Several members of the N.C. House delegation asked President Bush to encourage the FCC to act on broadband deregulation. Their Nov. 19 letter highlights potential job- creation from final rulings on broadband deployment issues before the FCC. It refers generally, but without name, to the Triennial Review and to the DSL broadband rulemaking before the FCC now, a House staffer said. “The FCC has now spent a year and a half on a ruling to make regulations governing broadband services consistent, regardless of whether broadband is delivered over cable or telephone lines. They have yet to produce a decision,” the letter said. The members detailed the loss of 12,000 N.C. telecom jobs the past 36 months, including from closure of a fiber-optic plant. “The United States is not only losing jobs and investment, we are losing our position as the world leader in fiber production and use,” the letter said. The letter was signed by N.C. Reps. Burr (R), Myrick (R), Ballenger (R), Hayes (R), Price (D), Jones (R), Taylor (R).
With the fight over carriage centered on multicasting, broadcasters are concerned that demands by 2 FCC commissioners for public interest obligations could infringe on their First Amendment rights. In meetings at the FCC, NAB officials have said it would be good policy for the Commission to require cable to carry “all free bits” in local broadcasters’ DTV signals. They also said it would be “constitutional folly” to tie DTV cable carriage rules to public interest obligations or apply them to particular types of programming. Such requirements could render the rules “content-based,” which would violate the First Amendment, they said.
Telecom manufacturers have interests in seeing some telecom regulations changed, but aren’t likely to fully support USTA’s efforts to make wholesale changes to telecom regulation (CD Nov 3 p1), TIA Pres. Matthew Flanigan said. While there are some areas where TIA will continue to work with ILECs, the specific proposals advanced in an Oct. 20 meeting were too ILEC-oriented to get the support of manufacturers, he said. “We'd be happy to stand arm-in-arm if all carriers are arm-in-arm,” said Flanigan, who said CLECs, cable, wireless and long distance providers are also important customers to TIA members. “But that’s not the case here. This is an ILEC-directed attack.”
SANTA CLARA -- FCC Chmn. Powell signaled the FCC had determined that it would regulate Internet telephony, and perhaps how, even before a Dec. 1 forum set on short notice, said former FCC Chmn. Reed Hundt. The move would be bad policy and would violate FCC tradition barring major decisions shortly before a presidential election, he told a Wireless Internet Summit here late Tues. “What is the purpose of the forum?” Hundt asked. “You should wonder if the rule already exists in draft form.”
FCC Comr. Copps said the Commission should seize on allegations of “pay-for-play” involving TV and radio stations and shouldn’t leave it to the Enforcement Bureau alone, but should confront the issue themselves. Although an aide to Chmn. Powell said the issue should be dealt with in the context of the Commission’s current examination of localism, Copps said “pay-for-play” shouldn’t be part of “some never- ending process that’s going to go months and months forward. I think we ought to deal with this now.” His comments came in a media briefing Thurs. one day after Comr. Adelstein called on his colleagues to open a formal inquiry into “pay- for-play.”
The FCC’s 5-0 decision late Tues. to enact broadcast flag copyright protection rules wasn’t unexpected, and neither was celebration by the content industry and lamentation by some in high-tech and fair use advocacy groups. Hill reaction was somewhat divided, too, with at least one prominent House member questioning the authority of the FCC to act.
As expected, the FCC late Tues. adopted the broadcast flag, an antipiracy technology embraced by over-the-air broadcasters and the movie industry but opposed by some consumer groups and free speech advocates. The vote also opens the door to additional technologies that would have the same effect but perhaps operate differently. The 3 Republican commissioners voted in favor of it and the 2 Democrats approved in part and dissented in part. The FCC said the flag was intended to further the DTV transition and preserve broadcasting for years to come.
Philips, Sony and Thomson joined the growing chorus of consumer electronics (CE) makers urging the FCC to reject the MPAA’s call for a mandatory July 1, 2004, deadline for making CE devices broadcast flag-compliant. Zenith, like other CE makers, said its typical new product design cycle averaged about 18 months from the FCC’s final adoption of any new rules, but Zenith didn’t say it would be precluded from meeting the July 2004 deadline.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) said he wasn’t sure when he will introduce the Universal Service Fund (USF) draft bill that has been floating around for some time, but said it could be before this session ends (CD Oct 28 p1). “We're thinking pretty quick, we think,” he said. Burns also said that once recommendations were received from the Federal-State Joint Board that’s studying USF distribution methods, further legislation might be warranted. “We don’t want to go down the distribution route until we see what the Joint Board has done,” he said. “I don’t want to preempt them in any way.”
With the FCC on the verge of approving broadcast flag protections, questions have swirled in recent days about whether that shield should apply to TV newscasts and public affairs programming. Chmn. Powell believes it should for 2 reasons: (1) Mass redistribution on the Internet of nightly local newscasts would quickly devalue expensively gathered news, perhaps providing a disincentive for TV stations to produce news. (2) An exemption for TV news would force federal policymakers to determine just what constituted news -- a line that would be difficult to draw. “We would need to make fine-grain distinctions,” a spokesman for the chmn.’s office said. As an example, he cited sports highlight shows, which might be considered news or arguably could be called entertainment.