Pay-TV Opposes Proposal for Separate DBS Regulatory Fee Category
Cable and satellite companies urged the FCC not to create a new regulatory fee category for direct broadcast satellite services, while cable entities supported placing DBS providers under the same category as cable providers, in comments on a rulemaking on 2014 regulatory fees. Some entities cautioned the commission against rushing to assess regulatory fees for companies that manage toll-free numbers. Initial comments were due last week; replies are due Dec. 26.
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The Satellite Industry Association urged the FCC to reject a proposal to establish a new regulatory fee for DBS services. The Further NPRM cites no rationale for imposing a fee on direct-to-home operations, "and none is apparent from the record,” SIA said in comments. The notice doesn’t address the logistical issues of how such a fee would be calculated and assessed given that the fixed satellite service providers don't have video subscribers, SIA said. The proposal to reassign some Media Bureau full-time-equivalent employees (FTEs) to the International Bureau is “similarly flawed,” it said. There’s no justification for imposing the costs of Media Bureau FTEs on space and earth station licensees and undersea cable operators who don’t benefit from the work of those FTEs, it said.
ITTA urged the FCC to move forward on the proposal to combine DBS providers into the fee category for cable and IPTV providers. The commission also needs to address several issues before assessing regulatory fees for “responsible organizations” that manage toll-free numbers, it said in its comments. Excluding DBS providers from per-subscriber fees concerning the Media Bureau’s oversight of video services puts cable and IPTV providers at a competitive disadvantage “because they must pay a disproportionate amount of regulatory fees in comparison to their satellite competitors,” ITTA said. It’s unclear which responsible organizations the new fee affects, which toll-free numbers would be included in such an assessment, “what the amount of the fee would be, or at what point the fee would be determined during the course of a fiscal year,” it said.
The cable organizations urged the FCC to revise its regulatory fee schedule to assess DBS operators a fair share of the FCC’s multichannel video programming distributor regulatory functions, and to not create an independent DBS fee category. Creating a new category for DBS services makes little sense because DBS providers offer similar service and benefit similarly from Media Bureau services and regulations, said American Cable Association and NCTA in joint comments. While DBS operators pay fees to support the International Bureau’s work in licensing and operation of DBS infrastructure, “those fees are unrelated and not used to support Media Bureau efforts in regulation of DBS operators’ MVPD operations,” they said. There is no logical basis for the suggestion that DBS operators should pay fees at a lesser rate because they also pay substantial fees to support the International Bureau’s regulation of their satellite operations, they said.
The proposal to create a new DBS regulatory fee category faces substantial legal and policy hurdles, said DirecTV and Dish Network. Unless the regulatory services provided by the FCC change fundamentally, the costs of providing those services shouldn’t change sufficiently to justify amendment of the schedule of fees, “which Congress clearly sought to discourage by imposing strict conditions,” they said in joint comments. The satellite-TV operators challenged the FCC’s suggestion that a new DBS fee category may be appropriate under Section 9 of the Communications Act. The Further NPRM remains silent about the legal standard Congress specified for engaging in permitted amendments, DirecTV and Dish said. “It makes no effort to cite any changes in law or regulation, much less to explain how any such changes have changed the ‘nature’ of the regulatory services provided by the commission to DBS providers.”
In crafting the details of a fee for toll-free numbers, the FCC may reconsider whether the fees involved are worth the administrative cost, said SMS/800, toll-free number manager. The FCC also should make sure any enforcement mechanism for such a fee doesn’t prejudice end users, it said in comments. The FCC shouldn’t impose an entirely new regulatory requirement solely to ensure it can collect annual fees from responsible organizations, it said. Imposing burdensome regulation solely for this purpose “would impose additional time and financial burdens on the commission” and registered organizations, “for no real regulatory or policy purpose,” it said.