Pointing to traditional fixed satellite service (FSS) earth station licensing practices that it says leave significant amounts of spectrum unused, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) is pushing the FCC for major changes in earth station licensing. In a petition for rulemaking Monday, FWCC said it wants FSS frequency coordination rules to be more akin to those governing fixed service (FS). "The routine practice of full-band, full arc earth station coordination might have made sense fifty years ago," FWCC said, saying FSS earth station coordination should be only for the frequency, azimuth and elevation angles it intends to use; that the earth station license and construction certification specifies those combinations; and that a frequency/azimuth/elevation angle combination on a license that goes unused for more than 90 days must be reported to the FCC and deleted from the license. Its proposal would let an FSS application coordinate additional frequency/azimuth/elevation angle combos as "growth capacity" that can be renewed indefinitely and that FS applicants must try to avoid. The group proposed an exception where FSS applicants can ask for a waiver letting one coordinate a choice of frequencies/azimuths/elevation angles without any construction deadlines if the earth station will be part of a network with a need to access multiple satellites. FWCC said this petition differs from a similar attempt it made in 1999, since that request made no mention of growth capacity. FWCC declined Tuesday to name its membership. Membership includes microwave equipment makers, licensees of terrestrial fixed microwave systems, communications service providers, public utilities, public safety agencies, cable-TV providers and backhaul providers.
The FCC better not approve Chairman Tom Wheeler's set-top box order now on circulation in a 3-2 vote, said Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Wednesday. She and Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., members of the Commerce Committee, spoke on a news-media call organized by the National Urban League. They and others, including tax activist Grover Norquist, urged the agency to lift comment restrictions on the item that have been garnering criticism (see 1610030044) and demanded the release of the proposal’s text. An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler he backs a request from Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., that Wheeler release the set-top box order text and initiate a Further NPRM process. The proposed order was yanked from an FCC meeting agenda Thursday (see 1609290076). The draft order “raises questions relating to customer privacy, marketplace innovation, copyright, legal authority, content security, and other topics,” Thune said in a letter dated Friday. “For a rulemaking that is expected to take years before it is fully implemented, there is no need or urgency for the Commission to rush behind closed doors to adopt a final order.” Sen Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Friday he's “glad the FCC decided to remove the divisive cable set-top box plan from the Commission’s September Open Meeting agenda. ... I have repeatedly expressed my deep concerns about the FCC’s approach in the proposed set-top box plan. The proposal was clearly premature and left many questions unresolved regarding the proper role of the FCC and its jurisdiction over issues related to content licensing and copyright.” The order’s defenders still pushed for faster approval. “This historic proposal, enforcing law long on the books, should be adopted as soon as possible,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Other lawmakers weighed in on Twitter. The FCC "should release their new proposal re: set-top box and open it up for review+public comment," tweeted Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio. "Vital that all views/concerns are heard." The move "to delay the set top box vote is a step in the right direction though the Commission still needs to revise its proposal," tweeted House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.
Late removal of the FCC set-top order from commissioners' meeting agenda Thursday (see 1609290014) indicates Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel are relatively far from a compromise on what a final order should look like, industry and FCC officials told us. If the two sides were closer together, it's likely the meeting would have been delayed for hours instead of the item being delayed indefinitely, officials said. In the day or so before, a Democratic member of Congress who led a letter against the order (see 1609270048) lobbied Rosenworcel, while others lobbied her aide, filings show.
Numerous parties interested in the diverse programming NPRM on the FCC's Thursday agenda tell us they expect a 3-2 vote along party lines. Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly seemingly don't think the agency has the authority to set new rules limiting most-favored-nation (MFN) and alternative distribution method provisions in program carriage agreements -- the focus of the NPRM (see 1609080083), one person who has been in multiple ex parte meetings with eighth-floor staff told us.
NCTA President Michael Powell pushed back Tuesday against the trio of Capitol Hill Democrats who pressed the FCC to sign off at commissioners' Thursday meeting on Chairman Tom Wheeler's set-top box proposal. The Hill Democrats spoke during a news media call Tuesday alongside other backers of the draft order. One Senate Democrat already expects industry pushback following the order’s approval and warned of the need for strong FCC enforcement, but Powell questioned how the lawmakers know enough to endorse the draft order circulating. He backs a Further NPRM on the issue, as did scores of House Democrats last week (see 1609230058).
More competition than ever, hobbled by analog-era regulations: that's how multiple commenters described the video market as the FCC readies its 18th video competition report. NCTA, in a filing posted Thursday in docket 16-247, said the annual inquiry -- now treated as routine, done by the Media Bureau without consideration by the full commission -- "misses the point: The development of true marketplace competition means that a great many regulatory measures are no longer needed and should, if anything, be curtailed." Small and midsize multichannel video programming distributor representatives argued the market is too tilted in programmers' favor to be considered competitive.
With the FCC set-top box proceeding an existential threat in the eyes of some pay-TV operators (see 1609190048), lobbying on the independent and diverse programming rulemaking on that also is on the Sept. 29 commissioner meeting preliminary agenda has been and will likely remain relatively quiet this week, multiple cable industry officials and insiders said. If an order comes out of the NPRM, they said, there undoubtedly will far more intense lobbying by multichannel video programming distributors and programmers.
The apps-based set-top box plan outlined in an FCC draft order circulated Thursday (see 1609080085) is different enough from the plan proposed in the preceding rulemaking notice filed in docket 16-42 that it could be vulnerable to an Administrative Procedure Act challenge, some attorneys and industry officials told us Friday. By circulating an order instead of a further NPRM, the FCC is preventing anyone but large programmers, companies and trade associations with the means to lobby the agency from weighing in, said cable consultant Steve Effros, who has been backing a different set-top solution. “This totally lacks integrity, and it makes a mockery of the Administrative Procedure Act,” Effros said. “What about the rest of us?”
Prohibiting “unconditional” most-favored-nation (MFN) provisions and types of “unreasonable” alternative distribution method (ADM) provisions would be the focus of the independent and diverse programming rulemaking notice on the FCC's September meeting agenda, but the proposal also will invite comments on program bundling, an FCC official told us. Chairman Tom Wheeler's announcement Thursday that he was proposing for consideration rules limiting ADM and MFN use (see 1609080083) left some buoyed. That ADMs and MFNs also were singled out as conditions in regulatory approval of Charter Communications' buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks (see 1604250039) "signals ... the importance of these," Public Knowledge Policy Fellow John Gasparini told us Friday.