Expanded congressional Democratic majorities doesn’t have large implications for the DTV transition because lawmakers seem unlikely to delay the nationwide cutoff, lobbyists and others said Wednesday. But Democratic gains in the House and Senate may add to momentum for smaller changes associated with the analog cutoff, they said. Most likely to get Hill attention is the idea of letting TV stations use analog signals for a brief time after Feb. 17 to run analog slate messages telling viewers they need to buy converter boxes or take other action, they said.
Expanded congressional Democratic majorities doesn’t have large implications for the DTV transition because lawmakers seem unlikely to delay the nationwide cutoff, lobbyists and others said Wednesday. But Democratic gains in the House and Senate may add to momentum for smaller changes associated with the analog cutoff, they said. Most likely to get Hill attention is the idea of letting TV stations use analog signals for a brief time after Feb. 17 to run analog slate messages telling viewers they need to buy converter boxes or take other action (CD Oct 17 p4), they said.
The FCC likely will have busy months ahead, even with pending changes at the agency with the likely departure of Chairman Kevin Martin as early as January. Unless Martin stays on, the FCC will be left with only three commissioners at the end of January -- Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein and Republican Robert McDowell. Martin likely has only one more regular meeting over which to preside, scheduled for Dec. 18.
Questions on FCC indecency policy by conservative and liberal Supreme Court Justices in oral argument Tuesday focused on the case’s procedural aspects, touching little on constitutional issues. Justices asked U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre, arguing for the FCC, and Carter Phillips, the Fox network’s attorney, whether the FCC had given broadcasters enough notice that it could find indecent a show with a single curse. Asked by Justice Anthony Kennedy if the “fleeting” indecency policy marked a departure from FCC precedent, Garre replied that it had, but said the FCC justified the change.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Prospects are bright for building under an Obama White House on successes by supporters of Carterfone, net neutrality rules and open spectrum for wireless broadband, leading activists said. Groundbreaking changes probably will come Nov. 4 with the arrival of a friendly national administration and FCC white- space rules, said President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project Tuesday at an open-wireless conference of Google and the New America Foundation. “Policy makers are ready to listen,” he said: “There’s likely to be a very receptive environment going forward.”
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Prospects are bright for building under an Obama White House on successes by supporters of Carterfone, net neutrality rules and open spectrum for wireless broadband, leading activists said. Groundbreaking changes probably will come Nov. 4 with the arrival of a friendly national administration and FCC white- space rules, said President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project Tuesday at an open-wireless conference of Google and the New America Foundation. “Policy makers are ready to listen,” he said: “There’s likely to be a very receptive environment going forward.”
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Wireless Carterfone supporters tried to turn First Amendment arguments against carriers, as opponents attacked proposals to require opening cellphone networks to a wide range of devices. The comments came late Friday at a Santa Clara University conference on the 40th anniversary of the FCC Carterfone order breaking wireline companies’ control over attachments.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Wireless Carterfone supporters tried to turn First Amendment arguments against carriers, as opponents attacked proposals to require opening cellphone networks to a wide range of devices. The comments came late Friday at a Santa Clara University conference commemorating the 40th anniversary of the FCC Carterfone order breaking the wireline phone system’s control over attachments. A long line of Supreme Court cases starting with Red Lion empowers the commission to protect a “robust marketplace of ideas” by promoting diversity that the FCC should extend to telecom from TV and radio through wireless Carterfone, said Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman. Carrier practices such as restricting file sizes and directing subscribers to partner search engines act as limits on expression, Schwartzman said. Verizon Wireless has raised the First Amendment on the other side of the question, contending that imposing rules would restrict the diversity that the market offers. Schwartzman raised “an important issue,” said Nicolas Johnson of the University of Iowa’s law school, who as an FCC commissioner wrote the majority opinion in Carterfone. Contending that competitiveness of the cellular market makes it completely inappropriate to extend Carterfone from its Bell monopoly context were George Ford, the Phoenix Center’s chief economist, and James Speta of Northwestern University’s law school. Carterfone doesn’t apply outside the world of monopoly, strong regulation and guaranteed returns from which it emerged, Speta said. Rules on devices are beside the point in a world where consumers have a wide choice of cellphones and operators have controlled Skype and P2P in their networks, not through leverage over hardware, Ford said. “It’s not just the equipment,” he said. “It’s the terms of the agreement we have to use it.” And it’s Apple that dictated to carriers what the iPhone 3G would be, Speta said.
The federal government wants more time to decide whether to challenge in the Supreme Court a lower court remand of an FCC indecency fine, said a participant in the case. The Solicitor General sought a month’s extension, to Nov. 18, of a deadline to file a cert petition with the high court, said Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman. He participated in CBS v. FCC, in which the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court in Philadelphia remanded a $550,000 fine against the broadcast network for airing Janet Jackson’s breast-bearing Super Bowl halftime show (CD July 22 p1). Such requests by the Solicitor General are “granted almost automatically,” Schwartzman said. “This lets them see how the oral argument goes in the Fox case, which is on Nov. 4” before the high court, he said.
The FCC’s October meeting has been changed for at least a third time as Chairman Kevin Martin failed to get any other commissioner to support a DTV-related notice that drew internal controversy (CD Oct 8 p6). No items will be voted on Wednesday, at what was to have been a regular monthly meeting in Nashville, agency officials said. Instead, four FCC members will gather at Vanderbilt University’s medical center Wednesday morning for an en banc hearing on obesity, while Commissioner Michael Copps will participate by phone, agency officials said.