Senators complained of concerns with FCC rulemaking process Thursday during a Homeland Security Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management hearing on independent agencies. They said cost-benefit analysis should be necessary when independent agencies craft major rules and said regulatory overhaul is highly political, with a tough path for the subcommittee’s legislative hopes.
A court panel heavily scrutinized an FCC VoIP decision allowing local competitors to collect certain switching charges for routing over-the-top long-distance calls to local phone customers. Two of three judges asked numerous questions and sparred with attorneys -- though in different ways -- in oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1059. The session ran well over the scheduled 40 minutes as the judges delved into the technical and legal intricacies of telecom network switching of Internet calls.
Many major cable distributors have almost crossed the finish line on full digital conversion of their analog signals, but digital transition progress for smaller operators is more of a mixed bag, said companies and industry experts. Most small to midsize cable operators will go digital, or even transition to IPTV, within a decade, American Cable Association President Matt Polka told us. "We want to get there," he said. "We need to maximize our networks to be more efficient so we can reclaim more bandwidth [for broadband]. The issue becomes one of complexity, size, technology and available resources."
The FCC has come under fire for rulemaking policies and practices by everyone from lawmakers to its minority-party commissioners, though its openness and transparency -- especially in comparison with some other regulatory agencies -- could be worse, said several commission watchers and regulatory agency experts. Considering the amount of rulemaking the FCC engages in, "it works pretty well," Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood told us.
The FCC exceeds all but one other federal commission in after-hours document issuances, Communications Daily found, a practice that has the effect of delaying reaction by affected parties and that raises transparency concerns. Almost every other business day last quarter, the FCC on average posted something online about an hour after regular hours end at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. Only the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exceeded during Q2 the 27 items the FCC released after business hours, and most other agencies issued no evening items, we found through Freedom of Information Act and other requests to independent federal commissions with a national purview. Over half of late FCC items were from Chairman Tom Wheeler's office. The FCC released another 32 items between 5 p.m. and 5:29 p.m., also after most agencies stop issuing documents.
FCC commissioners should declare their support for a rulemaking seeking comment on extending the procurement rules for cable to all FCC entities in their signing statements on the upcoming quadrennial review order, said Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council Senior Adviser David Honig in an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-50 Monday. Honig called aides to Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly to ask them to back the rule change in their signing statements. Cable procurement rules require carriers to widely advertise procurement opportunities in an effort to encourage diversity. If commissioners express support for the NPRM in their signing statements, it's more likely the commission will pursue the matter, Honig told us. The procurement rules are part of a "diversity docket" of items that MMTC had been seeking to have included in the media ownership order. Four former chairmen -- Julius Genachowski, Bill Kennard, Reed Hundt and Michael Copps -- sent a letter to the FCC endorsing the proposal to extend in the draft order now on circulation (see 1608050058).
Battle lines remained fairly clear in the FCC business data service rulemaking, as dozens of replies were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 16-143. Most wireless parties, CLECs, business customers and consumer advocates said the FCC needs to take new steps to regulate a BDS market often dominated by incumbent telcos with pricing power. ILECs and free-market advocates said new regulation would be unjustified and harmful in a business broadband market with robust and growing competition, particularly from cable companies, which recently updated their deployment data. Cable interests and others said BDS regulation shouldn't sweep in upstarts.
AT&T and ILEC allies said the business data service market is flourishing, and heavy-handed regulation would undermine investment and facilities-based competition. But rivals of incumbent telcos continued to press their case for regulating a business broadband market they say is dominated by ILECs, and Incompas and Verizon offered new details for establishing Ethernet "benchmarks" and a competitive market test as part of their joint proposal to establish a new regulatory BDS framework. Some parties issued news releases and statements to frame the BDS debate as reply comments were due Tuesday in the FCC's rulemaking in docket 16-143 initiated by a Further NPRM (see 1604280057).
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler phoned CEOs of content companies to try to win their support for the set-top rulemaking days before the Copyright Office issued a letter slamming the FCC plan, content company officials told us. CO opinion undermines Wheeler's efforts and backs up criticisms of the FCC plan from content companies and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (see 1607120078), content company officials told us. Advocates of the FCC plan urged the commission to reject CO's position, but Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a statement Thursday that the critique should be “the final nail in the coffin” for the FCC proposal. Wheeler said Thursday in a news conference after commissioners' meeting that the FCC plan wouldn't violate copyright law, and many of the suggestions in the pay-TV backed apps proposal would be “adopted" in the final order.
TracFone and others urged the FCC to undo its planned phaseout of Lifeline support for stand-alone voice service, as parties commented on petitions for reconsideration of the agency order extending the low-income subsidies to broadband and revising program administration (see 1603310056). Consumer advocates and some Lifeline providers opposed various recon requests by telco and cable trade groups (see 1606240077). NCTA and USTelecom opposed a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission petition to clarify the state role on FCC-designated Lifeline broadband providers (see 1607200057), while Sprint supported clarification. Comments were due Friday, and some were posted Monday in docket 11-42.