FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has a decidedly different leadership style than former Chairman Julius Genachowski, representatives from public interest groups said in interviews. After a meeting with the public interest community Tuesday, it became clear that Wheeler is more likely to take strong positions than his predecessor, and more likely to reach out to a diverse group of voices, some attendees said. The true test of Wheeler’s inclusive rhetoric will come when he faces a truly politically divisive issue, they said.
More than two-thirds of respondents to a Do Not Track working group survey voted not to define the term “tracking.” While there was minimal support for two options, a robust majority expressed objections to both (http://bit.ly/1hXS2TF). There was also little support for a definition of “party” in a separate poll (http://bit.ly/1hXVlKg). Just over half of respondents to that poll opted not to define “party,” and nearly three-quarters objected to the definition receiving the most support. Both surveys closed Wednesday night.
The White House waded into one of the biggest issues facing the FCC and Chairman Tom Wheeler as it finalizes rules for the incentive TV auction -- whether the FCC should impose restrictions limiting bidding by Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Tom Power, deputy chief technology officer for telecommunications, said the whole administration supports a controversial April filing at the commission on spectrum aggregation and competition (CD April 15 p7) by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. But Power also indicated that the White House wasn’t trying to tell the FCC what to do. Power spoke at a forum sponsored by the New America Foundation.
Make National Security Agency transparency a part of the National Defense Authorization Act (S-1197), Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., urged Wednesday night on the Senate floor. These two Intelligence Committee members filed an amendment to the bill with another Senate Intelligence member, Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., to compel the government to answer questions about surveillance activities (CD Nov 21 p10).
Pennsylvania residents could see major changes to their wireline services in the state if the Legislature votes for a bill that would eliminate carrier of last resort obligations (COLR) for local exchange carriers in competitive areas and limit the USF, said industry, two Pennsylvania Public Utility commissioners, the state’s consumer advocate and other interested parties at a House Consumer Affairs Committee hearing Thursday. House Bill 1608, sponsored by Rep. Warren Kampf (R), would remove the PUC’s oversight of ILECs, and it would allows ILECs to self-declare whole exchanges as competitive. The bill would end the state’s USF on Jan. 1, 2019, and prevent the PUC from raising the amount of money contributed to the fund each year.
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) approved and released Thursday a report that said cybersecurity is better served by “a set of processes that continuously couple information about an evolving threat to defensive reactions and responses” rather than by instituting “a collection of static precautions.” PCAST had expected to present the report in October, but it was delayed because of the government shutdown. PCAST has previously examined cybersecurity issues through classified reports, but “there are many aspects of cybersecurity that we felt are very important to present to a larger community and are in no way classified,” said PCAST Vice Chair William Press, who co-wrote the report with Craig Mundie, a senior adviser to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. A full version of the report was not available Thursday.
The top FirstNet official defended the progress the public national network team has made despite doubts and uncertainty. Sam Ginn became FirstNet board chairman in August 2012 and acknowledged the many challenges since then, speaking Thursday before the House Communications Subcommittee. Money is a constant consideration, as is outreach, Ginn said, cautioning that expectations can’t always be met.
DENVER -- The three-judge panel that heard an FCC USF case left attorneys impressed with its preparation for the oral argument, the attorneys said in interviews afterward. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday heard a challenge of the FCC 2011 Connect America Fund order, which revamped the rules of the $4.5 billion-a-year fund and set intercarrier compensation on a path toward bill-and-keep (CD Nov 20 p2). “They were engaged,” said Stinson Morrison attorney Harvey Reiter, who argued that the revamp of the USF and intercarrier compensation rules unlawfully hurt his rural CLEC clients. “They followed everything. I was amazed that they could jump from one issue to another. I think the court was pretty active.” But another attorney predicted a possible Supreme Court challenge if the 10th Circuit follows an irrelevant “tangent” in upholding the intercarrier compensation rules.
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., plans to cite what he sees as struggles with FirstNet Thursday. His opening statement on a FirstNet hearing will cite the uncertainty that existed when the subcommittee reviewed FirstNet in March. “Unfortunately, rather than seeing those concerns wane as FirstNet has gained its footing, FirstNet finds itself embroiled in allegations from within that it lacks transparency and suffers from potential ethical conflicts,” Walden will say. “As a result, FirstNet is currently under investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce. Suffice it to say, this is not a confidence inspiring development.”
The House Judiciary Committee marked up the Innovation Act Wednesday, with votes on many amendments falling largely on party lines. Ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Intellectual Property Subcommittee ranking member Melvin Watt, D-N.C., as expected (CD Nov 20 p16), led opposition to HR-3309, which continued to be marked up Wednesday night. Conyers said the bill “overreacts” to real problems caused by abusive patent litigation and “would severely undermine the role of our federal judiciary in general and innovation in particular.”