NAB is leaning on the FCC to strengthen the TV white spaces (TVWS) database, after filing an emergency petition in March asking the agency to suspend operation of the database system until “serious flaws” are corrected (see 1503190056). NAB officials, including Bruce Franca, a former deputy chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, met last week with OET Chief Julius Knapp and others at the FCC to lay out their concerns that problems persist. “Our updated examination of the TVWS database reveals that the database is, once again, riddled with inaccuracies despite the fact that the FCC has made aggressive efforts to clean up the errors,” NAB said. “This confirms that the problem of inaccurate information in the database is one that will not stop -- and will likely accelerate -- unless and until the Commission changes its rules to ensure location data is built into the device and input with limited human involvement.” NAB said it earlier called attention to obviously false names, such as “John Doe” or “Sue Q. Public,” and “Anytown, CA” in the database. “Remarkably, months after NAB focused considerable attention on such errors, someone registered a device in the TVWS database under the name ‘John Doe,’” the association said. “This device was registered as being located in the middle of an empty field, with a contact e-mail address of ‘jd@example.com,’ and a contact telephone number of 232-555-1212.” The FCC deleted the entry, but only after NAB brought it to the agency’s attention, the group said. One device was registered as being in the middle of Lake Michigan, NAB said. “This device remained registered in that location nearly two months after NAB brought this example to the FCC’s attention.” NAB on Thursday filed an ex parte notice on the meeting in docket 14-165. The FCC is aware of the issue and is taking a close look after seeking comment on the NAB petition, a spokesman said. “The commission is committed to ensuring that the white spaces database is correct, and have taken the appropriate steps to do so," the spokesman said. "We continue to work with the spectrum of stakeholders to accomplish that, including NAB, database providers and equipment manufacturers.”
Gigi Sohn, counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, commended New York for the state's billion-dollar rural broadband expansion program, during a speech Thursday at the New York State Broadband Summit. The digital divide is "shrinking" but is still an issue for millions of Americans, which is why the "New NY Broadband Program" is "such a big deal," Sohn said according to written remarks. The program, a $500 million investment by the state with a 50 percent provider match, is designed to help pay for broadband to reach the state's "underserved and unserved" populations, its website said. Sohn touted the commission's recently updated broadband standard (see 1501290043) and said it would provide faster and better broadband to customers who will be reached by New York's new broadband program. Sohn also spoke on the FCC ruling to pre-empt municipal broadband laws in North Carolina, which she said prevented community broadband networks from expanding to surrounding areas. North Carolina has filed a lawsuit in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals against the FCC (see 1505150043). Sohn told the audience that the commission "will not be afraid to act" when state laws directly conflict with federal laws and policy, and "sent a clear message" to Americans by ruling for municipal broadband. She expressed concerns about the lack of competition in the broadband market -- which one analyst said doesn't bode well for Charter's planned buy of Time Warner Cable. Sohn said traditional DSL has "not kept pace with the needs of today's consumers" and is "no longer a real alternative to faster cable and fiber networks," which has resulted in a lack of competition. BTIG's Richard Greenfield said in a blog post that Sohn's comments reinforce his views that the deal "faces a very challenging regulatory path." Sohn said that the FCC and the Department of Justice have worked to "discourage transactions that we believed would reduce competition." Greenfield noted that "new" Charter would be almost as large as Comcast -- which dropped its planned buy of TWC after facing potential regulatory challenges.
The FCC shouldn't approve a declaratory ruling on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that's anti-business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a letter Thursday to the agency. The Chamber agrees consumers should “not be barraged with unwanted calls,” but most signs are the commission’s approach isn't balanced, the Chamber said. Industry and FCC officials have said they expect a big fight at the FCC June 18 when commissioners vote on the item (see 1506030043). The Chamber is widely viewed as the nation’s single most powerful trade association. "The Chamber is concerned that in addressing over 20 pending TCPA petitions in one omnibus ruling that appears focused on ‘protecting’ consumers at all costs, the proposed ruling has not taken a balanced approach to the petitions,” the group said. “The goal should be not only to safeguard consumers, but also to protect businesses against abusive litigation filed under a statute that, when passed by Congress in 1991, was not intended to be enforced in such a manner against businesses calling their own customers.” The ruling appears to draw no distinction “between abusive telemarketers (who are the intended target of the TCPA’s autodialer restrictions) and the legitimate businesses who make targeted communications to their customers at customer-provided numbers,” the Chamber said. It's been active in supporting various TCPA petitions seeking to curb lawsuits filed under the act. The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform also signed off the filing in docket 02-278.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a lower court to hear a complaint that two unsolicited, prerecorded messages on a home phone line in 2012, promoting the film Last Ounce of Courage, were a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The message, recorded by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was really a survey rather than a telemarketing call, said the companies behind the calls. AIC Communications, which was behind the campaign, left two messages for the couple who filed the lawsuit, Ron and Dorit Golan, the Minneapolis-based appeals court said. The decision was written by Judge Diana Murphy. “The Golans did not answer the call, so they heard only the automated message: ‘Liberty. This is a public survey call. We may call back later,’” Murphy wrote, saying this happened twice. “In total, AIC Communications called 4 million residential phone lines, and over 1 million live responses were detected, subjecting those recipients to the majority of the prerecorded script,” the court said. “The remaining recipients who did not answer the call, like the Golans, heard only the brief message recording.” The lower court ruled the Golans hadn't suffered an injury because none of the messages they had received "contained an advertisement, telemarketing message, or telephone solicitation," in violation of the TCPA, the 8th Circuit said. “While the content of the calls controlled whether they were ‘advertisements,’ their purpose controlled whether they were ‘telemarketing,’” the court said. Defendants argue the court should consider only the content of the calls in determining whether they're "telemarketing” calls, the court said. “We refuse to do so. Neither the TCPA nor its implementing regulations ‘require an explicit mention of a good, product, or service’ where the implication of an improper purpose is ‘clear from the context.’" The FCC is slated to take up a declaratory ruling on the TCPA at its June 18 meeting (see 1505270048).
CTIA sued to strike down a Berkeley, California, ordinance that requires retailers to make "unsubstantiated and false statements about the alleged effects of cellphones, which would contradict the findings from independent health and scientific organizations," said the association in a Monday news release. Berkeley's City Council May 26 unanimously adopted an ordinance, Requiring Notice Concerning Radio Frequency Exposure of Cell Phones, No. 7,404-N.S., the filing said. The ordinance says the disclosures and warnings that accompany cellphones generally advise consumers not to wear them against their bodies, but the disclosures and warnings often are buried in fine print and not written in easily understood language, or are accessible only by looking for the information on the device itself, the lawsuit said. The ordinance requires cellphone retailers to give all customers who buy or lease a cellphone a notice that warns of the dangers as follows: "To assure safety, the Federal Government requires that cell phones meet radio frequency (RF) exposure guidelines. If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation. This potential risk is greater for children. Refer to the instructions in your phone or user manual for information about how to use your phone safely." The FCC has said it's confident the federal government's conservative health and safety standards for cellphones fully protect public health, CTIA said. Leading global health organizations such as the American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration all concurred that wireless devices are not a public health risk, it said. "Berkeley's Ordinance plainly violates the First Amendment," said CTIA's representing counsel Theodore Olson, of Gibson Dunn. "The ordinance also unlawfully interferes with FCC regulations and contradicts the federal government's determination -- based on extensive scientific evidence -- that cellphones approved for sale in the United States do not pose a public health risk. It is unconstitutional to force cellphone retailers to communicate false, misleading and inflammatory information about their products. It is unfortunate that Berkeley would incite unfounded public anxiety and fear about a product that is so important to its citizens' everyday lives." The association had previously won a fight against San Francisco’s cellphone labeling law (see report in the Sept. 11, 2012, issue). The Berkeley City Council did not have an immediate comment Monday.
Correction: A declaratory ruling allows Pandora to acquire a station even though it couldn't prove it had less than 25 percent foreign ownership, and requires it to seek FCC approval to go over 49 percent foreign ownership (see 1506020035).
AT&T voluntarily committed to file periodic reports to the FCC to verify that it isn't using Connect America Fund USF subsidies to support new broadband service enabled by its proposed takeover of DirecTV, said an AT&T ex parte letter posted Tuesday in docket 14-90. AT&T noted it was so confident of deal-related savings and synergies that it already had committed to expand and enhance high-speed Internet service to 15 million customer locations, mostly in areas where it currently doesn't offer broadband access, the filing said. AT&T said it wouldn't use CAF support to pay for these deployments, though it would use those funds to go beyond the 15 million-location commitment. "To allow the Commission to monitor AT&T’s broadband deployment, AT&T will voluntarily commit to submit to the Commission, for four years following the date the merger closes, periodic progress reports on the status of its broadband deployment commitment," the filing said. "These reports will verify that locations built to fulfill AT&T’s merger commitment are not funded with CAF. AT&T will submit its first progress report within six months after the merger’s closing. Thereafter, AT&T will submit a progress report 90 days after each anniversary of the merger’s closing." Meanwhile, Comptel met with FCC officials Friday about their concerns with the AT&T/DirecTV deal, said an ex parte filing also posted Tuesday. Comptel backed transaction conditions proposed by Cox and the American Cable Association to prevent AT&T/DirecTV from entering into programming contracts with "unreasonable volume discounts" that disadvantage competitors or from using its influence with programmers to interfere with the rates, terms and conditions they offer to competitors. Comptel also said it backed interconnection conditions proposed by Cogent and others, and said the FCC should bar AT&T/DirecTV "from charging terminating access fees or using broadband data caps" in a way that would harm the development and availability of online video programming.
NTIA missed an opportunity in not assessing which approaches to broadband adoption were the most effective while various Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program projects were in progress, GAO said in a report released Tuesday. “NTIA and FCC have limited information about the performance of their broadband adoption efforts and have not established goals articulating the outcomes these efforts should achieve,” GAO said. “Because BTOP has concluded, NTIA missed an opportunity to evaluate which grantees’ approaches were the most effective.” The FCC and NTIA both have programs to address broadband adoption barriers, “but it is unclear what outcomes they intend to achieve with these efforts because FCC’s strategic plan and NTIA’s performance plan do not clearly communicate the agencies’ desired outcomes for their efforts to address broadband adoption barriers,” GAO said. NTIA said in response it would “seek to develop outcome-based measures if it received funding for broadband adoption grants,” GAO said. The FCC also responded. “FCC states that to the extent that its strategic plan is unclear on the role of broadband adoption in FCC’s efforts, it is prepared to implement revisions that will help clarify this issue,” GAO said.
SES Americom continues to push against expanding the use of unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices in the 5.9 GHz band, as company officials met with FCC representatives to discuss it, SES said in an ex parte filing posted Friday regarding docket 13-49. U-NII devices in the 5.9 GHz band could lead to "harmful cumulative interference" to fixed satellite service operations, SES said. The FCC also needs to consider how using U-NII devices in that piece of spectrum might affect satellite service, or that the IEEE had so far not inspected fixed satellite service operations in looking at that spectrum sharing. In a related filing posted Monday, Paul Nikolich, IEEE 802 committee chair, said a "Tiger Team" looking at spectrum sharing between wireless local access networks and dedicated short-range communications had "examined some initial ideas for how band sharing could work." Nikolich also pointed the FCC to further documents about future testing that needs to be done to ensure 5.9 GHz band sharing will insulate dedicated short-range communications transmissions from interference.
The Communications Workers of America urged the FCC to require Verizon and Frontier to submit more information about Verizon's proposed sale to Frontier of local wireline systems in California, Florida and Texas, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 15-44 on a meeting CWA officials had with FCC staffers. In its filing, CWA said because state regulators have no authority in Florida and only limited authority in Texas, regulatory oversight of the deal affecting 6 million customers "falls heavily on the shoulders of the FCC." Because Verizon and Frontier hadn't given the FCC the information it needs to do its public-interest review, CWA said, the FCC should issue a comprehensive data request to the applicants for more information on: (1) Verizon FiOS and other broadband deployment and upgrade plans for the lines subject to the deal; (2) retail and wholesale service performance, including Frontier's staffing plans for the next five years; (3) the claimed synergies producing $700 million in savings; (4) Frontier financial and operational projections; (5) the details of the planned conversion of Verizon's operations to Frontier's systems; (6) Verizon's transition commitments to engage in capital spending and marketing prior to close of the deal; (7) employment ramifications, including job projections for the next four years; and (8) the transfer of assets and liabilities from Verizon to Frontier, including customer accounts, network assets, equipment, job functions, job titles and pensions. A Frontier spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the CWA filing. A Verizon spokesman didn't respond to our queries.