plans that are nominally "unlimited" but in reality have several limits. The recently unveiled T-Mobile One plan has no monthly data cap or overage fees, but it throttles video to 1.5Mbps (enough for about 480p resolution) and throttles other data usage when customers who have used more than 26GB in a month connect to congested cell towers.