The FCC asked Dish Network for programming agreements for its Sling TV service, as part of the review of the Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, said a letter filed in docket 14-57. The FCC is looking for agreements and any documents related to programming negotiations between Dish and A+E, CBS, Comcast, ABC, E.W. Scripps and Turner Broadcasting, the letter said. Dish has until Jan. 23 to submit the material.
The Department of Justice partnered with Microsoft's Bing to broaden the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Amber Alert system's reach, DOJ said in a news release Tuesday. Facebook users will begin to see targeted Amber Alerts in their News Feeds, the company said earlier Tuesday (see 1501130030). DOJ said Bing will let users access alerts through its online tools.
Overlaps among Charter Communications', Comcast's and Time Warner Cable's service areas are “de minimis” even if the calculation is made using all the homes to which each company could extend service within 7-10 days, the companies told members of the FCC's Comcast/TWC transaction review team in a meeting last week, an ex parte filing said. “In over 99.9 percent of areas served by the companies, there is not even a potential overlap between any of the Applicants,” the filing said. “Except in rare instances,” the companies said, they also don't offer broadband services to residential or small- and medium-size business customers in each other’s areas.
Edge companies’ stocks are “as vulnerable to being devalued by the FCC’s move to Title II” in a net neutrality order as broadband providers’ stocks, wrote Anna-Maria Kovacs, visiting senior policy scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Business and Public Policy, in a paper released Tuesday. “As the FCC engages in its Procrustean task of trying to fit [broadband Internet access providers] into Title II, it is unlikely to be able to keep the knife away from content delivery networks (CDNs), peering and transit providers, and providers of VOIP, texting, tweeting, social media, and content,” Kovacs wrote. “These entities, by equally arbitrary means, could also be sliced and diced into something they never intended to be. All parts of the Internet ecosystem are at risk of being forced to deconstruct their service offerings. ... No one will be safe.” Kovacs urged Congress to step in.
The FCC shouldn't reclassify small- and medium-sized broadband providers under Communications Act Title II, but if it decides to adopt that approach, it should forbear from applying all common-carrier rules to smaller ISPs, the American Cable Association said in comments posted Tuesday in docket 14-28. “Smaller ISPs do not have the incentive or ability to engage in unreasonable or discriminatory practices, much less anticompetitive acts, which harm consumers and edge providers,” ACA said. The FCC “does not have the legal authority” to reclassify, ACA said, because it can't provide a “reasoned basis for the change.” NCTA and Comcast have made the same argument, and observers expect it to be a key part of any court appeal of Title II net neutrality rules (see [Ref:1412310041]). “The courts have made clear that the Commission may not impose Title II regulation based simply on its notions of good policy,” ACA also argued. An entity is a common carrier under the Communications Act, in part, if it "holds itself out to serve indifferently all potential users,” ACA said. ISPs are not “'holding themselves out’ as common carrier providers of pure transmission service,” ACA said. Under a Title II approach, “immediate and blanket forbearance would mitigate many of the potential and significant harms” of reclassification, ACA said. Without Title II regulations, “smaller ISPs have delivered innovative, high-performance broadband Internet access service at competitive rates to consumers,” ACA said. It said Title II regulations “are demonstrably, if not inherently, unnecessary to protect competition, consumers, or the public interest.” ACA, NCTA and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association also asked the commission in a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler on Friday to hold an en banc hearing “to examine the significant economic impact” of net neutrality rules on small broadband providers. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires the agency as part of rulemaking to examine the regulatory burdens on small businesses of new rules, as well as alternatives available for small businesses to comply, the groups wrote. The FCC is reviewing the letter, an agency spokeswoman said.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's visit last week to CES led her to conclude that diversity in the tech world is improving, but more needs to be done, she said Tuesday in a blog post. “As I tried to cover the more than 2.2 million net square feet of exhibit space, I could not help but notice that there seemed to be more people of color on the floor and presenting at the exhibits than in prior years,” she said. “While notable, there is clearly more that can and should be done.” Clyburn cited reports that African-American women in the tech industry receive less than 1 percent of venture capital funds available each year. The wireless everywhere world in display at CES also points to the need for the FCC to restructure its voice-only Lifeline adoption program to also support broadband, she said. “News flash: The technology to enable the ‘Internet of Everything’ is not two or three years away,” Clyburn wrote. “It is here today, but as regulators, we must never forget that all consumers must have access to broadband in order for that [sic] virtuous reality exists when everyone benefits.”
Recent FCC information requests to third-party companies connected with the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction review (see 1501050043) undermine the agency's arguments for releasing video programming contract information (VPCI), said programmers in a response brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in their challenge against the agency. The request asked companies such as Netflix for summaries of pricing information and contract terms. “Having concluded both that the summarization of specific contract terms is 'workable' and that it provides an adequate and appropriate basis for the Commission to evaluate contract data, the FCC is ill positioned to assert that it must release hundreds of thousands of pages of VPCI to third parties,” said the programmers, which include Disney, 21st Century Fox and Viacom. The FCC hasn't refuted the content companies' arguments that requiring the release of the contract information was a departure from its usual process, the programmers said. Though the FCC has said that not including the VPCI in the record would leave its deal review decision vulnerable to court challenge, the content companies disagree. D.C. Circuit precedent doesn't require the FCC to “dump hundreds of thousands of pages of highly confidential documents in the record and wait for third parties to determine what is relevant,” the programmers said. “The FCC is well aware of the issues raised by the merger parties’ competitors, and there is no disagreement that the FCC is capable of examining the VPCI itself.”
The FCC restarted the “shot clock” for the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction, a spokeswoman for the Media Bureau told us. The clock was stopped Dec. 22 (see 1412220062) because TWC hadn't submitted all of the information requested by the commission, said a letter sent to TWC. Though the bureau wouldn't comment on whether TWC had since completed its submission, an attorney involved in the deal told us it has done so. With all the information requests to the merging companies complete, the FCC will now focus on analyzing the data, the attorney said. Information requests from the FCC to DirecTV, Netflix and several other companies for information related to the deal are outstanding (see 1501050043).
Bright House Networks has “historically” relied on Time Warner Cable “to supply external connections that are critical to BHN's successful provision of lnternet service,” BHN CEO Steven Miron told members of the FCC's Comcast/TWC transaction review team in a Dec. 16 presentation, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Monday. It clarified a previous ex parte filing that described BHN as having “access” to TWC's "national Internet backbone," Monday's filing said. “All external transit and peering arrangements for BHN are currently handled by TWC.” TWC also negotiates those on BHN's behalf, the filing said.
Zero rating narrows, rather than widens, the digital divide, Daniel Lyons, associate professor at Boston College Law School, said Monday on the American Enterprise Institute's tech blog. Lyons said offerings by Sprint and T-Mobile of zero-rated services are helpful rather than harmful to competition. The zero-rating question is seen as one of the toughest facing the FCC as it moves forward on net neutrality rules (see 1411140046). “Sprint and T-Mobile lack the scale and spectrum holdings they would need to compete head-on with Verizon and AT&T. Instead, each is introducing a differentiated product to appeal to customers who are not satisfied with traditional wireless broadband plans,” Lyons wrote. “Sprint’s social media plans target cost-conscious customers who want to access Facebook or Twitter on-the-go, but who are unwilling or unable to pay for full mobile Internet access. Similarly, T-Mobile’s streaming audio bundle appeals to heavy music consumers who would otherwise have to purchase larger data bundles or forego [sic] mobile music altogether on the larger carriers’ plans.”