Various industry groups and Globalstar met with FCC officials to discuss Globalstar’s proposed terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) and its potential effect on adjacent unlicensed operations in the 2.4 GHz band, a filing in docket 13-213 said. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, NCTA, Wi-Fi Alliance and Wireless Internet Service Providers Association attended the meeting. Some expressed concerns about potential interference to unlicensed operations, the filing said. “Globalstar’s representatives stated their view that TLPS will have little to no impact on these unlicensed operations, and noted that Globalstar is currently deploying TLPS on an experimental basis.”
The FCC Media Bureau extended by two weeks the deadlines for comments on its NPRM on expanding the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to include some streaming video services, it said in a public notice Tuesday. Comments are now due March 3, replies March 18, the notice said. The extension follows requests last week for a 30-day extension from NAB and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (see 1502060037). “Although the parties seek a 30-day extension, we believe that a two-week extension will give the public enough time to respond to the NPRM,” the PN said.
The FCC should scrutinize whether “claimed harms” of Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable are deal-specific, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told Hillary Burchuk of the FCC’s transaction review team and Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aide Maria Kirby in a meeting Wednesday, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Monday. The FCC should “rigorously” filter out non-transaction specific objections to the deal, “whatever their merits,” Comcast said. “The Commission should take into account the motives underlying opponents’ proposals and suggested conditions, because motives can inform credibility,” said Comcast. The FCC should not use a 25 Mbps download speed threshold “for purposes of analyzing the competitive effects of this Transaction,” said the cable ISP. The commission’s new definition of broadband is “not designed or intended to be a market definition but rather is a future-oriented and aspirational policy,” Comcast said.
The FCC “should hold fast” to protecting taxpayers from the misuse of rural broadband experiment funds by denying applications to ease the program’s letter of credit requirement (see 1501070042), filed by several applicants tentatively approved for funding, Free State Foundation’s Senior Fellow Seth Cooper wrote in a blog post Monday. The agency “has a paramount duty to protect consumers,” and “must not squander Universal Service Fund ‘surcharges’ imposed on consumers’ telephone bills,” Cooper wrote. “Like tax dollars, consumer surcharges must be used efficiently and not put at unnecessary risk.”
Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, representing SmartSky Networks, asked the commission to reiterate that the 14.0-14.5 GHz band won’t be the exclusive one for air-ground communications and won’t limit these services in other licensed or unlicensed bands, said an ex parte letter filed Friday. Qualcomm supported the use of the 14.0-14.5 GHz band for air-ground service to offer customers "an in-flight mobile broadband experience that is equivalent to what is available on the ground today," it said in a comment Thursday. Earlier, a group representing flight attendants raised safety concerns about the proposal (see 1502060034). “We have been -- and will continue -- to work with all relevant safety and security federal agencies to ensure that the risks of in-flight communications are carefully considered and addressed before moving forward," emailed an FCC spokesman.
Reclassifying small- and medium-sized cable companies under Title II in the FCC’s draft net neutrality order (see 1502040055) will “cause significant harm” to the broadband providers, ACA President Matthew Polka wrote in a blog post Monday. The organization continued to ask the agency to exclude smaller providers from the order. Reclassification would “impose unwarranted and onerous burdens on smaller ISPs, increasing their costs of doing business, increasing their customers' cost of receiving service, and inhibiting their ability to finance and deploy broadband,” Polka wrote. The agency told us it “carefully considered the needs of small business,” and it’s “another good reason that we’re applying a light-touch, Title II approach.”
CTIA made the case against treating mobile the same as fixed broadband under net neutrality rules, in its report on a meeting with aides to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. Consumers have more choices for mobile broadband and it's technically more difficult to provide, CTIA said in a filing in docket 14-28. “Wireless is different and the Commission was correct in 2010 in its decision not to subject mobile broadband to the same requirements as wireline broadband,” CTIA said. “Any additional rules that apply to wireless must take into account the unique competitive and technical attributes of wireless service and avoid impeding the differentiated offerings and choices mobile consumers enjoy today.”
FTC members unanimously approved a settlement with PaymentsMD and its former CEO Michael Hughes on a complaint “they misled thousands of consumers who signed up for an online billing portal by failing to adequately inform them that the company would seek highly detailed medical information from pharmacies, medical labs and insurance companies.” Announced in December, the settlements were finalized Friday, after the closure of a 30-day comment period. PaymentsMD and Hughes must now destroy information collected related to the Patient Health Report service and both are banned from deceiving consumers about how information is collected and used, including information that's shared with or collected from a third party. Also under the settlement, permission must be obtained from a consumer before health information can be collected from a third party.
An FCC proposal to establish an air-to-ground mobile broadband service over the contiguous U.S. troubles the Association of Flight Attendants, representatives told agency officials, said a filing posted Friday in docket 13-114. “These concerns are similar in nature to those expressed in reply comments to another Commission proposal, one that would lift a long-standing ban on using cellphones for voice and data on flights,” the group said. “Either proposal would greatly enhance communications capabilities for terrorists and increase cyberwarfare vulnerabilities, leading to unacceptable risks of successful attacks on the United States aviation system.”
The FCC should extend the comment deadlines for its proceeding on expanding the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to include some over-the-top video services, NAB said. Comments are due Feb. 17, replies March 4, but NAB wants comments due March 19, replies April 3. NAB “will need more than the currently allotted time” to analyze “a variety of complex public policy, legal and regulatory matters” connected with the proceeding, the association said Friday in docket 14-261.