FARMINGTON, Pa. --Prospects for major infrastructure legislation are iffy at best, an FCBA conference heard Friday. Brookings Institution fellow Blair Levin said he's "highly skeptical" an infrastructure bill will be enacted, estimating the chance at about 10 percent. "I think there will be some type of plan. I think broadband will be in the plan," said Wiley Rein attorney Anna Gomez, but she questioned whether there would be funding.
A wave of litigation over incentive auction results is unlikely, attorneys and analysts told us, despite two recent lawsuits connected to the lack of auction payout for a San Mateo, California, noncommercial station. Based on the complaints from the dueling suits filed in San Mateo Superior Court between the San Mateo Community College District and its auction consultant LocusPoint Networks, KCSM-TV’s failure to net an FCC auction payout stems from a mix-up while entering a bid, a pattern unlikely to be repeated elsewhere, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Harry Cole.
Former FCC Media Bureau Chief William Lake joins Wiley Rein's Telecom, Media & Technology practice as consulting counsel ... Discovery Communications promotes Savalle Sims to general counsel ... Lobbyist registrations: American Library Association, J.A. Hill Group, effective March 27 ... Discovery Communications, The O Team, effective March 1 ... Google, Lincoln Park Group, effective April 1 ... VMWare, S-3 Group, effective Feb. 1.
Daniel Berninger met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and an aide to discuss a 2014 petition of the Voice Communications Exchange Committee (VCXC) for a notice of inquiry into making HD Voice "the primary objective" of the IP transition. "I nominated myself and offered to serve as Chairman of an Advisory Committee for Advanced Telecommunications Services convened to connect the technology dots," said VCXC founder Berninger in a filing posted this week in docket 13-5. "The proposal creates an advanced services complement to the Broadband Deployment Advisory Council and follows the model of the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service Chaired by Richard Wiley to lead the HDTV transition."
RIAA promotes Mitch Glazier to president, effective now, and to chairman-CEO, effective in January 2019; Chairman-CEO Cary Sherman retires, effective at the end of 2018 ... USTelecom hires Sally Aman, who ran her own firm, as senior vice president-communications and public affairs, succeeding Anne Veigle (see this section of the March 31 issue of this publication) ... Jenner & Block adds David Bitkower, ex-DOJ Criminal Division principal deputy assistant attorney general, as partner, White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
Eventual lifting of the TV incentive auction quiet period for carriers and all participants in the forward TV incentive auction is expected to be followed by deal-making, likely starting with a Sprint bid for T-Mobile, said observers. Broadcaster deals also are expected to see an uptick now that the auction is over, they said.
Litigation and assigning legal blame when things go wrong with IoT devices, including autonomous vehicles and drones, are complex issues, with tort law not necessarily having caught up with technology, said experts at a Chamber of Commerce event webcast Wednesday. Litigation isn't a great way to improve security or to help the complex ecosystem figure out who should be doing what, said Wiley Rein's Megan Brown. "The decision-makers are not expert, far from it. And there's a lot, currently, of definitional uncertainty in what we're even talking about in the Internet of Things." She said the litigation system is "anathema" to collaboration and a speedy response and could have a "chilling effect" on companies and innovators to continue to improve security. She said fear of litigation could affect collaboration on a product within a company where communication isn't privileged or subject to confidentiality. States need to develop modern standards for evidentiary rules and approaches and the public needs to be better educated on basic cyber hygiene and products, she said. VMware Deputy General Counsel Laurie Hane said existing legal instruments are "blunt," not nuanced and don't account for IoT complexities. NSS Labs CEO Vikram Phatak said things will get worse before they get better because consumers will lose confidence in the products. He said he favors more transparency in the process, and in the future there may be fewer IoT players who may be held to a higher standard. Companies using drones worry about different legal issues. Vice President and Counsel Kevin Frederick said State Farm uses drones for things such as roof inspections and in catastrophes because they a safer and more efficient. He said drones are going to crash, hit things and potentially injure people, but he said his company's concern is the absence of or inconsistent law on privacy, nuisance and trespass. This is complicated due to federal and state laws on authority over drones and potential violations, he said. Roger Nober, executive vice president-law and corporate affairs, said his railway, BNSF, uses drones to inspect tracks and bridges. His company worries about missing something in the large amount of data collected that could cause an incident, he said.
A draft item on new channel sharing rules could present some new opportunities for TV broadcasters, but may be limited in its practical application, numerous attorneys representing both full-power and low-power broadcasters told us. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai distributed the draft item last week (see 1703020076), and it's scheduled for a vote at the March 23 commissioners’ meeting. The draft would allow limited sharing for LPTV and translators with each other and with full powers, and sharing outside the context of the incentive auction. It's good for the FCC to be giving broadcasters these options, but opportunities for them to be applied are likely to be “rare,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald. “There are several restrictions that could reduce the viability of channel sharing under the draft order,” said Wiley Rein broadcast attorney Ari Meltzer in a blog post.
Communications sector-specific language in draft versions of President Donald Trump's upcoming cybersecurity executive order (EO) drew mixed reviews from industry lawyers and lobbyists. The White House has continued to revise the anticipated executive order in the weeks since officials first delayed Trump's planned late January signing of the order, several lobbyists said. Then, the order would have directed the Office of Management and Budget to assess all federal agencies' cybersecurity risks and required agencies to manage their risk using the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Cybersecurity Framework (see 1701310066).
The wording of the FCC’s draft NPRM on ATSC 3.0 makes it “very clear” the FCC will adopt the new standard, and an order is expected this fall, said Jerald Fritz, One Media executive vice president-strategic and legal affairs, in an FCBA CLE on the new television standard Tuesday.