Smithwick and Belendiuk asked the FCC to revisit aspects of its net neutrality order. In a petition for reconsideration in docket 14-28, the law firm said FCC net neutrality rules were "too narrow, and that its forbearance from key provisions of Title II (broadband reclassification) goes too far." The firm said the order banned paid prioritization but didn't address unpaid prioritization of Internet traffic. "The FCC leaves far too much to be decided on an individual case basis," the firm said, urging the FCC to ban all forms of preferential treatment, including so-called 'sponsored data" plans, such as T-Mobile's "Music Freedom." The agency should also require broadband providers to offer stand-alone, last-mile transmission to competitors, the firm said.
An FCC advisory group urged the agency to take action to educate consumers about the ongoing IP technology transitions, after that Intergovernmental Advisory Committee found consumers often lacked awareness of the changes or were being told they would lose their phone service. In an filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-5, the committee said the FCC should be "proactive" in educational efforts and require providers "to inform consumers of their options well before" actual transitions occur. The group is concerned that providers might use fiber upgrades to "upsell" consumers if bundled packages of services are offered as the only replacements for phone service. Residents may find that "they are suddenly getting and paying for services they do not need, do not want and certainly do not want to pay for," the group said, noting the possibility consumers could be locked into long-term contracts. The group said it worries the transitions could harm competitive LECs and their customers by cutting off their access to DSL/copper-based networks, and undermine the reliability of public-safety service such as 911 calling. It submitted various recommendations that the FCC step up consumer education and outreach efforts akin to those used during the DTV transition. Although Congress hadn't appropriated funds like it did for DTV, the group said the FCC should require providers to notify residential and business customers of the transitions through various means, including informing government agencies of their plans, posting information on websites, running public service announcements, and providing materials and templates for agencies to use in dealing with consumers.
A proposal for the FCC to no longer require radio broadcasters to disclose on-air some details of sponsorship identification was opposed by groups favoring such disclosure, show filings posted to docket 15-52 Tuesday and Wednesday. The Radio Broadcasters Coalition petitioned Nov. 26 for a class waiver of the sponsorship ID requirements, to provide information about sponsored material through less frequent on-air announcements with enhanced online disclosures (see 1503130051). Those opposed to the request raised issues of payola if such ID goes online. "Preventing structural payola is essential for promoting broadcast localism," said Common Cause, the Future of Music Coalition, Media Alliance, National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Prometheus Radio Project, United Church of Christ and a few other groups. "If this waiver were granted, large corporations could purchase airtime for songs advocating for their preferred social or political viewpoints" and "the vast majority of listeners would never know," they said. Common Cause and the Future of Music Coalition also made individual filings, as did musicians including David Lowery. It's "incorrect" that the waiver would promote payola, said the radio coalition that includes Beasley Broadcast, Cox Enterprises, Emmis, Entercom and iHeartMedia. "Rather than eviscerate protections against payola, the requested waiver would result in easier and more useful public access to information about sponsored music and sports programming," it said. "Restrictions on payola would remain in full force if the waiver request were granted and more information, not less, would be available to the consumer."
Various telecom and cable groups along with carriers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay key parts of the FCC net neutrality order, pending further review, or at least expedite consideration of their underlying legal challenges. In a joint motion Wednesday, the American Cable Association, AT&T, CenturyLink, CTIA, NCTA, USTelecom and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association asked the court to stay the order’s reclassification of broadband Internet access under Communications Act Title II and its Internet conduct standard. They asked the D.C. Circuit to act before June 12, the order’s effective date, and if the court couldn’t do that, they asked for an administrative stay. NCTA and USTelecom noted that they didn't seek a stay halting net neutrality rules that prohibit Internet blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. The petitioners said the FCC was asserting “unprecedented regulatory power over the Internet” in a “sharp about-face” that “arrogated to itself breathtaking authority over the most transformative technology in living memory.” By reclassifying broadband Internet access as a Title II telecom service, the FCC was subjecting broadband to a regime designed for railroads, not social networking and streaming video, they said. Petitioners said they were likely to succeed on the merits, arguing that broadband fit squarely under the 1996 Telecom Act’s “information service” definition that can’t be regulated as common carriage under Title II and that expressly includes a service “that provides access to the Internet.” Noting the 2005 Supreme Court Brand X ruling, the petitioners said, “[B]y classifying Internet access as exclusively a telecommunications service with no information service offering, the FCC has adopted a position that all nine Justices in Brand X rejected. And it has turned Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s analogy on its head. Where Justice Scalia saw the relevant offerings as making pizza (information service) and delivering it (telecommunications service), the FCC pretends the pizzeria offers only delivery, and does not make pizza at all.” The petitioners said Title II was “doubly unlawful” for wireless, given its statutory protections from common-carrier regulation. They said the FCC, “in its headlong rush to implement this regulatory sea change at the President’s urging -- committed a string of glow-in-the-dark APA [Administrative Procedure Act] violations, any one of which would suffice to invalidate the order.” Shifting to alleged harms, the petitioners said “public utility regulation” of the Internet would impose “immense burdens and costs” on petitioners and their members, inviting a “torrent of enforcement proceedings and litigation,” and forcing “providers to undertake costly reviews of countless business practices.” Without a stay, providers face many millions of dollars in unrecoverable losses,” making it in the public interest to block the broad regulatory regime before it takes effect, they said. The agency is confident the D.C. Circuit will deny the stay request, a spokeswoman emailed us. "The Open Internet Order provides clear and defensible rules of the road that will ensure enforceable protections for consumers and innovators online. Petitioners have not demonstrated that they will suffer irreparable injury if the order takes effect, and the public interest clearly favors allowing the Open Internet Order to take effect on schedule.”
T-Mobile said its proposal for wireless-friendly changes to FCC E-rate rules, made in a March petition for reconsideration, are “unopposed, supported by all commenters who addressed it, and should be granted without delay.” Among the changes T-Mobile sought was clarification of FCC guidance on how wireless local area network upfront costs are to be amortized for comparison to the yearly cost of mobile broadband service contracts. T-Mobile also asked the FCC to “seek comment on reasonable time periods for amortizing Wi-Fi networking equipment, given such equipment’s short useful life span, and provide a uniform and public template for cost-effectiveness comparisons” and to clarify mobile broadband isn't “necessarily duplicative” in cases where parts of the network lack sufficient Wi-Fi coverage and it's impossible or not cost-effective to construct a WLAN. “The record reveals no disagreement on the need to clarify the cost-effectiveness requirement for applicants seeking funding for mobile broadband solutions,” T-Mobile said in reply comments in docket 13-184. “The clarifications and reconsiderations that T-Mobile has requested are essential to ensuring that schools and libraries can continue to take advantage of the significant benefits of mobile broadband where it is cost-effective to do so.” CTIA filed in support of T-Mobile. “As the T-Mobile Petition correctly observes, the effective and efficient use of E-rate support requires a fair evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of services relative to one another,” the association said. “Schools and libraries participating in the E-rate program should be able to select mobile services when those services are the most cost-effective way to meet their connectivity needs.” The Competitive Carriers Association also said the E-rate program should support mobile solutions: "Rather than restraining the types of broadband services available to schools and libraries, the Commission should set objective performance requirements and benchmarks so that carriers -- both fixed and mobile -- can compete to provide E-rate services on a level playing field.” CCA said T-Mobile’s petition “offers common-sense clarifications that will improve the E-rate program and promote increased competition.”
Changes to the FCC’s E-rate program have worked, as evidenced by the level of interest being shown by schools and libraries, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Monday in a blog post. Changes to the USF program “will only have their intended impact if schools and libraries step up to take advantage of new opportunities,” he said. “Early indications are that they are up to the challenge.” Applications are in for E-rate funding for the coming school year and schools and libraries have asked for a total of $3.9 billion in support, including more than $1.6 billion for internal Wi-Fi networks, he said. “These requests reflect long pent-up demand,” he said. “It is the first time in three years that E-rate has had any funds available for Wi-Fi at all. In the past, many schools and libraries didn't bother to apply for Wi-Fi funding because they had no hope of getting funds. That is no longer a problem.”
The FTC and 27 members of the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, a group of privacy enforcement agencies around the world, are “marshaling resources to protect the privacy of children online,” a news release said Monday. “In this latest initiative, privacy experts from the FTC’s Office of Technology Research and Investigation will conduct an analysis of the privacy disclosures, interactive features, and information collection practices of children’s mobile apps,” the release said. “Staff expect to release a summary of their findings later this year,” it said.
The Wireless Communications Association and its members asked FCC officials to move forward on an NPRM addressing the licensing of unlicensed Educational Broadcast Service spectrum. WCA representatives shared with staff examples of rural areas that have no EBS licensees “and thus lack the 2.5 GHz band educational and commercial broadband services that operators are providing in areas where the EBS spectrum is fully licensed,” said a filing on the meeting in docket 13-213. Nextwave HoldCo, Sprint and ZTE were among the WCA members at the meeting, which included Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman.
The FCC needs to ensure that the Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee “results in solutions that enable robust competition among retail and operator-leased navigation devices,” said a letter Monday to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and the FCC staff on the DSTAC from several committee members and non-member companies and groups, including Amazon, CCIA, Free Press, Google and Public Knowledge. That comes after a letter sent by multichannel video programming distributors in April, which opposed Public Knowledge and TiVo's efforts on the committee. “Limiting the DSTAC’s scope to downloadable security alone, without reference to the committee’s broader mandate of furthering the competitive availability of navigation devices, would result in a walled-garden approach” that doesn't promote ”vigorous competition and innovation,” the new letter said. It responded to MVPD complaints that PK and TiVo are trying to make the group's product resemble CableCARD. “Congress recognized that the FCC and the private sector need to enhance functionality like that provided by CableCARD,” Monday’s letter said. “The DSTAC’s final recommendation should avoid moving backward, by ensuring the ability of retail navigation devices to offer differentiated and innovative user interfaces, search functions, and recording and cloud functionality.” The FCC should “focus not on specific services or commercial arrangements, but on the features and choices available to consumers,” the letter said.
Pandora told the FCC it will take several steps to comply with last week's foreign ownership declaratory ruling (see 1505040065 and 1505050049) requiring the streaming music company to say what it will do to monitor investments so foreign ownership doesn't exceed 49.9 percent. Pandora said it will seek to qualify its shares in a Depository Trust Co. program so foreign-owned stock goes into a segregated account, monitor stock held by current and former directors and officers, monitor SEC filings and ask some shareholders to fill out a citizenship questionnaire. The board "will promptly amend Pandora’s bylaws to give Pandora the authority" to monitor ownership, the company said Friday. It filed an amendment to its application to buy KXMZ(FM), Box Elder, South Dakota, a deal related to which Pandora sought the declaratory ruling. Many of the steps Pandora said it will take were suggested in the declaratory ruling.