Reporting

For years, consumers have warred with telemarketers for ringing their landline phones at all hours of the day. Pretty soon, though, they might find their mobile voicemail under the same sort of assault — that is, if the Republican Party and others have their way.

The GOP’s leading campaign and fundraising arm, the Republican National Committee, has quietly thrown its support behind a proposal at the Federal Communications Commission that would pave the way for marketers to auto-dial consumers’ cellphones and leave them prerecorded voicemail messages — all without ever causing their devices to ring. Under current federal law, telemarketers and others, like political groups, aren’t allowed to launch robocall campaigns targeting cellphones unless they first obtain a consumer’s written consent. But businesses stress that it’s a different story when it comes to “ringless voicemail” — because it technically doesn’t qualify as a phone call in the first place. In their eyes, that means they shouldn’t need a customer or voter’s permission if they want to auto-dial mobile voicemail inboxes in bulk pre-made messages about a political candidate, product or cause. And they want the FCC to rule, once and for all, that they’re in the clear. Their argument, however, has drawn immense opposition from consumer advocates.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO and the Washington Post’s owner, is giving $1 million to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The gift, announced at the Freedom of the Press Awards Dinner, is the largest personal contribution in the RCFP’s history. “It’s an institution-changing gift for us,” said Bruce Brown, the RCFP’s executive director. “We’re always generating new ideas of what we could be doing to support and serve journalists, but financial constraints can get in the way—and this gift opens up the breadth of the work we could do.” In the past year, the RCFP has announced, among other gifts and grants, $300,000 from the Ford Foundation, $300,000 from the Heising-Simons Foundation, $150,000 from the Barr Foundation, $800,000 from the Democracy Fund, and $450,000 from the MacArthur Foundation. All of them came after the election of President Donald Trump, who has spent much of his time in office (and before that as a candidate) growling at the press. The Bezos gift will enable the RCFP to expand its efforts to help state and local journalists and news organizations, hard hit by the industry’s changing economics.

John Brennan, the former CIA director, described a nerve-fraying few months in 2016 as American authorities realized that the presidential election was under attack and feared that Donald Trump’s campaign might be aiding that fight. Brennan, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, said he was concerned by a series of suspicious contacts between Russian government officials and Trump’s associates.

The CIA learned about those meetings just as it was beginning to grapple with Russian hackers and propagandists trying to manipulate the presidential race. His remarks were the fullest public account to date of the origins of an FBI investigation that continues to shadow the Trump administration. “I know what the Russians try to do,” Brennan said. “They try to suborn individuals and try to get individuals, including US individuals, to act on their behalf, wittingly or unwittingly.” When he left his post in January, he said, “I had unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting US persons involved in the campaign or not to work on their behalf.”

The Federal Communications Commission will not be penalizing “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert after thousands of complaints flooded the government organization. After reviewing the complaints, the FCC “concluded that there was nothing actionable under the FCC’s rules.” Late night shows are given more leeway in what they can joke about, making the fear of being fined by the FCC for indecency more remote.

Absolutely not announced but I'm sure they made the go decision. Recent actions have made clear Verizon is going forward to 30-50 million homes, probably 2019-2022. This will require 100,000's of thousand of small cells and possibly over a million. Verizon wants the best network in America, probably unmatched in any other part of the world as well. Senior executives have made a dozen statements pointing the way. Verizon is a world leader in 5G research, with eleven cities mostly installed and about to go live. (Fixed only, upgrading to mobile as soon as it is ready ?2020-2021.) The technology has improved so much in the last year the engineers are confident. The cost is coming in lower than expected. Verizon can expect some crucial marketing and lobbying advantages. Everything has come together to make this the logical move for Verizon.

The third stage of the Federal Communications Commission's broadcast incentive spectrum auction closed Dec 1 after 52 rounds, with the broadcasters' new asking price now $40,313,164,425 for 108 MHz of spectrum. That is less than half of the broadcasters' original asking price, though that was for more spectrum. The FCC has said stage three of the forward auction is likely to begin Dec. 5, with all eyes on whether those bidders—wireless companies and others—will beat, meet, or at least approach that total. Beating or meeting it means the auction can close and the FCC can start the process of repacking TV stations into the smaller space, at least after there is a second mini-auction to allocate specific frequencies to the winning bidders.