July 2017

New legislation introduced by Reps David Price (D-NC) and Jared Huffman (D-CA) would protect local television markets across the country from corporate consolidation by permanently ending the so-called “UHF discount,” an obsolete Federal Communications Commission loophole that the Trump Administration wants to revive to benefit right-wing media conglomerates.

If the UHF discount is allowed to go into effect, a series of pending corporate mergers, including one with the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media, would dramatically reduce competition among local TV stations across the country. Specifically, the Local and Independent Television Protection Act:
Requires the FCC to act within 90 days to permanently end the UHF discount; and
Grandfathers any stations owned prior to September 26, 2013, which is commensurate with the FCC’s previous efforts to end the UHF discount.
The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Jerry McNerney (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Jackie Speier (D-CA).

West Virginia’s largest cable companies have filed a lawsuit against Gov Jim Justice (D-WV) and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, alleging that a new state law could ultimately cause internet service outages at customers’ homes and businesses. The state Cable Telecommunications Association is challenging new rules designed to make it easier for startup internet firms to secure access to utility poles. The cable companies don’t want competitors meddling with their equipment housed atop the poles. About 400,000 West Virginians have telephone and internet service through cable providers. “There could be significant damage to equipment and to customer relationships and outages and things of that sort when you have circumstances where there are no limitations at all on competitors moving other competitors’ equipment around,” said Mark Polen, spokesman for the cable group.

The companies say the new law allows the smaller internet companies to hire private contractors and rearrange existing equipment atop utility poles without permission. Federal rules already dictate how telecommunication companies share and access equipment on utility poles, according to the lawsuit. The new state law conflicts with longstanding federal law, the cable group alleges. The lawsuit characterizes the state law as “invalid” and “unconstitutional.”

The infrastructure we rely on every day to make sure our digital clocks are in sync or to protect our credit card information when we shop online is often maintained by a single volunteer. This means that often, just one person makes sure that the essential software code that powers so many of the products and services we use every day runs smoothly.

This is because the same free software code is used for the critical components in many different kinds of software: No one person “owns” it. This enables innovation, because everyone can build off what has come before, and makes it possible for more technology to be created at a lower cost, because no one needs to start from scratch. But this free, public code—which we refer to as open source software—needs regular upkeep and maintenance, just as physical infrastructure does, and because it doesn’t belong to any one person or party, it is no one person’s job to maintain it. Without maintenance, we see the digital equivalent of a crumbling road or a collapsing bridge. Some people call this phenomenon a “tragedy of the commons.”