Carriers and others involved in online and wireless payments risk regulation as banks, legal and industry experts said Tuesday. A rulemaking by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network will be important in sorting out any reporting and credentialing requirements triggered by peer-to-peer mobile transfers using mobile applications, said Kate Kingberger, CTIA wireless Internet development director, on a webcast of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association.
A draft Comcast-NBC Universal FCC condition could help a growing group of websites specializing in local news and often staffed by journalists who left traditional media raise their profile and increase their funding from other sources, said broadcast and Internet executives and professors studying the issue that we interviewed. Part of the proposed order that commissioners are studying this week on Comcast’s agreement to buy control of NBC Universal would require an additional four NBC TV stations owned by the combined company to enter into news-sharing arrangements with nonprofit sites, agency officials said. Proposing conditions, which agency officials said the commission would require, Comcast and NBC Universal cited KNSD San Diego’s arrangement with VoiceofSanDiego.org.
So-called bill shock regulations offer a “common-sense approach” to consumer protection “in an increasingly complex and frequently confusing wireless marketplace,” consumer and public interest groups said in a filing at the FCC. But the groups said the rules proposed by the FCC in October don’t go far enough. Comments were due Monday at the FCC under the commission’s revised timetable. CTIA and the major carriers hadn’t filed comments at our deadline.
When it comes to FCC implementation of the Local Community Radio Act signed into law by President Barack Obama this month (CD Jan 6 p8), low-power FM (LPFM) and translator representatives told us they have different recommendations while relying on the same section of the legislation for authority. A commission official encouraged the submission of recommendations on how HR-6533 -- meant to make it easier for LPFM seekers to get new station licenses in urban areas where spectrum is scarce -- affects a proceeding on implementing a 2003 auction of translators, said Womble Carlyle broadcast lawyer John Garziglia, representing a dozen radio companies. That group and Prometheus Radio Project filed comments posted Monday to docket 99-25, both citing Section 5 of the act.
The split Congress could agree on spectrum and privacy matters, former Hill aides said Saturday on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. But it’s likely Senate Democrats and House Republicans will continue to butt heads on net neutrality, and it will take time to get new members comfortable with communications issues before Congress can move forward on a rewrite of the 1996 Telecom Act, they said.
There is “an overwhelming consensus” among those that filed comments at the FCC that the commission should not repurpose public safety narrowband spectrum to allow for broadband use, AT&T said in reply comments. Motorola agreed with AT&T. But T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel said changing the rules to give public safety the option of using the spectrum for broadband should not cause the problems cited by many commenters.
LAS VEGAS -- The FCC could begin auctioning broadcast spectrum within “the next year or two” if Congress approves sharing the proceeds with spectrum holders, Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a Q-and-A session late Friday after his speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CD Jan 10 p2). He said commission staffers have begun “creating the framework” for the auctions, in case they're authorized.
The hiring of Ray Baum to the House Commerce Committee could signal heightened Capitol Hill interest in pursuing Universal Service Fund reform this year, state and industry officials said. Baum was chairman of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission and the state chairman of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service. Some wireline industry lobbyists said they believe Baum may try to revamp the bill worked out last year by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., and former Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.
Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., took himself out of the running for ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee, clearing the way for Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., to take the job. Towns will join the Commerce Committee, according to a list we obtained of Democratic committee assignments. Also, House Judiciary Committee Republicans announced chairmen and vice chairmen for its subcommittees. Late Friday, Commerce Committee Republicans announced their subcommittee assignments.
Motorola Solutions, NCTA, Cellular South and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association all filed petitions for reconsideration at the FCC last week, asking it to make changes to white spaces rules. The commission approved an order on use of the TV white spaces at its Sept. 23 meeting. The agency said the band can be used for “super Wi-Fi."