The FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division are looking at possible changes to Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act implementation, FTC said Monday, announcing an NPRM and Advance NPRM to be published in the Federal Register. It said the NPRM suggests proposed transaction filers disclose more information about their associates and exempting the acquisition of 10% or less of an issuer's voting securities. The ANPRM seeks information on such topics as the size of the transaction and routes for avoiding the HSR Act requirements. The FTC said the vote to publish the ANPRM was 5-0. The NPRM vote was 3-2, with Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter dissenting. Chopra said the exemptions provisions are concerning because the FTC "will completely lose visibility into a large set of transactions involving non-controlling stakes." Slaughter said the expanded de minimis exemption is a "broadening of the black box of unseen transactions," and the proposed changes could have unforeseen effects on corporate governance. DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said he backs creating an exemption for certain de minimis investments of 10% or less "to address the regulatory burdens of an overbroad HSR requirement for certain minority investments that do not raise competition concerns.” DOJ said the agency was particularly interested in feedback on the NPRM on removing the director/officer and vendor/vendee carve-outs.
The FCC should view mobile and fixed broadband as “distinct offerings,” the Wireless ISP Association commented on the FCC's upcoming broadband progress report. “Demand for broadband connectivity has dramatically increased and shifted to fixed residential environments to accommodate remote learning and work-from-home uses and applications during the" pandemic, WISPA said. The annual Communications Act Section 706 proceeding “comes during an unprecedented time in history that has exposed the vast gulf in access to telecommunications service,” said New America’s Open Technology Institute and Access Now. Increase speed benchmarks, the groups said: The benchmark should “account for current needs and technological advancement. Service that is 25 Mbps in download speed and 3 Mbps in upload speed is insufficient for online applications used today.” Identify "the remaining gaps in deployment, recognize the substantial progress broadband providers and their partners have made in connecting Americans to broadband (especially low-income families and students), and develop strategies for closing those gaps quickly,” NCTA commented. The 25/3 connection benchmark “still satisfies the statutory definition of advanced telecommunications capability,” the group said. Comments were due Friday in docket 20-269.
EU's general data protection regulation seems to be entrenching big tech companies that were much the target of the legislation, while costing billions of dollars in compliance, FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips said on C-SPAN's The Communicators, to have been televised this weekend. He said proposals to expand it and the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is taking effect now, indicate weaknesses in the ability of those laws to address privacy issues. He said congressional work on federal privacy legislation needs to focus first on what problems need addressing and then on details such as whether there should be state law preemption or a private right of action. However, much of the Capitol Hill debate seems to be focusing on those details first, he said. Phillips confirmed his agency is doing an antitrust investigation into Facebook but didn't elaborate, and he didn't comment when asked about any possible TikTok investigation. He said he intends to serve out the remaining three years of his term regardless of how the November election goes. He said there's no chilling effect on FTC commissioners by FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's renomination being pulled by the White House seemingly for his stance on social media regulation. "We operate as a bipartisan agency," Phillips said. NTIA said Friday the FCC has the legal authority to regulate social media, and the First Amendment backs it doing so (see 2009180054).
The FCC fully considered the California Public Utilities Commission’s request to delay its rollout of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I (see 2001140028) but decided not to grant it because "it presented no concrete plan on the way forward,” Chairman Ajit Pai said in letters to Rep. Anna Eshoo and three other California Democratic members of the House Communications Subcommittee, released Friday. Eshoo and Communications Vice Chair Doris Matsui, Tony Cardenas and Jerry McNerney wrote Pai in January seeking an explanation of the FCC’s rejection of the delay. The CPUC “offered no budget, no methodology for determining where subsidies would be directed, no criteria for provider eligibility, no timeline for distribution of funding and deployment, no auction design -- in short, no partnership for the FCC to join,” Pai said. “Their suggestion, if accommodated, would cause significant delay and confusion in the entire program, as the Commission created separate mechanisms and state-specific rules for each state, instead of connecting millions of unserved Americans to broadband networks as quickly as possible. It would cause still further delay to ensure that each state's unique proposed [RDOF] mechanism for awarding support operated consistently with the Commission's decision to allocate support using market-based mechanisms.”
The FCC deactivated the disaster information reporting system for Louisiana and Mississippi, in connection with Hurricane Sally, said public notices Wednesday and Thursday. The system remains active for nine counties in Alabama and four in Florida. Thursday’s DIRS report, including the since-deactivated Mississippi region, listed 156,147 cable and wireline subscribers in the affected areas as out of service, and 17.1% of cellsites are offline. One Florida public safety answering point is rerouting calls, one AM station and three FMs are off-air, another AM is sending programming to another station and no TV stations are down.
The FCC corrected the reply comments deadline for the NPRM on proposed changes to the agency's ex parte rules (see 2009020006). Replies are due Oct. 19, not Nov. 2, said Thursday's Federal Register.
The FCC is briefly reopening the window for C-band earth station operators to correct their registrations and add existing antennas collocated with existing register antennas. Don't expect it to open again because it's "unlikely [the agency] will be in a position to grant any such waiver requests filed after Sept. 25," the Wireless and International bureaus said in a public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. The action responds to an NAB/NCTA ask (see 2008120055). The bureaus said waiver requests need to specify whether they involve antennas located within 150 meters of an incumbent earth station; seek a waiver for no more than 25 additional antennas per registrant at any given site; and seek interference protection only and disavow any claim to reimbursement for antennas subject of the waiver request.
FCC members OK'd a change proposed by Chairman Ajit Pai a year ago (see 1909060030) transitioning universal licensing system (ULS) filings from paper to electronic. The change got broad support from industry (see 1911150057). “We received a limited number of comments, the vast majority of which supported the Commission’s efforts,” said Thursday's order. The change includes all radio services authorized in parts 13, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 30, 74, 80, 87, 90, 95, 96, 97 and 101 of commission rules and is effective in six months. “We finalize our transition to electronic interactions for licenses in the Wireless Radio Services -- a transition that began more than two decades ago,” the order said: “We decrease the costs for consumers and the Commission, enhance transparency of and access to data, significantly improve administrative efficiency, and save a substantial amount of paper annually.”
Cable and wireline subscribers out of service in areas affected by Hurricane Sally jumped from 1,096 Tuesday to 88,362, said Wednesday’s disaster information reporting system FCC report. Out-of-service cellsites climbed from 0.5% to 6.9%, and two AM and two FM radio stations are off-air. No TV stations or public safety answering points were down.
The FCC said 157 of the more than 400 applications by tribal entities to use 2.5 GHz during the tribal window were accepted for filing. Petitions to deny are due Oct. 15, oppositions Oct. 26 and replies to the oppositions Nov. 2. “That an application has been accepted for filing means that the application is, upon initial review, complete and contains sufficient information to be accepted for processing and further review, including a required period on which public comment on the application is sought,” said a Tuesday notice. FCC Democrats and tribal and other groups said the FCC should have kept the window open beyond Sept. 2 due to COVID-19 (see 2007310066). “This FCC has taken aggressive action to address the digital divide on Tribal lands, and the 2.5 GHz Tribal Priority Window has been perhaps the most significant,” said Chairman Ajit Pai.