Broadcast network efforts to shut down Locast with a copyright infringement suit filed Wednesday in federal court will likely involve how nonprofit the nonprofit streaming service actually is, and what the Section 111 exemption of the Copyright Act applies to, broadcast and copyright experts told us.
Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., led a bipartisan letter Tuesday with 11 other senators urging the FCC to delay its planned Thursday vote on a rural telehealth report and order that would in part revamp the USF Rural Health Care Program's payment distribution and create a database of payment rates based on geography (see 1907120003). Rural healthcare providers (RHCPs) and the telecom companies that service them have also sought a vote delay or revision of the FCC proposal (see 1907230005). “The proposal neither provides sufficient guidance to applicants nor addresses several of the” existing RHCPs' “key issues, and will ultimately lead to increased confusion and funding delays for rural health care applicants and providers,” the lawmakers wrote FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The other senators signing the letter were 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bennet of Colorado; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Angus King, I-Maine; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Tom Udall, D-N.M. The existing “lack of sufficient funding” for the RHC program, “combined with a lack of program rules concerning its allocation, has led to substantial delays for rural health care providers seeking to increase their telemedicine capabilities,” the senators said. The proposal “does not address the need for more funding, set forth the methodology for calculating the rural and urban rates, nor provide adequate maps to determine the rural area boundaries needed to determine pricing. Instead, it delegates rate-setting to” the Universal Service Administrative Co., “an entity that does not have relevant subject matter expertise.”
Broadcast network efforts to shut down Locast with a copyright infringement suit filed Wednesday in federal court will likely involve how nonprofit the nonprofit streaming service actually is, and what the Section 111 exemption of the Copyright Act applies to, broadcast and copyright experts told us.
Opposition poured in to an FCC proposal to cap the overall budget for the various USF programs and to combine the budget cap for two mechanisms to fund anchor institutions, in comments posted through Tuesday to docket 06-122. Stakeholders said such a plan would be difficult to implement and contradicts both the USF mission and the current FCC chairman's top priority to close the digital divide (see 1906030059).
Opposition poured in to an FCC proposal to cap the overall budget for the various USF programs and to combine the budget cap for two mechanisms to fund anchor institutions, in comments posted through Tuesday to docket 06-122. Stakeholders said such a plan would be difficult to implement and contradicts both the USF mission and the current FCC chairman's top priority to close the digital divide (see 1906030059).
Rural healthcare providers and the telecommunications companies that service them raised concerns in docket 17-310 about a draft report and order on promoting telehealth in rural America that the FCC has on its agenda for its Aug. 1 meeting (see 1907120003). Some are asking the agency to include recommended revisions before the commissioners vote, while others want to delay the vote altogether, until the September or October meeting, to give stakeholders more time to weigh in.
Proposed changes to how the FCC collects broadband deployment data should be some improvement over the oft-criticized Form 477-centric approach, though it also opens a potential can of worms with its crowdsourcing component, experts told us. Others see a catastrophic failure in the agency's not bringing retail pricing data into the mix. "It's tweaking a broken system," said Penn State telecom professor Sascha Meinrath. The proposal's on the FCC agenda for Aug. 1 (see 1907110071).
Rural healthcare providers and the telecommunications companies that service them raised concerns in docket 17-310 about a draft report and order on promoting telehealth in rural America that the FCC has on its agenda for its Aug. 1 meeting (see 1907120003). Some are asking the agency to include recommended revisions before the commissioners vote, while others want to delay the vote altogether, until the September or October meeting, to give stakeholders more time to weigh in.
Proposed changes to how the FCC collects broadband deployment data should be some improvement over the oft-criticized Form 477-centric approach, though it also opens a potential can of worms with its crowdsourcing component, experts told us. Others see a catastrophic failure in the agency's not bringing retail pricing data into the mix. "It's tweaking a broken system," said Penn State telecom professor Sascha Meinrath. The proposal's on the FCC agenda for Aug. 1 (see 1907110071).
INDIANAPOLIS -- There are alternatives to Congress and the FCC requiring carriers and others to remove from their networks equipment made by Chinese telecom gear makers, NARUC was told. Though some state commissioners later expressed skepticism, industry panelists (see 1:30 p.m. event listing) largely backed monitoring networks of U.S. companies for cyberattacks, including from Huawei or ZTE, and testing all equipment before installation for vulnerabilities. Stakeholders generally want testing and monitoring across the board, not limited to one company or manufacturers based in one country.