The Chinese vendor Huawei has ambitions in U.S. cloud-computing services that haven’t publicly drawn the security objections repeatedly raised against its network business at the highest levels of government. The company is forging ahead with U.S. business efforts despite repeated political and governmental setbacks to its network-equipment efforts in the market (CD Feb 14 p7). In the latest blow, the federal interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly has recommended as expected that Huawei be required to unwind the acquisition it completed last year of high-technology company 3Leaf, but the Chinese company is waiting to see what President Obama decides. We couldn’t reach a company representative for comment Tuesday.
House Republicans will try to use the Continuing Resolution to stop the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. In a speech Tuesday, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he filed an amendment prohibiting the FCC from spending any money to implement the rule. Also at the NARUC meeting, Walden said he’s considering legislation to overhaul FCC process. He questioned the White House’s FY 2012 budget estimate for money that could be raised by voluntary incentive spectrum auctions.
AT&T and NCTA joined to slam arguments by Level 3 that the Internet backbone provider’s dispute over network traffic peering with Comcast is an issue of net neutrality. In a rare joint filing late Monday by the telco and the cable association, which are often at odds on other issues, they said Level 3 is trying to upend commission precedent predating December’s net neutrality order that peering isn’t subject to regulation. “As the Commission’s approach to Internet policy has evolved over the last eighteen months -- from a proposed rulemaking on net neutrality, to an inquiry on reclassification, to a net neutrality order -- it has consistently emphasized at each step along the way that it has no intention of regulating the highly competitive market for Internet peering and other Internet backbone services."
The White House estimated that it can raise nearly $28 billion from spectrum sales, including voluntary incentive auctions of broadcasters’ spectrum, but the budget it released Monday gives little detail on how it arrived at the figure. President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposed legislation providing authority for voluntary incentive auctions and estimated that spectrum auctions, “along with other measures to enable more efficient spectrum management,” will produce $27.8 billion over the next 10 years. The budget will face scrutiny particularly from House Republicans, who want to spend about $100 billion less in fiscal 2011 than Obama, said a telecom lobbyist.
The elimination of public broadcasting support is provided for in a House Republican continuing resolution that proposes the largest spending cuts in history. The House Appropriations Committee introduced the resolution as a plan for cutting spending by over $100 billion from President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 request. Action on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will have little effect on budget-cutting but great implications for the industry, some public broadcasting supporters said.
The FCC’s failure to deal with VoIP endangers the commission’s broader Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, said Windstream Vice President for Federal Government Affairs Eric Einhorn Monday. The commission’s rulemaking notice isn’t definitive about VoIP traffic, he said at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ winter meeting, and without clarity nagging questions “could unravel the system before we even get to intercarrier compensation reform.” Einhorn was part of a panel on USF/intercarrier comp reform.
The judge who dominated questions in oral argument on Cablevision v. FCC asked many questions that appeared skeptical of the cable operator’s challenge to program access rules at the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit. Judge David Tatel asked the vast majority of the questions of the cable operator and the commission Monday. He and Judge Thomas Griffith asked how Cablevision’s challenge could get around a ruling that the NCTA lost at the appeals court about exclusive arrangements between cable operators and apartment buildings.
Efforts to repeal the FCC’s net neutrality order on Capitol Hill are unlikely to succeed, speakers said Monday at a meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ telecom committee. Nullification of the commission’s net neutrality rules through the Congressional Review Act topped communications and technology priorities for Republicans on the House Commerce Committee (CD Jan 20 p1).
The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance is turning to Genevieve Morelli as president to help beef up its membership and lead the association through the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation overhauls, the group said Monday. Corporate acquisitions including Windstream-Iowa Telecom, CenturyLink-Embarq and the pending CenturyLink-Qwest deal are cutting into the association’s membership, said board Chairman Matthew Dosch.
EchoStar agreed to acquire Hughes Communications for about $2 billion, including Hughes’ debt, which is “expected to be refinanced in connection with the transaction,” the companies said Monday. The agreement, which has already been approved by the companies’ boards, faces federal regulatory approval, including from the FCC, the companies said. Industry observers said they didn’t see an obvious reason for regulators to block the deal, though it could be affected by other acquisition efforts. The deal includes Hughes Communications’ largest subsidiary, satellite broadband provider Hughes Network Systems, the companies said.