Mobile really is different and shouldn't be subject to the same net neutrality rules as fixed networks, said 4G Americas President Chris Pearson in a Friday letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Mobile operators face continuously changing environments in their cell sectors, with constant challenges to maximize the experience for the majority of users in a given sector,” Pearson said. “All the spectrum below 100 GHz does not amount to the capacity of a single Terabit fiber optic cable.” The success of wireless is tied to “effective and dynamic bandwidth management,” Pearson said. “If policymakers want wireless to be a competitor to wireline broadband, they need to allow wireless operators the flexibility required to manage their networks.” The FCC’s proposed rules are much more complex and demanding than the 2010 rules, he said. Carriers could meet the transparency requirements of that order with a single disclosure, he said. The proposed rules would require “tailored disclosures (i) for end-users to make informed choices; (ii) for edge providers (including content and device providers) to develop, market and maintain Internet offerings; and (iii) for the Commission and the public to understand compliance with the no-blocking and no-commercially unreasonable practices rule,” Pearson said. The requirement is “subjective” and would be difficult to implement, he said.
The hybrid net neutrality approach FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is said to be considering is “highly questionable and could fundamentally threaten the open Internet,” said more than 70 organizations, including Common Cause, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press and Fight for the Future, in a letter to Wheeler on Friday. “This is not what the public wants or what President Obama promised the American public. Even the original authors of some of these approaches have said that full Title II reclassification is the better way forward, and ISPs like Verizon have already threatened lawsuits” (see 1411050042), the letter said. “While a sender‐side approach may seem novel, we believe the FCC is in danger of failing its duty to protect the public if it’s contemplating an experimental legal theory that's unlikely to survive litigation.” Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, which signed the letter, said in a news release that “basing network neutrality rules off a new, untested relationship between content senders and distant Internet service providers could have serious, far-reaching collateral effects on the Internet ecosystem beyond network neutrality. The FCC’s surest, clearest path forward for strong network neutrality protections remains, as it has been, to reclassify the last-mile retail broadband Internet service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.” The strategy also drew fire from Title II opponents. “This proposal is unworkable," said Danielle Coffey, Telecommunications Industry Association vice president-government affairs, in a blog post Friday. "Title II in any way, shape, or form is bad for consumers, bad for industry, and bad for the U.S. economy.” An FCC spokesman declined comment.
The FTC deserves praise for reaching a settlement with patent assertion entity (PAE) MPHJ Technology Investments, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Friday. But the settlement also highlights the need for legislation to give the commission “clear authority” to take action against PAEs, she said. The FTC’s settlement with MPHJ, announced Thursday (see 1411060044), bars the PAE from sending out deceptive pre-litigation demand letters to entities it claims have violated its patents. Application Developers Alliance President Jon Potter separately criticized the FTC’s settlement with MPHJ, saying in a statement it “doesn’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist.” The settlement is “further evidence that comprehensive patent legislation -- including demand letter provisions with teeth -- is necessary,” Potter said. McCaskill said in a news release that her Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act (S-2049) would give the FTC more authority to take action against deceptive demand letters by requiring specific information disclosures in the letters. McCaskill chairs the Senate panel on Consumer Protection. Some of the ideas included in S-2049 made it into compromise language for the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), but the Senate Commerce Committee has not moved to consider S-2049 on its own due to concerns about the bill’s provisions.
CTIA urged the FCC to put Chairman Tom Wheeler’s theories on competition to the test and decide the agency need not impose tough new net neutrality rules on wireless. “Since early in his tenure, Chairman Wheeler has touted ‘competition, competition, competition’ and espoused a ‘see-saw’ theory of regulation, whereby the need for FCC intervention decreases if facts and data show that a market is competitive,” CTIA said in a Thursday letter to the agency. Wireless really is more competitive, CTIA said: “Any new open Internet rules should recognize the undeniable differences in the competitive landscape between fixed and mobile broadband.”
Saying Lifeline needs be updated for this century, the Internet Innovation Alliance unveiled in a white paper Thursday some proposed reforms. They include the creation of a Lifeline Benefit Card that would allow eligible consumers to purchase a range of communications services, including broadband, wireline or wireless voice services. While not endorsing any of the specific ideas, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel praised the report in a statement for “kickstarting a conversation about bringing the Lifeline program into the 21st century. Millions of households lack access to broadband today. Rethinking this program can help remedy that.” The study said only wireline phone providers are required to participate. The program "is a 20th Century government program aimed at spreading a 19th Century technology, voice service," said former Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., honorary chairman of the IIA, in a news release. The paper recommended that because providers administer the program and have an incentive to increase enrollment, a governmental agency should determine eligibility and conduct program oversight. The paper recommended including broadband in the program, and providing subsidies directly to customers instead of providers. "Expanding the program to focus on broadband, and simplifying its administration to welcome participation by more service providers, will help millions more Americans access modern communications services," Boucher said in the release.
Iridium continued to urge the FCC to grant its revised proposal to designate 1616 MHz-1617.5 MHz for shared use between Iridium and Globalstar. After meetings with Globalstar and the International Bureau, it was brought to light that Iridium is using the existing shared spectrum without any evidence of harmful interference to Globalstar’s mobile satellite services, "and that this is occurring under conditions where Globalstar claims to be heavily using the spectrum in question,” Iridium said in supplemental comments in docket 13-213. The additional spectrum requested by Iridium would enable it “to maximize the effectiveness of its current- and next-generation satellite systems and facilitate Iridium’s continued development and introduction of new advanced services and expansion into new markets,” it said. If the FCC approves Globalstar’s terrestrial low-power service (TLPS), there can be little question that Globalstar’s use of the L-band spectrum “will be reduced and unlikely to ever be heavy in nature once TLPS is deployed across the country,” Iridium said.
The FTC said its members unanimously agreed to a settlement with patent assertion entity MPHJ Technology Investments that will prohibit the PAE and the Farney Daniels law firm from sending out deceptive patent demand letters to small businesses or other entities the PAE claims have violated its patents. The FTC said Thursday the settlement is its first action against a PAE using its consumer protection authority. MPHJ’s patent portfolio includes multiple patents on scanning documents for attachment to emails. The FTC said it had been investigating whether MPHJ’s sending of more than 9,000 demand letters between September 2012 and June 2013 to small businesses constituted “deceptive sales claims and phony legal threats.” That investigation determined that “the senders had no intention -- and did not make preparations -- to initiate lawsuits against the small businesses that did not respond to their letters. No such lawsuits were ever filed.” MPHJ counter-sued the FTC in January (see 1401160076), but that suit was dismissed. MPHJ, Farney Daniels and MPHJ owner Jay Mac Rust agreed not to make deceptive representations when asserting MPHJ’s patent rights and not to misrepresent the likelihood and timeline of possible patent infringement lawsuits in demand letters. Violation of the settlement will result in a $16,000 fine per letter, the FTC said in a consent order adopting the settlement. MPHJ and Farney Daniels said in a joint statement that they “strongly maintain their position that the enforcement letters that were sent were accurate, required by law, and protected by the First Amendment.” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., praised the FTC in a statement, but said “this action alone with not stop abuse of the patent system.” The Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) included a demand letter provision that “would have empowered the FTC to seek meaningful monetary penalties from bad actors, which is an important deterrent for misconduct,” Leahy said in his statement. Leahy scuttled the Judiciary Committee’s consideration of S-1720 in May (see 1405230056), which CEA President Gary Shapiro (see 1411050022) and others have blamed on direct pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Shapiro in a statement Thursday hailed the FTC "for focusing on the deception and harm caused by patent trolls," describing them as "extortionists that bleed $80 billion a year from the U.S. economy and who engage in fraudulent conduct." Slapping patent abusers with stiff financial penalties and having them make whole the businesses they deceived "is a step in the right direction," he said. "More important will be the swift passage of patent litigation reform in the next Congress, which will help drive trolls back under the bridge and ensure that our patent system is used to promote -- not suppress -- innovation to create jobs and grow our economy.”
The FCC grants forbearance in cases in which it finds no dominance in the retail market, said George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center. In the net neutrality issue, the question is different and the agency will have trouble granting forbearance, Ford said. The commission “has explicitly defined the relevant market as 'terminating access' and found that all Broadband Service Providers are 'monopolies' (i.e. 'dominant') in that market,” Ford said. He was responding to criticism from Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, who said the agency would have difficulty forbearing should it take a Communications Act Title II approach to net neutrality rules (see 1411040036).
An anti-Communications Act Title II policy group's arguments that the FCC can't easily forbear to create a “Title II Light” in dealing with net neutrality are “word games designed to confuse the issues,” Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood emailed us. Because the FCC has denied forbearance in cases involving monopolies, and has found that ISPs are “terminating monopolies,” it can't easily use forbearance to mitigate reclassification, said the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies in a study released Monday (see 1411030046). The study’s authors “either don’t get or willfully obscure the difference between a ‘terminating access monopoly’ and a monopoly or duopoly when it comes to retail consumers," Wood said. "So the Phoenix Center continues its crusade to erase the difference between the terms ‘terminating access monopoly’ and ‘dominant carrier,’ and ignores the fact that the Commission has forborne early and often from Title II requirements for wireless voice carriers, CLECs, enterprise broadband providers, and other communications providers with terminating access monopolies."
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Tuesday on a request by Breitling USA for a waiver of commission rules for its dual band emergency Watch called Emergency2. The device, intended for use on land, can be used to transmit a distress signal on 406.0-406.1 MHz for communication with the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system and a lower-powered homing signal on frequency 121.5 MHz, the bureau said. Absent a waiver, the device could not be certified under Part 95 of FCC rules, the bureau said. Breitling requests waiver of manual control, battery and labeling requirements in the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services (RTCM) standard for such personal locator beacon (PLB) devices. “Breitling states that incorporation of a PLB into a wristwatch casing as opposed to a conventional hand-held device renders certain requirements in the RTCM standard irrelevant or infeasible, but argues that the Emergency2 provides the offsetting advantage that it is always immediately at hand and ready to operate, with no added risk of harmful interference to others,” the bureau said. Comments are due Dec. 4, replies Dec. 19.