Matt Daneman

The FCC began review of Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, adopting protective order rules Friday. The controversial rules were the hurdle to be cleared before the informal 180-day shot clock started. The rules were adopted 3-2 two weeks ago, and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai strongly criticized them in dissents released Friday.

The Transportation Department's proposed study of LightSquared's proposed L-band LTE network and possible GPS interference "waste[s] scarce taxpayer dollars [and] will not produce any information of value to the FCC," a company spokeswoman said Friday. DOT set an Oct. 9 deadline for comments for its draft test plan on establishing criteria for power limits for transmitters in GPS-adjacent bands, it said in a Federal Register notice Wednesday. DOT isn't developing standards either for GPS receivers or transmitters operating in adjacent bands, but the interference tolerance masks "will be used to assess the adjacent band interference power levels that can be tolerated" by Global Navigation Satellite System receivers, the agency said. The draft test plan gives broad outlines of the study parameters. For example, the categories of receivers operating in the 1559-1610 MHz band to be studied are aviation, cellular, general location/navigation, high precision, timing, networks and space-based receivers. The details of the test procedure are being developed, but the testing is expected to take up to nine days, DOT said. "Instead of developing a plan to enable technological advancement and spur spectrum innovation, the DOT is proposing to set limits on spectrum use by promoting the continued use of outdated filter technology in receivers," the LightSquared spokeswoman said. This latest plan follows a 2012 DOT testing plan aimed at setting up "the framework for definition of the processes and assumptions that will form the basis for development of the GPS adjacent-band compatibility for GPS civil applications," she said. "It has taken DOT almost four years to propose a vague study that is absent procedures or timelines and will not answer the critical question of whether wireless broadband would cause any actual harm to the accuracy of GPS devices." Roberson and Associates is doing a LightSquared-commissioned study of the scope and degree of L-band LTE network interference to GPS, and results are due this fall. That plan has faced criticism from the GPS industry as being redundant to the DOT planning effort (see 1508250070).

Globalstar is committing to its terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) plan being Wi-Fi based, not LTE-U, in hopes of helping speed along regulatory approval for the controversial broadband service, Barbee Ponder, vice president-regulatory affairs, told us. In an FCC filing posted Thursday in docket 13-213, the company said its private Wi-Fi channel in the 2.4 GHz band "is based on the existing IEEE 802.11 standard commonly referred to as 'Wi-Fi,'" and it doesn't plan to set up any service in unlicensed spectrum. It won't deploy LTE-U in the 2.4 GHz band until the FCC allows LTE-U deployment in unlicensed spectrum, the satellite company said.

A long line of local broadcasters is lobbying the FCC to preserve the exclusivity rules that Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated he hopes to eliminate (see 1509040016). ITTA said their demise needs to be paired with prohibitions on measures that would act "as an end run around repeal of the rules."

Wi-Fi advocates and the wireless industry are increasingly jousting over LTE-unlicensed. The WifiForward coalition labeled LTE-U users "spectrum bullies," in a short advocacy video put on YouTube Tuesday. The animated video shows a schoolyard bully-like tablet running on LTE-U pushing around smartphones and smart watches. "If Wi-Fi won't work, we all suffer," the video narrator says. "We can insist on politeness, ensuring that Wi-Fi and other new technologies can live in harmony and preventing spectrum bullies from disrupting unlicensed bands." WifiForward launched in 2014 with the goal of increasing the amount of unlicensed spectrum available for Wi-Fi use (see 1402140055). In a conference call Tuesday with reporters, Wi-Fi advocates said licensed assisted access standards should be finalized by the spring and until they are other LTE-U iterations shouldn't be approved (see 1509080046). Such unlicensed spectrum bands used in everything from cordless phones and baby monitors to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi "have been incredibly useful to consumers," said David Young, Verizon vice president-public policy, in a blog Wednesday. "The FCC’s 'permissionless innovation' approach to unlicensed spectrum has been an incredible success, unleashing torrents of innovation in spectrum bands that were once considered useless." Unlicensed spectrum "is poised to unleash a new wave of mobile innovation," said Young. LTE-U "will benefit consumers, competition and innovation," said Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, in a statement Wednesday: "Unlicensed spectrum has always offered an opportunity for permissionless innovation and we look forward to continuing to educate all stakeholders about the benefits of LTE Unlicensed."

As FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has set his sights on repealing exclusivity rules, broadcasters increasingly are arguing that compulsory license requirements should go down with them. The likelihood of saving the network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules is questionable, broadcast experts said in interviews Friday.

Whether retransmission consent negotiations will be smoother in the near future is debatable as the FCC spelled out 15 negotiation tactics now under its microscope in a rulemaking notice Wednesday on the totality of circumstances in good-faith negotiating (see 1509020061), officials said in interviews. "This is known as 'regulation by raised eyebrow,'" said cable consultant Steve Effros. "The commission is saying ‘you ought to be very careful if you're engaged in this sort of activity -- we're watching.’" But an NAB spokesman said the group expects pay TV "to use the FCC’s NPRM as an opportunity to create more programming disruptions, not fewer. There is demonstrable evidence suggesting that pay TV providers like Dish use the prospect of government intervention into a free market as grounds for forcing impasses.”

The FCC is seeking feedback on 15 negotiation practices and whether they should figure into a "totality of circumstances" test for good faith negotiations. Pay-TV and broadcasters have been filling docket 10-71 in recent weeks with arguments on what should be considered as the FCC follows through on congressional direction in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) Act that it revisit good faith negotiation rules (see 1508270036).

DBS operators and toll-free number responsible organizations will begin paying FCC regulatory fees, while radio and TV stations could see notable changes in what they pay in the future. That is according to the FCC's FY 2015 fee order and Further NPRM released Wednesday.

The FCC approved rules for how it will handle confidential information in Charter Communications' planned buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable and in other regulatory proceedings going forward. The agency said Wednesday that the rules on the handling of confidential information had been passed in a 3-2 vote and adopted, but said they would release them later.