Consumer Watchdog called AT&T’s proposed buy of DirecTV anti-competitive and anti-consumer, in a letter it sent Wednesday to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Attorney General Eric Holder. The deal would lead to “higher prices, less competition and an expansion of the notorious anti-consumer practices that DirecTV currently practices,” said the letter posted Thursday in FCC docket 14-90. Consumer Watchdog said AT&T has failed to show why the purchase is in the public's best interest, and if it's approved the company should be required to discontinue the improper practices and maintain its current rates for at least five years. Among the practices Consumer Watchdog called improper are a mandatory service term of 18 months to two years, charging early cancellation fees and deactivation fees to those customers who cancel early and charging the fees without notifying customers. The group asked the FCC to “ignore the lofty pronouncements of those who have a direct financial interest in the proposed merger and focus instead on the practical impact upon the companies’ customers and the average American family.”
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai expects relations at the agency to remain cordial following the big fight over net neutrality rules (see 1502260043), he said in a news conference after Thursday's FCC meeting. Pai said he tries to take the same approach every month. “I approach the item on the merits and I figure out is there some way for us to reach a consensus,” he said. “I certainly don’t see the well as being poisoned.” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, the FCC’s other Republican, said he looks forward to a continuing friendship with Chairman Tom Wheeler. But he said he's concerned about the stance the commission majority took on net neutrality. “Here, they not only asked us to violate our principles, they ran over our principles,” he said. O’Rielly predicted much of the FCC’s future focus will be on implementing the new rules. “I don’t hold out hopes we’re going to have many kumbaya moments going forward, but let’s hope that’s not the case,” he said.
The National Religious Broadcasters approved a resolution opposing "a power grab of the Internet" by the FCC, NRB said in an email Tuesday. NRB urged the commission to reject Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband. The commission's net neutrality and Title II plan will "send a poor signal to nations that have or are considering more state governance of the Internet," encouraging "repressive regimes that would like an international body like the International Telecommunications Union to have increased authority over the Internet," said the association.
The FCC’s expected approval Thursday of petitions seeking pre-emption of anti-municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee is likely to unleash a spate of additional pre-emption petitions from other municipalities seeking to build or expand networks, said Michael Santorelli, director of the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School, during a webinar Wednesday. Multiple petitions “have probably already been drafted” by municipalities that are waiting for the FCC to vote on the existing petitions, Santorelli said during the Digital Policy Institute event. The FCC has made clear that its draft order applies only to the specific petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and the city of Wilson, North Carolina, but it's likely to set a precedent for future petitions, he said. The FCC’s draft pre-emption order stands on very shaky legal ground and contains logic that also would allow state public utility regulators to pre-empt laws created by their own state legislatures, said Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak. The order is nearly certain to face challenges in federal courts and the Supreme Court, which could send the commission’s entire legal view of its Telecom Act Section 706 authority “crashing down,” he said. FCC pre-emption can sometimes be legally justifiable, particularly if it clears barriers to private sector entry into state markets, Spiwak said.
Allowing unlicensed operations to use the TV guard bands after the TV incentive auction, as proposed by the FCC, is a doubly bad idea, Brattle said in a report filed Wednesday and paid for by Qualcomm. The policy will be ineffective because operations in the guard bands won’t attract investment, Brattle said. “Their limited bandwidth makes the 600 MHz guard bands inferior to the unlicensed bands at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz for Wi-Fi-type applications, and the necessarily limited transmit power precludes use of 600 MHz unlicensed devices altogether for long-range applications such as rural broadband.” All use of the spectrum would yield is “Wi-Fi on tranquilizers,” the report said. The potential interference will also mean carriers are less likely to buy spectrum in the incentive auction, Brattle said. “Our analysis of an LTE network in a band similar to 600 MHz shows that a 5 percent loss of capacity due to interference from unlicensed operations in the guard bands will lower the value of the affected spectrum by 9 percent; a 20 percent loss of capacity will lower its value by 43 percent; and a 35 percent loss of capacity will eliminate most (93 percent) of its value.” Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at New America’s Open Technology Institute, told us he's not surprised by the report because Qualcomm has long opposed unlicensed use of TV spectrum, including the TV white spaces. "It simply reemphasizes our concern that Qualcomm is attempting to kill Wi-Fi in everything but the 2.4 GHz band," said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld.
A recent FCC order changing the definition of broadband from 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream to 25/3 Mbps ignores the big role played by wireless ISPs, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told the WISPAmerica 2015 conference in St. Louis Tuesday, according to a transcript of his remarks released Wednesday. “I’m sure it came as a shock to many providers that the high-quality broadband services that their consumers know and love no longer qualify as real broadband service,” he said. “One small provider I spoke with talked about how frustrating it is to predict just how far the FCC will move its broadband goal post from year to year.” O'Rielly dissented to the order changing the FCC’s definition of broadband, approved at last month’s FCC meeting (see 1501290043). O’Rielly said it was a more positive note that the FCC has made real progress on getting more spectrum in play. “But we cannot rest on our laurels, more needs to be done,” he said. The explosion in wireless data “will require additional spectrum resources” beyond what is in the pipeline, he said. “Locating, repurposing and clearing spectrum takes time, so a long-term strategy is needed.”
Getting the incentive auction structured correctly is more important than holding the auction as soon as possible, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said at an NAB State Leadership Conference Tuesday. Resolving questions about dynamic reserve pricing, interference, opening bid prices and repacking is “critical to any potential participation by broadcasters,” he said, according to prepared remarks. Eliminating reserved spectrum and limiting impaired markets will improve the forward auction and “ensure that we maximize revenues to compensate interested broadcasters,” he said. The commission should update the contest rule to let broadcasters post contest rules on a website, which makes rules more available in an Internet age, he said. Broadcasters have sought such changes (see 1502200035). Broadcasters also should be able to use the Internet to recruit more minority and female applicants, to comply with the commission’s equal employment opportunity rules, he said. Companies are forced to “duplicate their recruiting efforts using old-school methods like newspaper ads” because of 2001 estimates of Internet availability, he said. The commission should update its EEO rule to allow online dissemination of job vacancy information “combined with aggressive notification to candidate referral organizations,” he said. O'Rielly made a similar point in a blog last week (see 1502200054). The commission should adhere to updating media ownership rules every four years -- they haven’t been reviewed since 2006, he said. The commission repeals or modifies rules “no longer in the public interest due to increased competition,” he said. The 2010 quadrennial review wasn’t completed when the 2014 review started, he said. The industry is “saddled” with restrictions, including the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule, he said. O'Rielly encouraged commissioners to address consequential matters, not FCC staff. Documents should be posted in a transparent manner so the public is aware what issues are up for a vote, he said. He urged the commission to make all FCC items to be considered at open meetings public. Texts are circulated internally three weeks before meetings but “the public is left out of the loop,” he said. Some items are released by bureaus without notifying commissioners, he said. “Far from being a rare or isolated circumstance, commissioners must ‘vote on it before you can see what’s in it’ every single month.”
Windstream said it’s now offering managed Wi-Fi services to E-Rate-eligible public schools and libraries. The company said it created the E-rate-specific service “for those taking advantage” of expanded program funding included in the FCC E-rate modernization order. The commission adopted the order Dec. 11 (see 1412110049). The E-rate service “creates a secure and reliable network for K-12 schools and libraries as they adapt to the changing technology needs of today’s students,” said Windstream Enterprise Chief Marketing Officer Joseph Harding in a Monday news release. “Our expert E-Rate team has been in place since the program’s inception in 1997, helping our customers maximize funding and better understand the overall process.” Schools and libraries that want to get E-rate funding for the Windstream service need to file FCC Form 470 applications by Thursday and file Form 471 by March 26, Windstream said.
The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment by March 10, replies by March 17, on Funai’s petition for a waiver of over-the-air tuner requirements, the bureau said in a public notice Tuesday in docket 15-42. Funai seeks a waiver in order to make, distribute and sell in the U.S. its hard disk drive/digital video disk recorders that do not include analog tuners.
FCC Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel urged the FCC to move forward on rules opening 75 MHz of spectrum at 5850-5925 MHz for unlicensed use. Two years ago, then-Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled a proposal at CES to make the spectrum available for Wi-Fi, but the proposal met with heavy opposition from the auto industry. Automakers objected because the FCC allocated the same band for Dedicated Short Range Communications Service (DSRC) systems intended to improve roadway safety in 1999 (see 1305310095). “We support the safety initiatives associated with DSRC, but are mindful that mobile opportunities are multiplying in ways never contemplated when this spectrum was set aside in 1999,” the two said in a blog post Monday. They said driverless cars were the stuff of science fiction when DSRC was approved. “New technologies are coming to market that support features like automatic braking and lane change warnings that use radar and other technologies not dependent on DSRC,” they said. “We should not strand our spectrum strategies in turn-of-the-millennium safety technologies when there are may be other more efficient ways to reach these same goals.”