NTIA and the Patent and Trademark Office will hold a meeting on online licensing for copyrighted works April 1, said a Federal Register notice set for Friday publication. The meeting will focus “specifically on how the Government can assist in facilitating the development and use of standard identifiers for all types of works of authorship, interoperability among databases and systems used to identify owners of rights and terms of use, and a possible portal for linking to such databases and to licensing platforms,” it said. The meeting will be held at the PTO office in Alexandria, Virginia.
Charter Communications "has never prevented customers from attaching their own modems to Charter's network," it said in an ex parte notice Feb. 26 in FCC docket 14-57. A Charter spokesman noted that Charter addressed Zoom Telephonics' issues in the ex parte notice. Charter restricted subscribers from attaching customer-owned modems for more than two years with rules for certification of cable modems, Zoom said (see 1503100030). This statement is incorrect and based on an erroneous FAQ page on Charter's website and "was never Charter's policy," Charter said in the filing. Charter customers used third-party modems during this time, it said. Several third-party modems were "inhibiting signal delivery and preventing customers from obtaining advertised speeds," so Charter had a right to restrict the attachment of devices that could harm its network, it said. Charter's standards "are necessary to protect Charter's network and ensure a positive customer experience," it said.
Globalstar’s proposed authenticated Wi-Fi terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) wouldn’t interfere with neighboring Wi-Fi networks at 2.4 GHz and could relieve congestion, Guggenheim Securities analyst Paul Gallant said in a note Wednesday. Globalstar released results of its TLPS demonstration at the FCC Technology Experience Center on March 6 and 9. The test was conducted by test lab AT4 Wireless, venture fund Jarvinian Ventures and technology consultant Roberson & Associates, Globalstar said. “American consumers will benefit significantly from the provision of TLPS across 22 megahertz of additional broadband spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band,” it said in an ex parte notice posted Wednesday in docket 13-213. TLPS works well with Wi-Fi operations on IEEE 802.11 channel 11 and Bluetooth device operations in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical band at 2400 to 2483.5 MHz, it said. Globalstar will likely win FCC approval in the first half of 2015, Gallant said. The commission asked for a technical demonstration at a Feb. 6 roundtable to address engineering concerns, and Globalstar, Bluetooth, NCTA and the Wi-Fi Alliance developed joint test plans at the commission on March 6 and 9, he said. Opponents of the system might file their own analysis of the tests, he said. The TLPS test created “meaningful improvement in existing Wi-Fi,” including a 40 percent increase in overall throughput when Wi-Fi traffic is spread across TLPS, Gallant said. “Greater congestion relief is likely in a noisier, real-world environment with many Wi-Fi access points contending for Wi-Fi channels.” Gerst Capital filed an opposition comment, questioning if any device operating on Wi-Fi Channel 14 was subject to Part 15.247 testing, to measure emissions limits at 2495 MHz instead of 2483.5 MHz. Deploying an inferior legacy standard isn't a viable option for TLPS, said manager of Gerst Capital Greg Gerst in his comment. "Publically available data refutes many key statements that Globalstar has made," said Gerst, who has an engineering background. He found discrepancies in Globalstar's tests. "I suspect there's something wrong in their test setup. They’re salesmen. All the so-called testing they’ve done is superficial at best, dubious at worst."
Gogo urged the FCC to hold an auction for air-to-ground mobile broadband service (AGMBS) spectrum, since the in-flight Wi-Fi provider needs additional spectrum capacity, said an ex parte notice posted Tuesday in docket 13-114. Gogo representatives met with Public Safety Bureau officials March 4 to discuss the proposed 14 GHz AGMBS, it said. Bureau and Gogo officials also discussed the company's efforts to accommodate flight safety, national security and law enforcement concerns that executive branch agencies had with its existing ATG service (see 1502120054). Gogo is willing to satisfy the conditions that the FBI requested be imposed for any AGMBS licensees, it said. In-flight broadband increases flight safety for passengers and crew members, Gogo said. Almost 50 airlines worldwide have introduced or will begin offering in-flight service with terrestrial or satellite systems, it said. A draft FCC order on ATG was taken off circulation, agency officials have said.
AT&T is ready to take the FCC to court if necessary over its net neutrality rules, Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in the cover letter to the company’s annual report, released Tuesday. “Key policymakers in the administration and at the FCC are now going well beyond any previous concept of net neutrality.” The FCC has reclassified broadband as a Communications Act Title II service under rules “written in 1934 to regulate the rotary dial telephone,” he said. “We feel this antiquated approach will damage investment and damage the Internet itself.” AT&T will “aggressively make the case to policymakers -- and, if necessary, to the courts -- that the FCC’s proposed Title II regulation of the entire Internet is at best a solution in search of a problem and at worst a threat to the United States’ continued global leadership in technology and innovation,” he said.
The FCC should ensure that Charter Communications’ customers are able to purchase and attach their own modems, Zoom Telephonics said in an ex parte notice posted Monday in docket 14-57 on Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable and divestiture of some assets to Charter. Charter restricted subscribers from attaching customer-owned modems for more than two years with “unclear and in some cases overreaching” rules for certification of cable modems, Zoom said. One modem, without Wi-Fi capability, passed Charter’s new certification process, it said. Zoom and other manufacturers should be able to supply modems to Charter customers, it said. Charter also doesn’t state the monthly charge for cable modems that it supplies to customers, Zoom said. The commission should make Charter state its unsubsidized price for leasing cable modems, it said.
Dish Network filings claiming to have uncovered “new evidence” that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are competitors doesn’t live up to its billing, Comcast said in a reply filing in docket 14-57 Monday. Dish had claimed that confidential documents submitted by Comcast showed that the cable giant had examined starting its own out-of-footprint over-the-top (OTT) service that would have been in competition with TWC’s video customers. Those claims “founder on the rocks of logic and fact,” Comcast said. The internal documents that Dish mentions confirm that “while Comcast has reviewed the prospects of offering an OTT product, Comcast has consistently rejected its business viability and has concluded not to offer such a product,” Comcast said. “Consequently, there is no actual or potential horizontal competition between Comcast and TWC.” Even if Comcast or TWC were considering entering the OTT business, it wouldn’t necessarily put the two in competition with each other, Comcast said. “Given the proliferation of actual OVD [Online Video Distributor] competitors and potential OVDs, it is impossible to conclude that Comcast or TWC could be a uniquely important OTT competitor out of footprint,” Comcast said. The documents highlighted by Dish “only reinforce some of Applicants’ core public interest rationales for the transaction," Comcast said.
FCC staff shouldn't be allowed to have the "editorial privilege" of making substantive changes to an item after it’s approved by the commission, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly wrote in a blog post Monday. O'Rielly raised objections to the granting of editorial privileges for the net neutrality order. Based on the name, editorial privileges may sound like they’d be limited to “non-substantive edits, such as correcting typos and updating cross-references in footnotes,” O’Rielly wrote, similar to technical and conforming edits in Congress. At the FCC, staff members “often do much more substantial editing, including adding substantive and significant rebuttals to Commissioners’ dissents and providing sometimes lengthy responses to ex parte arguments that had not been incorporated into the draft prior to the vote,” O’Rielly said. Such substantive changes should not “be made under the guise of 'editorial privileges,'” he wrote. “At times, changes seem intended solely to take further pot shots at dissenting Commissioners.” In the rare cases that substantive changes are needed, they should be approved by the commissioners who voted for the item, O’Rielly wrote. He criticized the agency practice in which dissenting commissioners are not asked about subsequent changes. “If the item is not fully baked in time for the vote, then the Commission should simply delay the vote by a month or two,” O’Rielly wrote.
Because the FCC was closed Thursday due to snow, all filings do that date were due Friday instead, the FCC said Friday in a public notice. It said Thursday “does not count in computing filing periods of fewer than seven days because it was a Commission holiday under rule 1.4(g).”
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory objected to iRobot’s pursuit of a waiver of FCC rules to allow outdoor use of robotic lawn mowers (RLMs) and their control beacons in the 6240-6740 MHz band. The observatory said 5925–6700 MHz is generally protected and iRobot’s commitment to label its RLMs as for “Consumer use only; use must be limited to residential areas,” won't offer adequate protection. The band is protected to allow “interference-free observation of the 6.66852 GHz spectral line of methanol (CH3OH) that is abundant in star-forming regions and serves as a galactic beacon of star-forming activity owing to its maser-like qualities,” the observatory said. This lets astronomers “do a kind of celestial cartography that measures distances to star-forming regions with high precision, charting the course of galactic evolution,” it said. The filing was posted Friday in docket 15-30.