Small and midsize carriers urged policy changes to spur competition in the U.S. wireless market. The requests came in reply comments as the FCC embarks on preparation of its next annual report on wireless competition. CTIA, AT&T and Verizon again called the market genuinely competitive.
Broadcasters and newspaper publishers again attacked FCC media ownership limits in reply briefs this week at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The agency’s brief to the court (CD July 22 p6) was “remarkably non-responsive” to the questions raised by media companies, Fox said. “The FCC essentially concedes that it ignored relevant evidence concerning the sole rationale for the newspaper ownership rule -- viewpoint diversity,” Fox said. Similarly, the regulator failed to respond to showings against the multiple station ownership limits, Sinclair said. “The FCC did not refute or even address many of Sinclair’s arguments” and should be inferred that it concedes the points made by that broadcaster, the company said.
The FCC found the average residential broadband speed in the U.S. to be about 4 Mbps, versus typical advertised speeds of 7-8 Mbps, in a paper made public Monday. Advertised speeds don’t take into account factors such as congestion and degradation of service over a connection, the commission said. They also don’t take into account matters on the subscriber’s end like slow computers and underperforming routers. Website performance also can reduce broadband speed, said the FCC.
Cellular carriers have little to offer toward a compromise on wireless net neutrality rules, CTIA President Steve Largent told reporters Tuesday. He and other CTIA officials said wireless carriers couldn’t strike a bargain if they wanted to, since only rules requiring increased transparency and disclosure make any sense for their business.
The sides in a program access dispute likely will begin meeting with commissioners soon in rare joint sessions to brief them and their aides on the case that’s likely to go to the members soon for consideration, agency officials said. They said Mid-Atlantic Sports Network and Time Warner Cable representatives will meet as early as next week with the offices of Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn and may meet later with other FCC members. Such meetings are rare in restricted proceedings on complaints, whose filings aren’t made public by the FCC as is done with rulemakings and transaction reviews. The meetings require the consent of all parties to a proceeding.
Cable engineers and executives voted a wireless backhaul product the most likely to be adopted among new products displayed at a CableLabs showcase this week. BelAir Networks’ wireless picocell base station, which would let cable operators use their DOCSIS broadband networks to provide small-cell backhaul for licensed and unlicensed wireless use, beat out various IP video and interactive TV products. They were said to make up the dominant theme of the showcase. Executives stressed that the poll, conducted as each of a dozen startups and established cable vendors demonstrated their products, wasn’t a scientific survey, but the results show how interested cable operators are in exploiting the wireless backhaul opportunity. “We all feel the pain that BelAir is looking to help solve, and we as MSOs are looking to participate in that solution of being able to get coverage at spots and capacity at specific locations,” said Mark Coblitz, Comcast’s senior vice president of strategic planning. Comcast is an investor in BelAir.
AT&T, Verizon, NCTA and other industry players asked the FCC to eliminate unnecessary data reporting requirements in light of changes in the communications world since the Telecommunications Act was enacted 14 years ago. The filings were in response to request for comments by the Wireline, Wireless and Media bureaus. But Free Press and other public interest groups said much of the information is critical to understanding communications markets and the FCC should exercise extreme care in considering changes.
SEATTLE -- The extensive use of telemedicine at a major regional hospital “should be the rule,” but is “still largely the exception in the United States,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told Seattle Children’s Hospital doctors who participated in a demonstration and news conference late Friday. The obstacle is a slow regulatory approval process for new services and devices, he said. The FCC and its new partner in one particular effort, the Food and Drug Administration, are working to make it “streamlined and effective to encourage investment in new technologies,” Genachowski said.
GENEVA -- The U.S., Japan and Taiwan won in a World Trade Organization dispute over European duties as high as 14 percent on some information technology gear covered under the Information Technology Agreement for tariff-free treatment, officials said. About $44 billion in global exports of set-top boxes, LCD panels and multi-function printers is at stake in the agreement. Questions linger over the possible future tariffs on consumer goods that continue to evolve and incorporate communications and other functions.
An FCC proposal to require that all pay-TV providers let devices connect to their networks by 2012 without complicated or expensive equipment such as CableCARDs and get online video drew fears of content unbundling from cable programmers, telco-TV, direct broadcast satellite providers and cable operators. AT&T, Cablevision, NCTA, Verizon and a group of seven major media companies that own cable networks were among those voicing fears that the so-called AllVid regime could lead to disaggregation of video content.