John Eggerton

Nearly 50 senators from both parties have called on the Federal Communications Commission to reform the Universal Service Fund so that it supports broadband-only service in rural areas.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the 44 legislators, led by Sen John Thune (R-SD), ranking member of the Commerce Committee, and Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said that if the FCC does not make the change, it would lead to less choice and support for rural consumers.

The FCC is migrating USF support from traditional telephone to broadband as part of its revamp of USF, and the senators point to that USF goal of increasing broadband adoption. Currently, they point out, a smaller, rate-of-return carrier is eligible for support if a rural consumer buys phone service, whether or not they take broadband, but carriers don't get USF money for broadband, only rural subs.

On the eve of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, CBS president and CEO Les Moonves stopped by the Federal Communications Commission to meet with Chairman Tom Wheeler about a variety of issues, including why the FCC should not tinker with retransmission.

According to an ex parte notice submitted by CBS lawyers, Moonves, who has led CBS' aggressive charge to charge cable operators for its high-value content, urged the chairman to "maintain the current regime." He argued that the retransmission second revenue stream was critical to CBS' ability to continue to produce sports and entertainment and news.

Chairman Wheeler has tied his retransmission reform efforts, which include disallowing some coordinated negotiations and asking whether syndicated exclusivity and network nonduplication rules should be eliminated, to the size of consumer's cable bills. But Moonves said that given the size of its audience, CBS stations and affiliates "deserve the highest fees they can negotiate in the marketplace."

In a decision that could help ease the way for telecom operators to site their towers and boost broadband service, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of a case (T-Mobile South v. Roswell, GA) involving how a city has to justify its denial of a tower-siting permit, a case which has split federal circuits.

T-Mobile had challenged an Eleventh Circuit ruling -- overturning a district court -- that held that the city of Roswell, which had denied a tower placement, only had to notify the operator in writing of the denial and provide access to the administrative record of the decision, but did not have to explain how the decision was made. But various other federal circuits have read the law as requiring the city to provide a decision separate from the administrative record and at least some explanation of the reason for the denial.

That way, if there is a challenge in court, there will be a judicial matter at hand to wheigh whether the evidence supports that reasoning. The Supremes have now agreed to try and resolve that split.

Every Republican member of the House Communications Subcommittee has asked Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to rethink his plans to put some limits on the broadcast incentive auctions.

Chairman Wheeler has circulated a draft item that, under certain circumstances, would set aside some low-band spectrum (30 MHz) for companies that don't have as much as, say, Verizon or AT&T. It would also change its local-market spectrum screen so that low-band spectrum holdings would also trigger deeper FCC scrutiny of deals involving spectrum concentration.

In a letter to the FCC, the House members called that an attempt to "manipulate the market." They said that "artificial set-asides" and other restrictions "alter the playing field and distort the outcome."

The legislators predict that the FCC will only be clearing about 60 MHz of broadcast spectrum. That means half of the spectrum could be set aside.

The Republicans say that sounds like a cartel controlling prices by artificially controlling supply. "We urge the Commission to reconsider any plans that would further cloud an already complex auction and threaten the outcome for providers, consumers and the public safety community."

Ad agencies have at least one bone to pick with the White House over the Administration's Big Data report.

The report proposed, among other things, promoted legislation that would enhance communications privacy laws and put legislative muscle behind the voluntary agreements the Administration is pushing for as part of its privacy bill of rights.

The Association of National Advertisers praised the "thoughtful, balanced review" and the report's acknowledgement that "online advertising has been a vital driver of the growth of the Internet." It also said it supported national data breach legislation. But it was not so happy with suggestions for legislating privacy protections.

"[W]e do not believe there is a present need for broad new privacy legislation," ANA said. "Rather, consumers can be best protected through a combination of existing privacy laws and regulations, privacy enhancing technologies, effective self-regulation and the ultimate backstop of the powers of the Federal Trade Commission to stop false, deceptive or unfair acts or practices."

Jot Carpenter, VP, government affairs, CTIA: The Wireless Association, told C-SPAN that the AWS-3 and broadcast incentive auctions will be helpful, but probably not sufficient to meet burgeoning demand for wireless spectrum.

He said auctions and new tech will help, but it's time to start looking beyond those auctions to the next source of spectrum. He also told Comcast to bring it on if they want to launch a Wi-Fi based wireless service in competition to his members. He also said he understood broadcaster concerns about the auctions, but suggested, as has the FCC, that for some sharing spectrum could be attractive.

The Sunlight Foundation and Campaign Legal Center filed complaints against 11 broadcast TV stations for allegedly failing to post the requisite information about political advertising sponsors in their online political files.

The complaints say the stations failed to identify the candidate the ad referred to, the issue of national importance and the CEO or board of directors of the sponsor. The groups have been tracking the online broadcaster filings in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United and subsequent court decisions that allowed more money from outside groups into the political system without ways to specifically track the underlying funders.

"Often the only way to track this money, which is so obviously influencing our elections, is through the broadcasters’ political files, which until 2013, were kept only on paper, locked away in file cabinets," said the Sunlight Foundation.

Broadcasters are hoping to enlist consumer groups in battling cable operators over what broadcaster group TVfreedom.org is calling abusive pay TV practices.

At least one, Public Knowledge, signaled it would be happy to work with the group on the issue of billing practices. In a letter to eight public interest groups, TVFreedom called on them to "join the organization in developing an open and collaborative process that will place a public spotlight on the abusive billing and business practices being undertaken by the cable and satellite TV industry that are harming consumers."

The groups, in addition to Public Knowledge, are Free Press, Consumers Union, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, New America Foundation, National Consumer League and Public Citizen.

The letter cites a lack of competition and consumer choice in the US video marketplace as justifying a hard look at cable's alleged billing practices including hidden fees, excessive equipment rentals, early termination fees and overbilling.

A Q&A with National Cable & Telecommunications Association President and CEO Michael Powell. He has said that the phrase “cable” in NCTA does not convey the “breadth of who we are and what we do.”

But Powell, a self-described “geek” and frustrated artist, recently told the story of how lawyers for the industry’s main trade association came to seek Patent and Trademark Office protection of a potential new moniker. Here’s a clue: He was clueless.

“There is an element of the cable brand I am troubled by,” he said. “I think it is incomplete. I think it has a certain meaning in the minds of consumers and a certain meaning in the minds of policymakers. And I think it underrepresents the breadth of what we are and what we do. We are not some old-fashioned cable industry. We are probably, now, the country’s most sophisticated full-service communications provider.”

“We’ve known from the day that the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal was announced that Comcast intended to divest some subscribers, so this doesn’t change anything,” said Sen Al Franken (D-MN). “The fact remains that Comcast will have unprecedented power in the television and broadband markets, and I’m very concerned that Comcast will use that power to squeeze competitors and consumers.”

"This convoluted transaction may change the final score, but it can't change the fact that this deal is a big loss for innovation and competition," said Matt Wood, policy director for Free Press. "Cable barons have always done a great job dividing up the country and refusing to compete with each other. Turning three giant companies into two behemoths gives no comfort to content providers or consumers. It should be equally unimpressive to lawmakers and antitrust authorities too."

Public Knowledge is not looking that far ahead, said a spokesman, since the deal would have to be approved for the swaps to be made, and it is not looking for that to happen. Besides, he pointed out, Public Knowledge took the swaps into account in its initial assessment of the merger -- Comcast had signaled it would spin off enough systems to keep the new company below the FCC's traditional 30% cap on subs. But critics have said the creation of an ISP with some 40% of subs -- Comcast has figured it at closer to 20% when all competitors are factored in -- changes the equation. Does it make [the deal] any more palatable? No," he said. "It's still a deal that we are staunchly opposed to."

"No set of conditions are going to make the deal palatable to the public interest and I don't see how this changes the basic dynamics of the deal, which are terrible for consumers and competition," said Todd O'Boyle, a spokesman for Common Cause.