Spectrum sharing is a better incentive for government spectrum use than market-based user fees, said Freedom Technologies President Janice Obuchowski and Vice President Mary Greczyn, a former Communications Daily editor, in an article in the August issue of IEEE Wireless Communications. When market-based user fees have been used as an incentive in the U.S. and elsewhere, they either have not been widely adopted or have achieved mixed results, the executives said. The U.K.’s Administered Incentive Pricing program began operating in 2005, but the nation is only now set to hold an auction of spectrum belonging to its Ministry of Defence, Obuchowski and Greczyn said. Governments can get the hoped-for results of the fees, including federal agencies reducing their spectrum footprint and increasing accountability for spectrum, through more spectrally efficient technology, commercial substitutes or improved sharing techniques, the Freedom Technologies executives said. Government spectrum users are also going to mainly respond to non-market-based factors for reducing their spectrum footprint, rather than the revenue-based factors that commercial users prioritize, they said. To be effective, user fees have to better address agencies’ opportunity costs, such as how they will meet future spectral needs, Obuchowski and Greczyn said. Spectrum sharing provides a “near-term” option that encourages spectral efficiency, efficient technologies and transparency, they said. Sharing also ensures underutilized spectrum is “put to use” and better aligns the incentives public and private users seek, the executives said.
Jimm Phillips
Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC
FCC proceedings on petitions to pre-empt North Carolina and Tennessee laws on municipal broadband are likely to become a showdown about the extent of the commission’s authority under Communications Act Section 706 and the applicability of the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League, industry observers told us. The FCC is reviewing pre-emption petitions from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina. Matthew Berry, chief of staff to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, said in a speech Wednesday that the FCC’s authority to pre-empt state laws municipal broadband laws under Section 706 was weak and that the precedent the Supreme Court set in Nixon would likely doom pre-emption in court (CD Aug. 21 p10).
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework still has a mixed legacy for the critical infrastructure sectors to which it was targeted, more than six months after the agency released the framework’s “Version 1.0,” industry participants said Wednesday during a joint Industrial Control System Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ICS-ISAC)-DCT Associates webinar. NIST released the Version 1.0 framework in mid-February, simultaneous with the start of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) voluntary Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Community (C3) program to encourage industry use of the framework (CD Feb 13 p5).
Most major wireless parties continued to urge the FCC to revise the rules it proposed for a new Citizens Broadband Radio Service on the 3.5 GHz band. Replies said the major faults of the rulemaking continue to be the proposed exclusion zones and the three-tiered spectrum access system (SAS) licensing framework. The comments, posted Friday and Monday in docket 12-354, repeated concerns that parties raised in July (CD July 16 p4). Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai had also raised concerns about the size of the proposed exclusion zones, in which spectrum use would be restricted to protect government incumbents, when the commission approved the FNPRM in April (CD April 24 p4).
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said its review of Comcast’s deal to buy Time Warner Cable and associated TWC Information Services and Bright House Networks deals will focus on both the public interest aspects of the deals and the implications Comcast/TWC will have on broadband deployment in the state. The scope of CPUC’s plans, which it said Thursday in a memo will include requests for “significant factual data” from the companies (http://bit.ly/1l7IUhC), will make the commission’s review very thorough, said industry observers in interviews. CPUC said it will use its review of Comcast/TWC to seek out conditions related to California-specific effects of the deal and inform any comments the commission files as part of FCC review of the deal.
The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) appears likely to approve Frontier Communications’ proposed acquisition of AT&T’s wireline, broadband and video assets in the state, after a recent agreement between Frontier and state officials, but that approval is unlikely to come swiftly, industry observers said in interviews Thursday. The office of Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, a Democrat, and the Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) reached an agreement with Frontier Tuesday on public interest conditions related to the deal (CD Aug 13 p13).
The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) is moving closer to a decision in its review of the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal, with industry observers telling us they believe recently filed recommendations from the Department of Public Service (DPS) staff signal the PSC could approve the merger, though with significant concessions. Public interest groups opposed to Comcast/TWC said they continue to support full denial at the state level rather than extracting concessions. New York raised the state regulatory requirements earlier this year for cable franchise deals like Comcast/TWC, with the law now requiring applicants to show a deal would be in the public interest rather than requiring the PSC to approve deals unless it could prove harm to the public interest (CD March 21 p15). The PSC will factor the DPS staff comments and other filings into its decision, which it expects to announce at its Oct. 2 meeting, a spokesman said.
Netflix Vice President-Global Public Policy Chris Libertelli said state regulators have a role to play in the net neutrality debate, but told a Thursday meeting at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that the role should be to focus on protecting consumers. States have to be careful about the route they take in any foray into net neutrality because focusing on issues like the intrastate role of ISPs could be a “debate that isn’t productive,” he said. Net neutrality could also be an issue in any state’s review of major industry mergers like the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal, Libertelli said. Comcast/TWC creates a large enough company that “if consolidation happens, there’s no reason that Comcast couldn’t own every cable company in America,” he said. Netflix has opposed Comcast/TWC on net neutrality grounds, though Comcast has said Netflix’s opposition is about shifting interconnection costs to all Internet consumers (CD April 28 p20).
Alabama’s state 911 service fee rose Friday from $1.60 to $1.75 per month for all wireless and wireline customers. Opponents have decried that, because the Alabama 911 Board requires the estimated 200,000 consumers in the state who use the FCC low-income Lifeline program to pay those fees. Lifeline provider TracFone and a coalition of seven groups have been trying to get the Lifeline subscriber rule removed from the 911 fee base, saying Alabama is the only state to require Lifeline subscribers to pay a 911 fee. The Alabama 911 Board adopted the rule last year, effective Dec. 31, requiring eligible telecom carriers (ETCs) to collect the fee from Lifeline subscribers, saying requiring those subscribers to pay the fee made it “more equitable” and better aligned it with state law (http://bit.ly/1qNUuAS).
The timing of any Senate action on the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696) and three other cybersecurity bills the House passed Monday night remains unclear, said industry lawyers and lobbyists in interviews. The bills encountered virtually no opposition on the House floor, as expected (CD July 29 p9). The House passed HR-3696, the Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act (HR-2952) and the Safe and Secure Federal Websites Act (HR-3635) on voice votes. It passed the Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act (HR-3107) 395-8. HR-3696 codifies the Department of Homeland Security’s current cybersecurity role, while HR-2952 and HR-3107 are also DHS-centric. The Senate Homeland Security Committee has passed a few bills seen similar to these bills.