Several Senate Commerce Committee members want Congress to modernize rules that govern the communications market. From federal E-rate polices, to video regulations, lawmakers at Tuesday’s FCC oversight hearing said it’s time to take a hard look at what should be done to modernize the 20th century rules that govern the market now.
Some newer video products would need to be capable of passing on to users video descriptions from TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors’ emergency on-screen crawls within two years of a draft FCC order taking effect, agency officials said. They said the draft Media Bureau order would require mobile DTV products and DVR and Blu-ray players to be able to pass on audio narratives of warnings originally rendered on the screens of TV station and MVPD programming viewers. The TV licensees would be responsible for converting what’s in the crawls into secondary audio programming channels, and the SAP content would need to be available to users of the consumer electronics, agency officials said. CEA, NAB and members have sought exclusions or more time for mobile DTV equipment (CD Feb 14 p18).
The Department of Energy took what it called “a step in this process” toward regulating how much energy set-top boxes can use, with Thursday’s release of data tables estimating the impact on such rules. Based partly on the government regulatory impact model, DOE issued tables that “assess the economic impact of potential standards on set-top box manufacturers and multichannel video programming distributors.” After negotiations between nonprofits that seek lower energy use and representatives of MVPDs and makers of consumer electronics ended in the fall, “DOE has since moved forward with the regulatory process,” a notice in Thursday’s Federal Register said. It pointed to January’s notice of proposed rulemaking, or NOPR in DOE nomenclature (CD Jan 23 p14), on standards to test the power consumption of set-tops.
Comcast and advocates for the hearing impaired lobbied the FCC on their different interpretations of a 2010 law’s requirements for what types of TV services should face emergency accessibility programming rules. The cable operator backs a rulemaking notice proposal that multichannel video programming distributors should be required to pass through such information from broadcasters on the secondary audio stream. The company also backed a rulemaking’s proposal to cover broadcast TV and MVPD services but not Internet Protocol-delivered content that’s not otherwise an MVPD service, a filing said executives told an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Comcast today passes through the secondary audio stream for all of its cable services and supports access to secondary audio in its set-top boxes.” The ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/YM5JoL) was posted Tuesday in docket 12-107, where a lobbying disclosure from two deaf groups also appeared that day. The agency should “clarify that the emergency information rules will apply to all video programming providers” and video programming distributors, “not just broadcasters” and MVPDs, National Association of the Deaf and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing reported telling aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The law “prevents the Commission from excluding classes of apparatuses” such as those getting IP-delivered content from MVPDs, from the rules, the groups said (http://bit.ly/YM5JoL).
Multichannel video programming distributors oppose a Department of Energy plan to devise methods to test the energy efficiency of set-top boxes, MVPD executives told a DOE meeting on the agency’s notice of proposed rulemaking, which DOE calls an “NOPR” (CD Jan 23 p14). The executives continued to differ with advocates who seek more savings in power consumption of home electronics over the need for an NOPR. Another disagreement at Wednesday’s meeting was whether to include newer devices that some MVPDs are beginning to provide subscribers that serve as home gateways for broadband, phone and video connections to smaller thin-client devices that are scaled-down versions of set-tops. An advocate wanted such all-in-one-boxes included in the test methods, while cable operators don’t, and a maker of consumer electronics thinks the inclusion may make sense. DOE’s January proposal would exclude such gateways, meeting participants said.
The FCC should revise program access rules for buying groups, the American Cable Association told agency officials in a presentation. It was attended by ACA’s outside economist and an executive at the No. 1 U.S. co-op that negotiates carriage deals with programmers for multiple members. ACA and members have sought to enlarge such groups’ rights, commenting on a rulemaking notice on expanding some rules for pay-TV providers to get deals to show channels affiliated with cable operators (CD Jan 16 p7). The National Cable Television Cooperative satisfies none of the current commission buying group requirements, but does meet one proposed in the rulemaking, ACA’s presentation said. “The buying group agrees to assume liability to forward all payments due and received from its members for payment under a master agreement to the appropriate programmer.” Rules now “contravene the clear intent of Congress that buying groups should receive protection under program access rules,” said the presentation posted Wednesday in docket 12-68 (http://bit.ly/13oerNe). At the meeting with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning were ACA President Matt Polka, Northwestern University Professor of Economics William Rogerson and NCTC’s Jeff Nourse, senior vice president of legal & regulatory affairs.
Time Warner Cable responded to Google’s gripes that the operator is withholding a regional sports network (RSN) in the Kansas City, Mo., area, where the Internet company sells a nascent video and super-fast broadband product. The dispute points up bigger issues over program access in an Internet Protocol context, said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and an Internet lawyer not part of the spat over access to Time Warner Cable’s Metro Sports Kansas City RSN. Time Warner Cable’s new response to the Internet company’s criticisms made in recent months in FCC filings -- and most recently in a program access proceeding -- was the operator’s first rebuttal, a cable industry lawyer said.
Acceptance of cable industry arguments that the FCC should avoid adopting digital cable performance testing requirements could hurt customers, NATOA and some municipal governments told the commission last week, in reply comments on a rulemaking that would set up digital cable signal leakage and quality rules (CD Aug 6 p10). Distributors continued to push in their replies against such testing requirements and for a certification process instead.
The fast pace of innovation and changing technology has triggered the FCC to update rules around how content is delivered to viewers of cable systems, said Alison Neplokh, Media Bureau chief engineer. The commission took at look at rules on “viewability,” encryption and the HD carriage exemption, she said Tuesday during a webcast of a Practising Law Institute panel. The commission realized that when a system is all digital, it can save money, time and hassle for consumers by not turning off service to the household if it can encrypt the signal, she said. But “that doesn’t come without some cost to consumers,” she said. Last year’s FCC order to allow encryption of the basic-service tier includes provisions from a previous order that went to Cablevision requiring cable companies to provide free equipment for a certain amount of time (CD Oct 16 p6), she said. Neplokh said she noticed a few quieter commercials since the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act went into effect. “We've gotten complaints and inquiries since going into effect, but there has been no enforcement action on these rules yet,” she said. The FCC is still reviewing the record on a rulemaking to update signal leakage rules, she said. The next generation of set-top boxes will challenge how far the FCC’s direct and ancillary authority goes under Section 629 of the Communications Act, said Paul Glist, a cable lawyer at Davis Wright. The FCC, to its credit, “has already recognized that a model of micromanaging … isn’t the best way to approach a changing, fast-paced market,” he said. In predicting the future of set-tops, “we need to keep in mind that no single configuration fits all customers,” he said: “Grandma … doesn’t want a home network or a tablet.” The box model isn’t dead, he said: “Consumer tastes really matter and we can’t make rules by calling those tastes in advance.”
The telecom industry was sharply divided on AT&T’s petition to eliminate legacy interconnection rules, as the U.S. telecom infrastructure moves toward all-Internet Protocol services. ILEC comments supported the petition, which would start with deregulatory “experiments” in various wire centers to gauge the technological and competitive effects of eliminating several ILEC obligations. Carriers and cable companies cautioned against eliminating interconnection requirements in the Telecom Act that they say protect consumers and competitors. The CLECs were split on a competing proposal by NTCA, which seeks an omnibus proceeding the association said would retain consumer-friendly regulations and incentivize IP interconnection. State associations and commissions worried about ensuring consumer protections as well as maintaining their own authority. Public interest groups were wary of AT&T’s petition, but several minority groups encouraged the idea of limited deregulatory trials to determine the effect on minority customers.