Ars Technica

Beginning December 1, the US surveillance state will expand—all without a congressional vote. Earlier in 2016, a new Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure was amended after three years of study by an unelected advisory committee. It was signed by the US Supreme Court and allows judges to sign warrants to allow the authorities to hack into computers outside a judge's jurisdiction. Rule 41 also grants judges the power to use one warrant to search multiple computers anywhere instead of requiring warrants for each computer.

Absent the rule, federal judges may only authorize electronic searches within their own judicial district. While this may seem bureaucratic or like a technicality, in practice the new rule will have a big impact on investigating cybercrime, according to the Justice Department. Evidence has been suppressed in some child pornography prosecutions because a Virginia magistrate allowed the FBI to seize and operate the Tor-hidden site Playpen for 13 days. Investigators also deployed malware that disrupted Tor's privacy protections and revealed more than 1,000 true IP addresses, which led to 137 prosecutions nationwide. In a few of those prosecutions, judges tossed cases because of the jurisdiction rule that Rule 41 now cures.

The Federal Communications Commission has deleted every major item from the agenda of its Nov 2016 meeting, apparently submitting to a request from GOP leaders to halt major rulemakings until President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated as President. Republicans from the House and Senate sent letters to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Nov 15 urging him to stand down in his final months as FCC Chairman. The GOP pointed out that the FCC halted major rulemakings eight years ago after the election of Barack Obama when prompted by a similar request by Democratic lawmaekrs. Chairman Wheeler's office hadn't said whether it will comply with the request, but Nov 16 it announced the deletion of all items that were originally scheduled to be presented and voted on at Nov 17's meeting.

The FCC said the items "remain on circulation," which means they can still be voted on, but a vote doesn't appear likely. Before the change, the agenda included votes on price caps for “special access” business data services; Universal Service funding to expand mobile broadband networks; wireless roaming obligations; and requirements for audio description of TV programming for blind and visually impaired people. The only item not deleted from Nov 17's meeting is part of the "consent agenda," which means it is routine and wasn't going to be presented individually.

Verizon could soon be making its presence known nearby with beacon-like smart hubs. The company announced it has acquired the NYC-based startup LQD WiFi, which makes a kiosk system called Palo that delivers free Wi-Fi, community and location information, and emergency alerts to city dwellers.

Palo renderings appear similar to the Link NYC kiosks that are slowly infiltrating the five boroughs to provide similar kinds of information to New York City residents. Both Palo and Link NYC have established roots. LQD WiFi's founder and CEO Randy Ramusack worked at Microsoft Switzerland and Microsoft UK before starting the company, and Link NYC came out of the Intersection project of Google’s Sidewalk Labs. Palo appears to differ slightly from Link NYC in its design. Link NYC kiosks have a tablet installed on one side where users can search for the information they need. Palo kiosks, on the other hand, have 46-inch LCD touchscreens with interactive transit maps, real-time schedules, public safety information, and more.

Comcast has decided to stop enforcing data caps and overage fees in Maine and signaled that states in the company's northeast region will remain cap-free, at least for now. But for Comcast customers in other states, don't get your hopes up that data caps will disappear. Comcast dramatically expanded the caps on November 1 and will continue to apply the data limits and overage fees in 27 states out of the 39 states Comcast operates in. Comcast says that eliminating data caps in Maine is only about bringing the state in line with company policy elsewhere in the Northeast. A Comcast FAQ says that the data cap in Maine is being suspended effective December 1. If Comcast really wanted a consistent policy it could eliminate data caps nationwide (or enforce the caps nationwide), but Comcast's data cap policies have been anything but consistent.

Tom Wheeler’s time as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is nearing an end now that Republican Donald Trump has won the presidency. You can expect Chairman Wheeler to step down from his chairmanship on or before January 20, when President-elect Trump is inaugurated. It’s customary for the chair to step down when the White House shifts to the opposing party. All five FCC commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the US Senate, with the president’s party having a one-vote majority. (The president usually appoints minority party commissioners based on recommendations made by minority party lawmakers.) President-elect Trump can’t force Chairman Wheeler, a Democrat, to leave the commission entirely before his term expires, but the president can designate a new chairperson. “The president decides who is the chair, so Wheeler will certainly no longer be chair on the first day of the administration,” said Harold Feld, senior VP of advocacy group Public Knowledge.

Chairman Wheeler's FCC passed a number of controversial changes, none bigger than the reclassification of broadband providers as common carriers and imposition of net neutrality rules. If Democrat Hillary Clinton had won the election, Chairman Wheeler would still likely step down sometime in 2017, but he could push through some more rule changes without fearing that they would be quickly undone. With Republicans about to take over, any last-minute votes are in danger of being overturned. Chairman Wheeler’s attempt to save customers money by reforming the cable TV set-top box market may therefore be dead.

Once again, a Federal Communications Commission attempt to lower the price inmates pay for phone calls has been blocked in court. A ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a petition for a stay filed by Securus Technologies. This puts a halt to rate caps on inmate calling services that were implemented in August.

“Petitioners have satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” judges wrote.

The FCC has repeatedly been stymied in attempts to lower the rates inmates pay for phone calls to family, friends, and lawyers. After a March 2016 federal appeals court ruling stayed new rate caps of 11¢ to 22¢ per minute on both interstate and intrastate calls from prisons, the FCC proposed new caps of 13¢ to 31¢ per minute in an attempt to satisfy the court. Those new caps were halted in the latest ruling.

Before Charter purchased Time Warner Cable (TWC) in May of 2016, the company promised New York state regulators that it would bring broadband to 145,000 unserved and underserved homes and businesses by 2020. The condition helped Charter win government approval of the merger. Christian Babcock of Schuylerville (NY) is one of the state’s unserved residents, but he has no idea if his home will be included in the required buildout to 145,000 locations.

Before the merger, TWC told Babcock he’d have to pay thousands of dollars up front to subsidize construction needed to serve his home. Even now, the Charter-owned TWC is demanding more than $9,000 in exchange for service. That's the price to cover Charter's construction; Babcock would have to pay that plus the usual monthly service fees. Making the situation even more frustrating, Charter wouldn’t have to extend the TWC network very far to reach the house owned by Babcock and his wife. One nearby house has Charter service already, Babcock says. But even just getting an accurate explanation of the costs has been a hassle.

The Federal Communications Commission has given a helping hand to Louisville (KY) in the city's attempt to enforce local rules that would make it easier for Google Fiber to compete against AT&T. AT&T sued the local government in Louisville and Jefferson County in February to stop a One Touch Make Ready (OTMR) ordinance designed to give Google Fiber or other new competitors faster access to utility poles.

Oct 31, the US government submitted a statement of interest on behalf of the FCC, which says that one of AT&T’s primary legal arguments is incorrect. AT&T—also known as BellSouth Telecommunications in Kentucky—argued that the Louisville ordinance is preempted by the FCC’s pole-attachment rules. The local ordinance "conflicts with the procedures created by the FCC, and upsets the careful balances struck by the FCC in crafting its pole attachment regulations," AT&T's lawsuit said. But that is false, the FCC says. The FCC does have rules ensuring reasonable access to utility poles, but states are allowed to opt out of the federal pole-attachment rules if they certify to the commission that they regulate the rates, terms, and conditions of pole attachments. Kentucky is one of 20 states that has opted out of the federal regime and imposed its own rules, the FCC noted. “Accordingly, the federal pole-attachment regulations enacted under Section 224 [of the Communications Act] simply do not apply here,” the FCC wrote. More generally, One Touch Make Ready rules are consistent with federal communications policies and regulations that seek expanded broadband deployment, the FCC also wrote.

[Commentary] My take is that there was one fundamental flaw going into this, one that’s probably still floating around: Google believed they could revolutionize the laying of fiber. They didn’t just think they could offer a kickass service, they thought they could deploy much cheaper and much faster than anybody else had ever done. That’s fully in line with the Google mindset, but unfortunately it ignores the fact that hundreds of company had been deploying wireline access infrastructure for years by the time Google Fiber decided to give it a go.

I’d suggest we’re now seeing the windfall from that misguided assumption: Google is finally admitting (in a roundabout way) that despite all the clever people they have on hand, they haven’t revolutionized fiber deployment. It still takes time to do the planning properly, to work with local authorities effectively, to do the outside plant layout efficiently. Did Google manage to do things cheaper than others did ? Probably, but not by a wide margin. And as they decided to scale beyond Kansas City, they realized that the efficiencies they might have been able to find in KC didn’t scale well elsewhere because a lot of those things are down to local specificities and relationships.

[Benoit Felten is a Chief Research Officer at Diffraction Analysis]

Some news organizations have reported that Time Warner has only one Federal Communications Commission license, for a TV station in Atlanta, and that the AT&T/Time Warner merger wouldn't be reviewed by the FCC if Time Warner sells that TV station to a third party. That is not correct, however.

Time Warner programmers such as HBO, CNN, and Turner Broadcasting System also have dozens of FCC licenses that let them upload video to satellites used by pay-TV companies. These licenses are crucial for distributing video to cable TV providers. It isn't only satellite TV companies like Dish or the AT&T-owned DirecTV that use satellites to send programmers' video to consumers' homes—even cable companies like Comcast use what's called a "headend in the sky" to receive and distribute video. The FCC's list of active satellite Earth station licenses shows that CNN America has 36 such licenses covering operations at specific locations. HBO and HBO Latin America have a combined seven licenses, and Turner Broadcasting System has 14 licenses. That's 57 licenses that could trigger an FCC review. Licenses for some of the same locations were part of the FCC's review of Time Warner's merger with AOL in 2001. AT&T would love to avoid an FCC review, which in the past has killed deals such as AT&T/T-Mobile and Comcast/Time Warner Cable.