The FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee is targeting Nov. 9 to consider initial recommendations to the agency, with more work expected after that, committee members said Friday at an FCBA event. BDAC's five working groups are to report on their recommendation efforts at a meeting that day, said Karen Charles Peterson, a Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable commissioner and vice chair of the Model Code for States working group. BDAC will try to get as much done by Nov. 9 as possible, but different working groups are advancing at different speeds, so results likely will vary, said Jonathan Adelstein, CEO of the Wireless Infrastructure Association and chair of the Streamlining Federal Siting working group.
The FCC's going from three to five commissioners (see 1708030060) isn’t likely to alter Chairman Ajit Pai’s momentum and main policy agenda, but it could lead to shifts on lower-profile items and possibly a slightly slower-moving commission if Pai seeks to include all the members in deliberations, industry officials said Friday. Former officials said the additions likely means Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s role will grow in stature. Telecom, cable and satellite representatives expect little to no learning curve given the experience the two bring. Commissioner Brendan Carr may not trigger any notable change in Pai’s agenda, since pet interests of his very likely could be baked into Pai’s priorities.
Comcast and others opposed an Incompas motion to modify FCC protective orders for reviews of past transactions. Incompas, which represents "direct competitors to Comcast," filed a motion asking that “interested commenters” in the open internet rulemaking "be permitted to review and use vast amounts of confidential and highly confidential information and data from those concluded adjudicatory proceedings, which it contends will 'strengthen the debate' and lead to a 'better' general rulemaking here," said a Comcast filing Thursday in docket 17-108. The motion "lacks merit and is an obvious -- and improper -- procedural tactic designed to delay and muddy consideration of the legal and policy issues relevant to the Commission’s [NPRM]." The transactions were: Charter Communications buying Time Warner Cable and Advance-Newhouse; Comcast/Time Warner Cable (which wasn't consummated); AT&T/DirecTV; Comcast/General Electric's NBC Universal. The "frivolous" Incompas motion appears "to be an improper end run around the protective orders governing the confidential materials at issue here," said an AT&T opposition posted Friday: "Both in-house and outside counsel in the merger proceedings at issue -- including INCOMPAS -- signed protective orders providing that 'Reviewing Parties ... agree ... not to use Confidential or Highly Confidential Information to seek disclosure in any other proceeding.' INCOMPAS' 'limited' motion requesting very specific and targeted categories of previously submitted documents and data raises serious questions as to whether INCOMPAS and its counsel are in fact 'us[ing]' the confidential materials they obtained as the basis for 'seek[ing] disclosure' in this quite different rulemaking proceeding." Charter also filed opposition. Incompas didn't comment.
Commenters formed battle lines on an FCC proposal to undo its Title II regime regulating broadband providers as common carriers. Net neutrality advocates called for preserving the 2015 order that reclassified broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service and instituted open internet rules. Telco and cable ISPs and others urged the commission to return broadband to a Title I information service and ease regulation. Many made highly detailed filings and a few offered more mixed views in initial comments due Monday.
Initial net neutrality comments were due Monday and major players weighed in, joining millions who had already filed. The FCC ultimately will have to address the filings, especially from groups like the Internet Association and major broadband ISPs. But industry officials said Monday the comments likely to get the most attention at the Ajit Pai FCC are those that offered hard data on the economic effects of Title II broadband reclassification and the 2015 rules.
Localities, scoring a significant win Wednesday before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on FCC rules for cable local franchising authorities (see 1707120031), now hope the agency's next step is to do nothing. Franchise agreement negotiations have been more confusing and protracted since the 2007 and 2015 orders challenged in the appeal, said local governments lawyer Brian Grogan of Moss & Barnett. With local franchising authorities and cable operators generally coming to mutually acceptable agreements in recent years despite FCC rules, hopefully the agency won't feel the need for new rulemaking following the court's mixed decision, said Joseph Van Eaton of Best Best, who represented plaintiffs Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties, Maryland, and Dubuque, Iowa, in the appeal of the orders on video franchising rules.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is teeing up a notice of inquiry for the Aug. 3 commissioners' meeting on the future of mid-band spectrum, industry and agency officials said. A coalition led by Intel is preparing a statement in support of a proposal for the mid-band that goes beyond what was proposed by Mimosa and other companies for the 3.7 GHz band. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly referenced the Intel-led proposal in a Monday blog post (see 1707100049). It's unclear whether the coalition will file the proposal at the FCC, given the expected NOI.
The New York Public Service Commission sought comment on Charter's $13 million settlement with New York State for failure to meet a cable network buildout condition in the PSC order approving Charter's acquisition of Time Warner Cable (see 1706200047). Also in the notice last week, the PSC asked if it should adopt a rulemaking to change targets for extending Charter's network. Comments are due Aug. 21.
Direct broadcast satellite and cable interests, which clashed over DBS regulatory fees in FY 2015 and 16 (see 1507080013 and 1607060023) are doing so again with the FCC FY 2017 fee proposal, as expected (see 1706050038). wireline interests -- saying they bear a disproportionate regulatory fee burden compared with other industries -- are backing FCC plans for reallocation of Wireline Bureau full-time equivalents (FTE), though the satellite industry is opposing. Comments on the fee proposals were due Thursday, replies July 7. The FCC Received support for its plan to hike the de minimis regulatory fee threshold and pushback on hiking the submarine cable regulatory fee.
The wireless industry is deploying infrastructure in Ohio despite legal uncertainty created by Cleveland and other localities’ lawsuits against the Ohio small-cells law, a Mobilitie official said in New York Thursday at the New York State Wireless Association Wireless Forum. Working with communities is speeding deployment in Ohio and other states, he and another industry panelist said.