Industry discussions around proposed FCC rules for set-top boxes are focused on apps-based proposals, though pay-TV carriers and proponents of the NPRM disagree what that proposal should be. “It is possible for there to be an app-oriented approach that would achieve the Commission’s goals,” said Public Knowledge in an ex parte filing in docket 16-42 Friday. “The current iteration of the MVPD app proposal is not it.” Meanwhile, multichannel video programming distributor officials have told us the apps-based proposals from PK and Incompas would create the same problems for content security as the NPRM.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s set-top box rulemaking was criticized Monday at the Independent Show, co-hosted by the American Cable Association and the National Cable Television Cooperative in Orlando. Senate Commerce Committee member Deb Fischer, R-Neb., criticized the NPRM, but American Cable Association President Matt Polka told her the industry alternative known as Ditch the Box may be no boon for smaller operators either.
Cable and telco trade groups asked the FCC for more time to reply in a rulemaking on revising the agency's special access framework for business data services (BDS). In a motion Tuesday in docket 16-143, NCTA, USTelecom and ITTA said the July 26 deadline should be delayed 21 days to give parties more time to address voluminous initial comments and various complexities, including evolving industry data and related BDS market analysis.
An FCC proposal to require cable companies to separately state a charge for cable modems is “unnecessary, legally flawed, and would be contrary to consumer interest," said Charter Communications in a meeting with staff from the Media Bureau, Office of Strategic Planning and Policy and Office of General Counsel July 7. Charter “supplies and maintains modems at no additional charge in conjunction with its high-speed broadband service offering,” the cable company said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-42. “The Commission’s proposed regulation of cable modems is unsupported by the record and exceeds the Commission’s authority.” Proposals by commenters in the proceeding to establish a case-by-case complaint process should be rejected, since they would lead to regulating prices through adjudication rather than rulemaking, the company said. Requiring providers to separately state a non-zero modem price would be “non-transparent and could actively harm consumers by creating a new fee that the vast majority of subscribers would need to pay,” said the cable ISP.
The Copyright Office has concerns about the FCC set-top box rulemaking, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Tuesday during a House Communications Subcommittee FCC oversight hearing. Both have met with the CO and said they believe FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal can't go forward as is. Momentum is with an alternative pay-TV proposal (see 1607120079), which Wheeler welcomed in prepared testimony (see 1607110063).
The Senate Commerce Committee scheduled a 10 a.m. Tuesday hearing in 253 Russell on FCC-proposed broadband privacy rules. Witnesses are Information Technology Industry Council CEO Dean Garfield; 21st Century Privacy Coalition co-Chairman Jon Leibowitz, a former FTC chairman now at Davis Polk; American Cable Association CEO Matt Polka; and Georgia Institute of Technology professor Peter Swire. This is the third Capitol Hill hearing on this topic this year. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a Commerce Committee member, along with several Democratic colleagues sent a letter to the FCC Thursday lauding the FCC’s privacy role and suggesting what they feel the regulations should be. “We strongly support the Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and believe that this framework will strengthen the privacy protections for consumers’ personal information,” the Democrats said.
ISPs, and the groups that represent them, made a last pitch in reply comments at the agency to try to get the FCC to back down from tough privacy rules that apply only to ISPs. But industry observers said Thursday the FCC appears likely to move in a matter of months to approve rules as proposed by Chairman Tom Wheeler in March (see 1603310049). Many of the ISPs noted the FTC raised questions about the FCC’s approach and whether it would create major differences between how ISPs and other companies are regulated (see 1606020062).
Telco and cable interests continued to slam FCC procedures in releasing peer reviews critiquing a consultant's study of the business broadband market, which the agency estimates generates $45 billion in annual revenue. The release of the peer reviews came on June 28 just as comments were due in the agency's business data service (BDS) rulemaking and two months after they were submitted. AT&T suggested the commission violated the Administrative Procedure Act and NCTA suggested the agency didn't care about stakeholder input.
Several House Communications Subcommittee members see virtue in the industry’s "Ditch the Box" alternative set-top proposal, their offices told us. The issue is expected to come up and create pressure at the subcommittee’s Tuesday FCC oversight hearing, scheduled for 10:15 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's appearance is seen by officials on both sides of the set-top matter as applying some time pressure to the FCC's set-top plans, they said in interviews. Opposition to the original FCC proposal has been more bipartisan and more strenuous than FCC officials expected, both proponents and opponents of the FCC plan have said.
An FCC consultant and agency staff stood by their business data service analysis despite additional 2013 cable deployment data that ILECs say show much more competition than believed when the commission proposed a new BDS regulatory framework (see 1604280057). Documents released by the Wireline Bureau Tuesday and posted Wednesday in docket 16-143 -- including a modified BDS white paper by consultant Marc Rysman, a Boston University econometrician -- factored in the recent supplemental cable data and feedback from peer reviews.