Press Release

I am pleased to announce another significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to revitalize AM radio. Yesterday, the first filing window for AM broadcasters to obtain new FM translator stations closed. Over one thousand AM stations took advantage of it. These translators will enable many of these AM stations to broadcast local programming to their communities at night for the first time. The success of this window follows on the great success of the two cross-service FM translator modification windows that were opened in 2016. Together, these translator windows will help AM broadcasters continue to play a part in our competitive media landscape as the FCC continues to address the unique technical challenges involving AM radio.

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) filed an updated version of the Lifeline National Verifier Plan, which was created in response to the Lifeline Modernization Order on January 19, 2017. USAC said the plan contains a section detailing each of ten key components, as well as an introduction and a glossary of key terms. It also contains a section responding to public comments received on its draft plan, and has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau and the Office of the Managing Director. This updated version reflects progress of the system build and its related processes.

Columbia Journalism Review is partnering with the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation to launch a website that documents press freedom incidents around the country. The site, US Press Freedom Tracker, is nonpartisan and captures incidents involving journalists such as arrests, border stops, equipment searches and seizures, leak prosecutions, physical attacks or threats, and subpoenas.

US Press Freedom Tracker, which launches Aug 2, gathers those data points from news stories and tips, and it’s free for all to use—journalists and news consumers alike. The Freedom of the Press Foundation is running the tracker’s day-to-day operations, with Peter Sterne, its senior reporter, serving as managing editor. The Committee to Protect Journalists provided the initial funding. CJR is among 20-some journalism and press freedom organizations supporting the tracker. Other supporters include the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, Free Press, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Poynter, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

[Commentary] Some of the Rod Wheeler/Seth Rich lawsuit is now undeniable: An outrageously bogus news story was known about, and apparently not discouraged, within the West Wing well before it was published. And once it was published, it become endless fodder for the president’s staunchest defenders: Alex Jones, Newt Gingrich and, more than any other person, Fox’s Sean Hannity — who stopped hammering away at it only when Rich’s parents implored him to stop trashing their son’s name. One of the ugliest falsehoods of the current political era may have been cheered on by the White House. At the very least, it got tacit approval. And that’s bad enough.

Sens Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum (AIRWAVES) Act, which will encourage the federal government to continue to free up spectrum for commercial licensed and unlicensed use and leverage the success of spectrum auctions to help close the urban-rural divide.

First, the legislation establishes a spectrum pipeline that will provide more capacity for wireless providers to improve existing service and expand to new areas. The AIRWAVES Act aims to motivate industry and federal agencies to find ways to better utilize spectrum and avoid a spectrum crunch and lay the groundwork for 5G technologies. Second, this legislation requires 10 percent of all of the proceeds from spectrum auctions in the bill to go directly to wireless broadband infrastructure buildout in unserved and underserved areas throughout rural communities across the country.

Every day American consumers report tens of thousands of illegal robocalls to the Federal Trade Commission, and now the FTC is helping put that information to work boosting industry efforts to stop unwanted calls before they reach consumers. Under a new initiative announced by the FTC, when consumers report Do Not Call or robocall violations to the agency, the robocaller phone numbers consumers provide will be released each day to telecommunications carriers and other industry partners that are implementing call-blocking solutions.

Unwanted and illegal robocalls are the FTC’s number-one complaint category, with more than 1.9 million complaints filed in the first five months of 2017 alone. By reporting illegal robocalls, consumers help law enforcement efforts to stop the violators behind these calls. In addition, under the initiative, the FTC is now taking steps to provide more data, more often to help power the industry solutions that block illegal calls. The consumer complaint data is crucial because many of today’s call-blocking solutions rely on “blacklists” -- databases of telephone numbers that have received significant consumer complaints -- as one way to determine which calls should be blocked or flagged before they reach consumers’ phones. The new data that FTC is making available also will include the date and time the unwanted call was received, the general subject matter of the call (such as debt reduction, energy, warranties, home security, etc.), and whether the call was a robocall.

In this Order, we provide relief to many small businesses offering satellite news and video services from the unanticipated replacement costs associated with compliance with the Digital Video Broadcasting–Carrier Identification (DVB CID) standard. Based on the record, we waive section 25.281(b) for digitally transmitting satellite news gathering vehicles, and other temporary-fixed earth stations, that use existing modulators that cannot be made compliant with the DVB-CID standard by a software upgrade. At the same time, we mitigate the potential for harmful interference into satellite operations by requiring earth stations with new modulators, or with existing modulators that can be made compliant through a software upgrade, to meet the DVB-CID standard by the current effective date of September 3, 2017.

Public Knowledge welcomes Katie Watson, Development Manager, to our team to support our telecommunications, copyright and internet policy advocacy efforts by leading fundraising initiatives and events. Prior to joining Public Knowledge, Watson was a Google Public Policy Fellow at New America’s Open Technology Institute and a Policy and Program Manager at Next Century Cities, where she assisted both urban and rural mayors with local broadband, digital inclusion, and civic technology initiatives. She received her B.A. from the University of Virginia, where she majored in both Foreign Affairs and Media Studies with a concentration in Media Policy and Ethics.
[Katie was previously an intern with the Benton Foundation].

The following Agenda item has been adopted by the Commission, and deleted from the list of items scheduled for consideration at the Thursday, August 3, 2017:

Implementation of Section 25.281(b) Transmitter Identification Requirements for Video Uplink Transmissions (IB Docket No. 12-267)
Summary: The Commission will consider a Memorandum Opinion and Order that waives the requirement that satellite news trucks, and other temporary-fixed satellite earth stations transmitting digital video, comply with the Digital Video Broadcasting-Carrier Identification (DVB-CID) standard if the earth station uses a modulator that cannot meet the DVB-CID standard through a software upgrade.

An enterprising farmer who wants to expand his steak and dairy business but can’t reach beyond his locality. A librarian who sleeps over nights and weekends so that students can come work on projects they’ve been given online. A disabled, bedridden young woman who desperately wants to be self-sufficient but has no access to online education. Two sisters who watch their father die before their eyes because they can’t get a signal to call 911.

These are some hundreds of stories ranging from vexing to heart-rending we heard when we joined Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission on a journey outside of the Washington bubble last week to rural Appalachia to discuss the problems their communities face with broadband access. There, in a high school auditorium in Marietta (OH) we bore witness to seemingly countless tales of frustration, anger, and desperation from residents and elected representatives alike, from seven counties in West Virginia and eleven counties in Ohio - sentiments directed both at service providers like Frontier and AT&T (or “nonproviders,” as one man referred to them) and the Washington lawmakers charged with overseeing them in the public interest.