U.S.-based satellite licensees and international satellite entities sparred in comments in docket 19-105 over whether the FCC should collect regulatory fees on all space stations that communicate with earth-based stations, not just U.S.-licensed ones. They responded to a Further NPRM on possible tweaks to regulatory fees (see 1908280021). “Such an assertion of FCC authority would be both unlawful and ill-advised,” said Telesat Canada. The FCC “has long recognized that its authority to assess space station regulatory fees is limited to those it has licensed under Title III of the Communications Act.” Imposing such fees on foreign licensed satellites isn’t supported by the facts and inconsistent with sound public policy, said Eutelsat. “Expanding the Commission’s regulatory fee regime to include all entities that have received U.S. market access will help to create a more equitable regulatory environment,” filed EchoStar, Hughes Network, Intelsat and SpaceX. Non-U.S. licensed space station operators “benefit from the Commission’s regulatory activities while leaving the U.S. operators to subsidize them by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees,” said SpaceX. The agency should also adjust the fees for entities overseen by the International Bureau, said the North American Submarine Cable Association (NASCA) and the Submarine Cable Coalition. “In prior years and rulemakings, the Commission expressly recognized that submarine cable system regulatory fees are excessive considering the regulatory activities the IB performs on submarine cable system operators’ behalf,” said NASCA. “Efforts by submarine cable interests to shift additional costs onto satellite service providers are unsupported and must be rejected,” said the Satellite Industry Association. Calculating regulatory fees for VHF stations by calculating the population inside a station’s contours instead of designated market area should also be changed, said NAB and Maranatha Broadcasting. “This burden on VHF stations is unjustified and should be rectified in this proceeding,” said Maranatha.
Almost two years after Chairman Ajit Pai announced the media modernization effort, many items taken up under that umbrella have had a small scope, an uncontentious docket, and sometimes don’t even draw formal responses from the opposing party. General agreement and a tight focus aren't bad things, broadcast and MVPD attorneys and FCC officials said of the program. “That the items are often unanimous is a compelling case for getting rid of the rules,” said Matthew Berry, Pai’s chief of staff.
Delay plans to remove CLECs' access to an ILEC's unbundled network elements (UNEs) at regulated prices until more-accurate broadband maps can pinpoint where broadband competition actually exists, a group representing CLECs told the FCC. "You need new maps before you can have new rules,” Incompas CEO Chip Pickering told us. He visited with FCC officials in recent weeks to ask them to withdraw the draft NPRM in docket 19-308 that commissioners are expected to vote on Friday (see 1911150016).
Lack of generally accepted metrics for judging quality of closed-captioned live events means imposing such metrics -- as some consumer groups petitioned the FCC (see 1908140037) -- is a mistake, cable and broadcast interests said in RM-11848 comments posted this week. Captioning interests urged FCC action. NCTA said it backs the goal of good captioning for live programming, but rules already "are ensuring the presence of quality captions" and the petitioners haven't shown evidence warranting reconsideration. It said using caption quality metrics on live programming could be unfair given the challenges of captioning in real time, and perfect synchronicity is "nearly impossible." It said since petitioners are in the midst of a multiyear study of caption quality metrics, it could be years before they can propose specific metrics. NAB said the petition didn't show why the FCC should change its approach to caption quality standards and best practices: "The Commission's approach is working," and caption quality metrics are unnecessary and premature. The association said an automatic speech recognition declaratory ruling is premature given how young the technology is, but if there's a look at ASR and best practices, that should be done by the Disability Advisory Committee rather than through a rulemaking. Meredith, which also owns Dynamic Captioning, said the proposed rules overlook human elements. Because mistakes happen, "a punitive 'big Brother' monitoring and enforcement mechanism" will discourage creating accessible content. ASR technology company AppTek said live captioning is rife with quality problems and the FCC should encourage ASR use, as it often is better than live captioning by humans. It said the agency should appoint ASR providers to the DAC. The 21st Century Captioning Disability and Rehabilitation Research Project submitted a survey on local news captioning by the Hearing Loss Association of America, and said consumer perceptions of caption providers, stations and broadcasters were generally negative. It said future caption quality standards and metrics might need to account for punctuation, with experimental results showing human captions with punctuation scored highest, but ASR captions with punctuation were preferred over ASR or human captions without punctuation. Closed captioner Ai-Media said the FCC should consider adopting the "number, edition, recognition" method -- which some states and numerous countries use for assessing captioning quality -- as its captioning quality metric.
The D.C. Public Service Commission will soon finalize updated pole-attachment rules, PSC External Affairs Office Director Cary Hinton emailed Tuesday. The PSC received no comments due Monday on an Aug. 30 notice of proposed rulemaking in docket RM162019-01-M. Comcast protested an earlier version of the proposal to repeal and replace Chapter 16 of Title 15 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations on pole-attachment disputes between public utilities and cable operators (see 1907090013). The PSC added some provisions specifically for cable operators’ use of utility facilities, plus a definition for pole attachment, the Aug. 30 notice said. The Maine Public Utilities Commission hopes to wrap up its own pole-attachment rates rulemaking (see 1907120047) by the end of this month, a PUC spokesperson emailed. Staff said in June the next and third phase of the proceeding will mainly be to adopt one-touch, make ready, and possibly to create a statewide pole-attachments database (see 1906190051). Meanwhile, the Vermont Public Utility Commission sought comment on its own pole-attachment regulations in a notice (requires password) last week in docket 19-02520-RULE. The agency plans hearings Oct. 23 and Oct. 25 at 6:30 p.m., it said. Vermont’s proposed rules, which include a one-touch, make-ready option for attachments, are “along the lines of FCC make ready rules,” emailed cable lawyer Alan Mandl of Ferriter Scobbo. An older proceeding to update pole-attachment rates (see 1811060028) remains open. “Earlier this year a law was enacted which requires the PUC to issue a decision in June 2020,” said Mandl, who represents the CLEC association whose petition opened the proceeding. “The last unofficial word was not to expect any activity until 2020.”
An Oregon Public Utility Commission state USF proceeding on requiring contributions from interconnected VoIP providers probably will move forward in December, a PUC spokesperson emailed Wednesday. Docket AR-615 (see 1811280057) was on hold while Oregon legislators last session weighed a USF bill that ultimately didn’t pass, she said. Wireless and cable opposed the Oregon USF bill to establish a broadband fund and expand the definition of retail telecom service to include wireless and VoIP (see 1904030038). HB-2184 passed the House but not the Senate.
AT&T and CTIA sought rehearing of a California Public Utilities Commission decision last month to adopt an emergency disaster relief program for customers of communications service providers. CPUC required providers to implement such programs upon a declared state of emergency by the governor or the president when a disaster results in service loss, disruption or degradation. The decision imposed obligations on landline providers “that are contrary to law,” AT&T said in one application posted Tuesday in rulemaking 18-03-011. The carrier “makes significant voluntary efforts” to help customers, but the decision “seeks to turn voluntary aid efforts … into mandates,” which “creates legal problems,” AT&T said. The CPUC is infringing on authority the legislature gave to the governor and the California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES), it said. Requiring carriers to provide various products and services for free for a year or more “creates an unconstitutional taking,” it said. Requirements for voicemail are pre-empted because that's an information service not subject to state regulation, and mandates about inside wiring and jacks are unlawful because that’s competitive and deregulated, AT&T said. Having to abide by requirements for 12 months or a period specified by CalOES “is neither explained nor supported by any record evidence or legal authority,” it said. Wireless carriers do much voluntarily, but the CPUC orders imposes “unlawful and inflexible” requirements, CTIA and AT&T Mobility said in a separate rehearing application. “Imposing a rigid set of requirements on carriers will deter wireless providers from tailoring their relief measures to consumer needs.” A VoIP coalition including AT&T, Comcast, Charter Communications, Frontier Communications and the California Cable & Telecommunications Association sought rehearing Wednesday. “Members of the VoIP Coalition have no substantive objection to voluntarily offering support similar to that set forth in the Rules to their VoIP customers,” the coalition said. “However, treating VoIP as a regulated utility service and imposing these disaster relief measures as mandatory requirements on VoIP service exceeds the Commission’s jurisdiction, is preempted by federal law, and should be corrected on rehearing.”
A fight's brewing in California over whether a state commission can study broadband affordability. Consumer advocates urged the California Public Utilities Commission last week to keep broadband part of a proposed framework for reviewing affordability of essential services. AT&T, cable and small telecom carriers disagreed, saying federal law stops the state commission from scrutinizing broadband.
Broadband providers disagree whether and how the FCC should draft new regulations on how occupants of apartment buildings, malls and other multi-tenant environments access competing broadband services. Proponents of broadband competition want the FCC to allow states and municipalities more flexibility in oversight of agreements between landlords and communications providers. Comments on an NPRM posted through Tuesday in docket 17-142 (see 1908300058).
C Spire's petition saying an FCC modification of a commercial TV station's market to add communities makes that outlet and all its broadcast streams local for reciprocal retransmission negotiations in those communities (see 1906040031) is either an attempt to use the agency to disrupt the network-affiliate relationship or a reflection of changing video market realities. Those were clashing broadcaster/MVPD arguments this week in docket 19-159 replies. C Spire and MVPD allies are trying "to hoodwink" the FCC into an "unprecedented [and] unlawful" level of government intrusion into retransmission consent and network affiliation agreements through its petition, NAB said. It said the pay-TV provider is trying to get the FCC to rewrite its retransmission consent agreement with Gray, while the declaratory ruling would only reiterate what MVPDs and broadcasters understand to be their good faith negotiation obligations after a market modification. CBS said what C Spire seeks -- a ruling that rules bar any restriction in a network affiliation agreement on a station’s ability to grant retrans -- could violate congressional content because it might significantly disrupt the relationship between a broadcast network and its affiliated stations, it said. Network affiliation agreements routinely and legitimately include obligations or restrictions, it said. Such a declaratory ruling would require a new rule and would have to go through FCC rulemaking processes first, Tegna said. Congress voiced concern broadcasters could use retrans agreements to limit MVPDs carrying signals that became local through the market modification process, so clearly a station can't condition a retrans grant for a local station in a market modification area on an MVPD either carrying or not carrying a non-commonly owned station, C Spire said. Affiliate consolidation, geographic restrictions in network affiliation agreements and dual big-four affiliations via multicast programming streams are distorting efforts to preserve localism and access to in-state programming, with those changes pointing to affiliation agreements involving retrans of stations found to be local following a market modification now are violating good-faith rules, the company said. Backing C Spire's petition, Pine Belt Communications said it also has video subscribers in an out-of-state designated market area and has had similar difficulties getting retrans consent to deliver local or significantly viewed stations. It said rural cable operators know well how DMA boundaries are broadcaster leverage in retrans negotiations in violation of good-faith rules. Along with its petition, C Spire filed a related retrans complaint against Gray.