The FCC is planning to issue NPRMs on kids' video rules, cable leased access and cable rate regulation as part of media modernization, Media Bureau staff said Tuesday at an FCBA event. A rulemaking on leftover questions from the ATSC 3.0 proceeding is still planned for sometime this year, as is the 2018 quadrennial broadcast ownership review, staff said. The post-incentive auction repacking, which hasn’t run into the resource crunch feared by broadcasters, has progressed, Incentive Auction Task Force Deputy Chair Hillary DeNigro said. “It’s fine,” she said. “We haven’t had any requests for additional time we haven’t been able to accommodate.”
The North American Numbering Council approved a draft report to the FCC recommending industry stand up two entities to oversee a call-authentication framework aimed at countering call spoofing and illegal robocalls. The draft targets creating a governing body and selecting an administrator over the next year but doesn't propose a deadline for providers to implement "Shaken/Stir" protocols and procedures for authenticating calls because many still lack the network capability. It recommends providers capable of signing and validating VoIP calls using Shaken/Stir implement it over the next year or so. Shaken/Stir stands for Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (Shaken) and Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (Stir).
Recent legislative and regulatory rural call completion moves drew largely high marks from an FCBA panel Tuesday. Industry panelists said the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act signed into law would improve transparency by mandating the FCC require intermediate providers to register and meet service quality standards. Some also praised an April 17 commission order and Further NPRM (text) to replace "covered" long-distance provider data reporting requirements with oversight of intermediate provider performance, and to launch a rulemaking on the new law (see 1804170025 and 1804180025). But a rural telco official voiced concern the FCC shift could invite greater rural calling problems, and was less optimistic certain regulatory and technology transitions would largely address the issue.
The FCC had a more difficult time in court Friday than some expected (see 1804190056) in defending its change of the UHF discount so that stations in that part of the TV band could have twice the concentrated ownership as those lower down the dial. Every member of a three-judge panel took issue with the FCC’s lack of justification for restoring the UHF discount.
Mignon Clyburn's April meeting will be her last as a commissioner, she announced (see 1804170021) at the end of Tuesday’s FCC meeting. Clyburn told us she doesn’t have a firm date for when she will leave the job she has held since August 2009, but it will be before the FCC next meets May 10. As acting chairwoman for part of 2013, Clyburn was the first woman to head the agency, noted Chairman Ajit Pai, who praised her as did all other members. “You can’t ask for a better opportunity,” she said of her time on the FCC. “It’s time to start a new chapter.” There was no word Tuesday on nomination of Enforcement Bureau Assistant Chief Geoffrey Starks, Clyburn’s presumptive successor (see 1803200055).
The FCC is eyeing rural call completion and rural business data service (BDS) actions among others at its April 17 commissioners' meeting. A rural call completion item would set new rules seeking to improve long-distance provider monitoring of "intermediate providers" while easing reporting requirements, and seek comment on a recently enacted rural call law, blogged Chairman Ajit Pai Monday. The item combines an order and Further NPRM, said an agency official. Pai said a separate NPRM would look to offer BDS "inventive regulation" to rural telcos receiving model-based Connect America Fund broadband-oriented support.
Complaints are increasing about alleged MVPD violations of the requirement to give subscribers a 30-day notice before a channel lineup change, but top FCC aides told us there has been no indication either FCC Chairman Ajit Pai or the Media Bureau is planning a proceeding and it's unlikely there will be one. Joseph Van Eaton of Best Best, representing communities in Arizona and Wyoming seeking a declaratory ruling that Charter violated the advance notice rule, said he expects the agency to issue a public notice soon on that petition. The FCC didn't comment. Experts and insiders said it's not clear the agency will take up or clarify the 30-day notice rule (see 1802160017).
The FCC approved a notice proposing rules implementing Section 7 of the Communications Act, designed to speed review of “innovative” technologies and services, over objections by Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn Thursday. Chairman Ajit Pai said the goal is simple -- get out of the way of innovation. “Bureaucratic inertia” is a common barrier, he said. The agency has been taking steps on his watch to promote innovation, from approving the first LTE-unlicensed devices to approving ATSC 3.0 standards to greenlighting a power-at-a-distance wireless transmitter, Pai said: “We have stood on the side of innovation, but these are ad hoc measures.”
Despite a spate of programming blackouts coming with claims of cable operators violating the FCC's rule on 30-day notices of cable lineup changes, and Charter Communications pushes for clarity on that rule, it's not clear whether there's appetite or interest at the FCC, experts and insiders told us.
Chairman Ajit Pai proposed an NPRM on flexible rules for spectrum above 95 GHz, what the FCC calls “the outermost edge of usable spectrum,” for a vote at the Feb. 22 commissioners' meeting. That and other items on a tentative agenda Thursday were expected (see 1801310065). Pai blogged that February is “innovation month” at the agency. It would also examine rules implementing Section 7 of the Communications Act, which requires the FCC to respond to petitions or applications proposing new technologies and services within a year, and resolve petitions to reconsider USF Mobility Fund rules. Three other draft items aim to roll back "outdated and unnecessary regulations" on broadcasters, cable companies and payphone service providers, Pai said.