NARUC will tackle spectrum sharing, emergency communications coordination and the FCC’s “repeated abuses of informal rulemaking,” according to draft resolutions released this week (http://xrl.us/bob6pm). State regulators will consider the resolutions at their winter meeting in Washington in February. The proposed resolutions delve into past controversial territory, such as addressing FCC referral to the Federal-State Joint Boards on Separations and Universal Service. USTelecom objected to joint board referral provisions at the past two NARUC meetings, in Baltimore in November (CD Nov 14 p5) and Portland, Ore., last July (CD July 25 p8), although both of the resolutions passed.
Federal agencies could do a better job soliciting and responding to comments from the public, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bobvzg). From 2003-10, agencies failed to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking 35 percent of the time when passing “major” rules, the report found. GAO defined a major rule as one that has a significant impact on the economy, with an annual effect of at least $100 million. For “nonmajor” rules, which have less economic significance and involve more routine issues, agencies neglected to publish an NPRM 44 percent of the time, the report said. GAO recommended that the Office of Management and Budget encourage agencies to respond to comment on final major rules that were issued without an NPRM.
Spectrum availability and ensuring that a regulatory framework supports use of broadband will continue to take top priority at the FCC, said commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai Thursday at the Minority Media & Telecom Council conference. They said FCC action from last year helped advance the goal of fostering broadband availability. In 2012, the commission took up universal service reform, Clyburn said, and everyone recognized that the communications ecosystem continues to change at exponential speed and that “we needed a framework that had the capacity to keep up with the times,” she said. Clyburn said she’s proudest of having moved that along on a bipartisan basis.
Before the FCC can implement its Connect America Cost Model, it must settle a more fundamental question than what capabilities should be added to the model, said commenters on a December rulemaking notice on the features. The real question, they said in filings and interviews, is whether to use a greenfield or a brownfield approach to estimating costs. “Of any changes that could be made to the model, this is by far the biggest,” said Ross Lieberman, American Cable Association vice president-government affairs. The ACA has been a primary proponent of the brownfield model, one option offered in the latest version of the CACM.
The lack of exclusive deals between unaffiliated regional sports networks and multichannel video programming distributors undercuts cable industry arguments that exclusive deals among affiliated RSNs and cable MVPDs create diversity of programming choices, said Verizon and Verizon Wireless in reply comments filed with the FCC Monday. Verizon’s reply and others (http://xrl.us/boax3q) responded to the commission’s rulemaking notice on program access rules, which contained a proposal that would make it harder for MVPDs to withhold RSNs they own from competitors by setting up a rebuttable presumption that such withholding is unfair under the Communications Act. The rulemaking was initiated as the commission allowed a ban on exclusive contracts between affiliated networks and distributors to expire (CD Oct 9 p1).
The FCC Public Safety Bureau report on June’s derecho wind storm, which knocked out phone service for 3.6 million people in the mid-Atlantic and beyond -- many unable to reach 911 for several hours -- made demands of telcos among its recommendations. The Public Safety Bureau released the 56-page document Thursday after starting an investigation in July (CD July 20 p5). Four 911 centers in northern Virginia lost 911 access completely, prompting a close look at Verizon’s role and backup power generator failures there. FCC recommendations include provisions on backup power and audits and preface a rulemaking notice intended to strengthen emergency communications.
The question of whether non-carriers should be given direct access to numbering resources is best addressed in the context of a rulemaking, NCTA told FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach Friday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bn93xk). A Vonage petition for limited waiver is not the proper method for deciding these issues, NCTA said. NCTA also explained that some cable operators rely on unaffiliated carriers for access to numbering resources, but most large cable operators obtain numbers directly or through an affiliate.
Montgomery County, Md., is hoping to change some of the rules governing how the FCC frees cable operators from local rate regulation. It recently asked the Media Bureau not to grant a special relief request from Comcast that would free the cable operator from local rate regulation in some Montgomery County towns. Opposition from local franchise authorities to such requests by cable operators is not new. But Montgomery County argued the bureau should stop making findings of “effective competition,” based solely on competition from Dish and DirecTV (CD Dec 13 p23). That argument, if it holds up, could affect how other operators in areas where no wireline competition exists are able to seek similar local rate regulation relief.
Some at the FCC are considering whether to allow waivers of media ownership rules for some types of arrangements that are barred under draft rules involving TV stations, agency and industry officials said. They said in interviews that some Media Bureau staff members are considering a waiver process for joint sales agreements where a TV station brokers ads for another outlet in the market, when spots on the second station in the JSA exceed 15 percent of that broadcaster’s commercials. A draft order ending the 2010 quadrennial media ownership review would require the attribution of such JSAs to the station doing the brokering within two years (CD Nov 15 p1). That would mean many of the JSAs would need to be renegotiated so the arrangements don’t violate ownership rules, reducing their cost savings, said executives at companies that own brokering stations. There are more than 100 stations in JSAs (CD Nov 29 p5).
Deals letting TV stations share services were the focus of more lobbying (CD Dec 20 p20) at the FCC last week, docket 09-182 showed (http://xrl.us/bn7g5r). Draft media ownership rules would attribute joint services agreements (JSA) as ownership to a station brokering about 15 percent or more ads for another separately owned outlet in the same market. Broadcasters continued to say JSAs shouldn’t be attributed, while cable operators and a nonprofit opposed to consolidation want more types of arrangements counted toward a market’s ownership limits. Schurz Communications, with three TV stations in JSAs, asked the agency to not “change its established way” of handling such arrangements. The “one exception” to the commission not grandfathering existing ownership arrangements when new rules are adopted was the 2003 order attributing radio JSAs, Schurz noted. “But that occurred after the local radio limits had been significantly relaxed, in contrast to the television rules which remain unchanged.” Asked by FCC staff about waivers for local ownership of media assets, executives of Schurz, owner of cable systems, newspapers and radio and TV stations, said there are often delays getting such exceptions. That “would make that an unattractive option since stations could be tied up for an indefinite period while the waiver was under consideration,” a filing said (http://xrl.us/bn7g6w) of meetings with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau, Commissioner Ajit Pai and aides to the other four FCC members. Because eight years have passed since a rulemaking notice proposed attributing TV JSAs, “interested parties should have the opportunity to update the record that would be permitted by a delay in action,” Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber emailed Lake Thursday, two days after they met. That would let the agency “reach conclusions based on current marketplace conditions,” said the email, included in the company’s ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bn7g66). Lake and other bureau officials were asked during the meeting by Faber “to slow down [the FCC’s] apparent rush to judgment” on TV JSAs. Faber has criticized attributing them (CD Nov 29 p5). LIN Media, part of four JSAs, thinks any arrangements already OK'd by the agency as part of station transactions “should be permanently grandfathered,” a filing said. LIN would prefer the pacts not be attributed at all, it said of “situations where the parties have invested millions in arrangements approved by the Commission.” Radio has seen “necessary deregulation in ownership caps while the television ownership limits have remained tightly constrained, especially in small markets,” a LIN executive told Lake and others in the bureau. NCTA meanwhile continued lobbying for the agency to deem attributable ownership of any TV station that has its retransmission consent deals negotiated by another nearby outlet, to the negotiating broadcaster, executives said in meetings with bureau officials and aides to commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel. The current draft order’s focus on JSAs “is puzzling” to Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, he recounted (http://xrl.us/bn7g8q) telling an aide to Rosenworcel. “News co-production and ’sharing’ arrangements seem more likely to allow for control or influence over another licensee’s programming than do JSAs.” Wood sees a “growing consensus” the agency should study the impact on ownership opportunities for minorities and women of changing newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules, before changing the regulations, he said. Minority and woman ownership remains “disproportionately low,” NAB said (http://xrl.us/bn7g9a) in early-filed comments on Form 323 ownership figures for those and other demographic groups. The association, though, cited “some positive developments in the numbers of minority and female owners, attributable interest holders, and positional interest holders.” Form 323 initial comments are due Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn7g9r).