Lauren Frayer

The Federal Communications Commission's experimental licensing program has played a key role throughout the years in the process of developing innovative new products and services. This new type of experimental license allows greater flexibility for parties—including universities, research labs, health care facilities, and manufacturers of radio frequency equipment— to develop new technologies and services while protecting incumbent services against harmful interference. Today, we are pleased to announce that our experimental licensing system can now accept applications for program licenses. Parties may apply for an experimental program license using the existing Form 442 application for experimental licenses. Once approved, licensees may go on the new "Experiments Notification System" website and begin registering new program experiments. The program license registration system continues the FCC's commitment to encouraging research and development.

A Federal Communications Commission plan to eliminate price caps in much of the business broadband market uses a new test for determining whether customers benefit from competition. Even if a business that needs broadband has only one choice today, the FCC would consider the local market competitive if there's a second broadband provider within a half mile. The proposal from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will hurt small business customers of ISPs, according to a federal office that advocates on behalf of small businesses. But at least for now, the FCC plans to move ahead with a final vote at its meeting on April 20.

You may be thinking, "There are no price caps for broadband in the US!" That's true for the home Internet service market, but the FCC imposes price regulation on certain types of business broadband. So-called Business Data Services (BDS) provided by traditional phone companies like AT&T and Verizon use dedicated links to deliver "secure, reliable, and low-delay transmission service for moving voice, data, and video traffic" at speeds of up to 45Mbps upstream and downstream, the FCC's deregulation proposal says. Pai's definition of "sufficient competition" has drawn fire. The plan would treat an entire county as competitive "if 50 percent of the locations with BDS demand in that county are within a half mile of a location served by a competitive provider." A county would also be considered competitive if 75 percent of Census blocks in the county have a cable provider.

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to fine a New York City resident for apparently operating a radio transmitter on frequencies that the FCC licensed to the New York Police Department (NYPD), causing interference with the NYPD’s radio system.

Jay Peralta faces a proposed fine of $404,166 for this egregious conduct. Peralta allegedly transmitted threatening messages directed at NYPD officers. These messages included false bomb threats and false officer-in-distress calls to NYPD dispatchers. This action is a result of an investigation that began in August 2016 when a FCC employee observed a Twitter post about an unlawful intrusion on the NYPD’s radio system. The NYPD provided the FCC with a written statement by Peralta, who is currently in police custody for related charges, in which he apparently acknowledged making nine unauthorized transmissions on the NYPD’s radio system. The proposed fine details the FCC’s allegations of unlawful conduct and proposes the maximum monetary penalty permitted under the law. As with any proposed fine, Peralta has 30 days to respond to this notice. According to his statement to the NYPD, on at least one occasion, Peralta apparently made unauthorized transmissions on the NYPD’s radio system in order to distract officers while his accomplices allegedly committed a robbery.

The tech world is gearing up for a showdown over the Obama-era network neutrality rules. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's plan could scrap that provision in exchange for companies voluntarily promising to uphold net neutrality principles. But consumer groups and Democratic lawmakers are fighting to save the rules, which they say prevent companies from playing favorites with websites and online content.

“I am going to be a part of that effort to make sure that this is a huge national debate,” Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) said. “There is going to be a national outcry when the Federal Communications Commission announces a plan to eliminate net neutrality as America’s communications policy. I think that they’re going to have a response unlike anything they’ve ever seen.” "People are increasingly engaged on consumer issues on the internet, and the coalition that was in favor of net neutrality is now reenergized,” said Sen Brian Schatz (D-HI).

Noncommercial TV stations were some of the biggest winners in the Federal Communications Commission's broadcast incentive auction, but associations representing noncommercial media are more focused on everyone else and what they said are "potentially debilitating service interruptions."

"America’s Public Television Stations (APTS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS are working together to review and analyze the results, with the goal of ensuring that all Americans and their families continue to have access to public media’s educational programs, trusted news and public safety information services," said America's Public Television Stations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS in a joint statement. "Our primary concern is that hundreds of public media stations who chose not to participate in the spectrum incentive auction nonetheless will be impacted as a result of the mandatory 'repack." Mandatory repacking requires stations to move to different broadcast channels. In addition, 'bystander' television and radio stations, which share towers with stations that are being repacked, face the potential of operating at reduced power for months to ensure the safety of the workers implementing channel changes for other stations. These stations and their audiences are threatened with potentially debilitating service disruptions."

President Donald Trump‘s campaign cost almost $398 million, which was considerably lower than candidate Hillary Clinton‘s total of more than $768 million. But Trump was Trump, and thus a constant focus of media attention.

According to mediaQuant, Inc., from July 2015 through October 2016 Trump received free media worth more than $5.9 billion. Clinton received less than half that figure, a little under $2.8 billion. That helped negate the fact that Clinton and her supporters massively outspent Trump and his. Clinton outpaced Trump in campaign committee spending as well as party support; and her outside spending firepower was especially impressive, as single-candidate groups backing Clinton spent more than triple the amount that those in favor of Trump spent.

This report examines the extent to which Rural Utilities Service's (RUS) procedures and activities are consistent with leading practices and how, if at all, its management practices could be improved. The Government Accountability Office synthesized, from federal guidance and relevant literature, a set of 10 leading practices that would be appropriate for the management of broadband loan and grant programs. GAO validated its set of practices with states that have programs similar to the RUS programs. GAO then reviewed RUS documentation and interviewed RUS officials and six program recipients, selected for having geographically dispersed projects currently under construction. Based on this information, GAO determined whether RUS's procedures and activities were consistent, partially consistent, or not consistent with each leading practice.

GAO recommends that RUS develop program performance goals and measures, conduct program risk assessments, evaluate completed grant projects, establish a timeline for implementing a centralized internal data system, and update written policies and procedures for RUS staff. USDA agreed with the recommendations.

Arlene Howard’s phone bill said she made a bunch of calls to Cuba, which she didn’t. Her service provider, Charter Communications, acknowledged that her office line must have been hacked. But it still demanded that she pay thousands of dollars to cover the cost of the bogus calls. To which all customers of Charter’s Spectrum service should rightly respond: Say what?! You probably didn’t know this — I didn’t — but buried deep within the fine print of Spectrum’s terms of service for business and residential landlines is a provision that the customer, not the company, is responsible for any fraudulent use of the phone service. I found similar provisions tucked away in AT&T’s and Frontier Communications’ terms. You get hacked, you pay.

[Commentary] No one likes unsolicited commercial phone calls. It doesn’t matter much whether they are automated calls with prerecorded messages or merely calls from unrecognized numbers or whether they come during dinner or in the middle of the work day. If you are like most people nowadays, you screen all calls, never answering the phone except for numbers you recognize or when you are expecting a call.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been actively working to rein in this scourge, revising its implementation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in 2015 and working to address problems relating to robocalls with an ongoing rulemaking. These efforts are largely laudable – but they are also too limited. In particular, they place too much emphasis on those making these calls and too little on how the architecture of the phone network makes these calls possible. As a result, they simultaneously are only incomplete solutions to stopping the problem of “bad calls” and also unduly burden “good calls,” subjecting companies with legitimate need to call consumers that want to play by the rules in making those calls to substantial liability for simple and honest mistakes. A better approach would be to update the telephone network from its current 1980s protocols to give consumers greater control over who can call them.

[Gus Hurwitz is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law]

Last week, news broke that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has developed plans for a fast-track repeal of the FCC’s Open Internet rules. While the plans have only been shared in meetings with broadband industry lobbyists, network neutrality advocates have been quick to criticize the early reports. The always-transparent Chairman Pai has not revealed the plans to the public, but there’s already speculation that a preliminary vote on the proposal could come as early as the FCC’s May meeting.