NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling Tuesday asked the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee to refocus its efforts on helping the agency identify spectrum to meet the administration’s goal of providing 500 MHz for broadband in 10 years. At the final meeting of the current CSMAC, the group also approved final versions of two sometimes controversial reports on “incentives” for getting more government spectrum into play for commercial use and on the benefits of unlicensed spectrum.
Five public interest groups led by Free Press said the FCC should investigate MetroPCS’s recently announced low-cost data plan, which would apparently preclude users from using Skype, Netflix and other popular services (CD Jan 5 p1). But customers would be able to watch YouTube videos. The Center for Media Justice, the Media Access Project, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative and Presente.org signed the letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
The FCC should dismiss a Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting emergency petition that asks the FCC to bar Time Warner Cable from importing distant signals into some upstate New York markets during a retransmission-consent dispute with Smith Media (CD Dec 30 p2), TWC said in an opposition filed with the FCC this week. Beyond failing in its arguments, the petition is moot because TWC stopped importing the distant signals and reached a carriage agreement with the Smith stations, it said. Furthermore, “TWC’s importation of those distant signals did not violate any Commission rule (and, contrary to Nexstar’s suggestion, was expressly authorized under TWC’s retransmission consent agreement with Nexstar),” TWC said.
Verizon Wireless confirmed long-time rumors that the iPhone 4 will be available for use on its network in early February. The device will be priced similarly to AT&T’s at $199 for a 16 GB phone and $299.99 for 32 GB with a two-year contract. The Rural Cellular Association praised the non-exclusive agreement, urging Verizon’s support in making popular devices like iPhone available to all RCA members within six months of their release.
The Internet backbone is becoming the next telecom battleground as the demand for online video throws traditional peering agreements out of whack, industry officials said. “There are constant discussions about how backbone providers, content providers and access providers learn to coexist in this new, video-driven world,” said Dennis Brouwer, senior vice president and general manager of backbone provider Savvis. “The thing that people don’t realize or tend to gloss over is that, depending on how those conversations go, it'll determine who’s going to invest, how much and where."
Draft FCC conditions on Internet video and network management in Comcast’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal are the subject of close scrutiny from some commissioners, agency officials said Tuesday. They said Internet conditions in the draft Media Bureau order on the deal are getting significant attention in general on the eighth floor. The two Republican commissioners seem skeptical about whether all the Internet conditions are needed, said FCC and industry officials. Commissioners are also giving attention to arbitration conditions, the subject of a filing Tuesday by the two U.S. DBS companies, a commission official said.
The satellite industry must remain nimble in its innovation and work hard to come up with a “big new idea” to propel market growth, Intelsat CEO Dave McGlade said Tuesday at the Washington Space Business Roundtable. The big question is “how to get to that next level,” he said, using Sirius XM as an example of the right kind of idea. Venture capital, which most industries use as a vehicle for innovation, doesn’t “have a huge interest in our industry,” so a different vehicle may be necessary, he said. McGlade raised the idea of “maybe a new role” for an association.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he hopes to strike a balance between defending against cyberattacks and protecting privacy online. Speaking Tuesday at the Newseum, Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy said he will direct his committee to modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). He said he also wants to take up intellectual property theft and finish cybersecurity legislation.
Performance rights legislation and hearings on the FCC’s net neutrality order will be the IP issues Congress will tackle in the next 90 to 180 days, congressional staffers said Tuesday. Worries have been expressed that ISPs will use copyright law as a justification for not carrying certain content -- in effect, as a way to skirt net neutrality rules. Meanwhile, Congress will abandon a comprehensive approach to overhauling the patent system in favor of small changes that have bipartisan support, the aides said.
Wireless “bill shock” is “not remotely as large” a problem as the FCC suggested in a rulemaking notice, CTIA said in a filing Monday at the commission. The rules proposed would cost carriers, and therefore consumers, “tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to put into practice,” the association warned. CTIA also hinted that a legal challenge is likely if the FCC moves forward on rules. The FCC at its October meeting proposed rules to require carriers to provide usage alerts and related information to help consumers avoid unexpected charges.