Senate legislation to streamline spectrum relocation for federal users makes minor tweaks to a House bill by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. The bipartisan Senate bill (S-3490) was introduced late Tuesday by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Both bills aim to establish a more orderly process for transitioning federal users off bands that would be reviewed by a three-member technical panel reporting to the FCC and NTIA.
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Senior Editor, is the state and local telecommunications reporter for Communications Daily, where he also has covered Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. He has won awards for his Warren Communications News reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, Specialized Information Publishers Association and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of dystopian science-fiction novels. You can follow Bender at WatchAdam.blog and @WatchAdam on Twitter.
Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., is worried that a draft public safety bill by Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., allows the FCC to condition use of the D-block, he said late Monday. A bipartisan draft of the Waxman bill surfaced Monday (CD June 15 p1). The House Communications Subcommittee plans a hearing Thursday. “I am still concerned that the draft still allows the FCC to impose conditions of what entities can bid on the spectrum while Republicans want no conditions,” said Stearns, ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee. But National Emergency Number Association CEO Brian Fontes called the draft bill a key step forward. “The draft legislation underscores the importance of a national wireless public safety broadband network and a clear demonstration of a commitment to fund both the construction and maintenance of the network,” he said. The subcommittee announced as invited witnesses FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett; Charles Dowd, New York City Police deputy chief; Jonathan Moore, a director at the International Association of Fire Fighters; Steve Zipperstein, Verizon Wireless’s general counsel; Joseph Hanley, technology vice president for Telephone and Data Systems; NENA’s Fontes; Dale Hatfield, an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado; and Coleman Bazelon, a principal of the Brattle Group.
Recent Supreme Court cases haven’t displaced antitrust law in telecom and other highly regulated industries, Verizon Senior Vice President John Thorne said at a hearing Tuesday of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy. But an FTC official and others urged Congress to use legislation to clarify the meaning of the high court’s 2003 Trinko and 2007 Credit Suisse decisions. Democratic and Republican subcommittee members said they were troubled by the rulings, but Republicans seemed hesitant to back legislative action. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., told us a legislative fix is unlikely.
Draft public safety legislation by House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., envisions $11 billion for the construction and operation of a nationwide, interoperable public safety network. A draft we obtained Monday would fund the network using proceeds from auctions of the 700 MHz D-block and other spectrum, with additional money from the U.S. Treasury. Public safety groups have opposed that approach, favoring legislation to directly allocate the D-Block to public safety (CD June 8 p1). The House Communications Subcommittee plans to discuss the bill at a hearing Thursday.
A hearing on Internet accessibility legislation exploded into a political brawl after Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., lashed out at CEA President Gary Shapiro. Testifying Thursday to the House Communications Subcommittee, Shapiro had said Markey’s bill (HR-3101) could kill start-up consumer electronics manufacturers by requiring them to make all products accessible to people with any disability. Republicans defended the CEA executive and scolded Markey. Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., tried to steer the discussion back toward areas of agreement.
Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, wants to use the appropriations process to stop the FCC from acting on Chairman Julius Genachowski’s “third way” broadband regulation proposal. At a hearing Wednesday of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services, Culberson said he would offer an amendment to FCC budget legislation prohibiting the agency from using any federal funds to “regulate the Internet,” including for reclassifying broadband transport under Title II of the Communications Act. Subcommittee Chairman Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said he doesn’t support the amendment and won’t work with Culberson to refine it.
Legislation blocking the FCC from reclassifying broadband “is not going to be a Democratic initiative,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. In a conference call with bloggers Tuesday, she dismissed some Democrats’ objections to FCC reclassification of broadband transport under Title II of the Communications Act. Meanwhile, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., told us he hopes to address colleagues’ concerns by having net neutrality legislation this year.
A combination of legislation and industry self-regulation is the best way to shore up the FCC’s authority over broadband, said AT&T and Time Warner Cable executives. The ISP officials and others condemned FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s “third way” proposal in a panel discussion Tuesday co-hosted by the Information Technology & Information Foundation and the Free State Foundation. A technology-based answer by industry would be ideal, said BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker.
A draft spectrum bill by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., emphasizes that it should be entirely voluntary for broadcasters to give up spectrum. As reported (CD May 27 p10), the bill would codify the National Broadband Plan goals of making 500 MHz of spectrum available over 10 years for wireless broadband, 300 MHz of it within five years, and amend Section 309(j)(8) of the Communications Act to set up incentive auctions under which the government could split auction proceeds with broadcasters that give up spectrum. An eight-page draft we received uses the word “voluntary” and variants of it nine times.
Government and industry officials disagreed over how far along interoperability standards are for public safety wireless communications. At a House Technology Subcommittee hearing Thursday, witnesses from Harris and Motorola said work on Project-25 (P25) standards for public safety, started in 1989, are mostly finished. But officials from the Homeland Security Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology pointed to interoperability gaps remaining.