The New York Public Service Commission will take three more weeks to review Altice’s $17.7 billion takeover of Cablevision. The new deadline is May 20, said an Altice letter released Tuesday by the PSC. A counsel for the Communications Workers of America, which has opposed the deal, claimed that lack of progress in a contested separate review by New York City might have contributed to the delay.
One big area of contention as the FCC moves forward on an NPRM on ISP privacy rules, set for a vote Thursday, is how well the FCC is positioned to take on the issue, especially relative to the FTC. The FCC has had long-standing rules on carrier protection of customer proprietary network information (CPNI), but critics questioned the level of FCC expertise on the highly technical issues of privacy.
Netflix's alleged throttling of its own programming was in the crosshairs Friday. But an FCC official indicated that the company likely hadn't violated net neutrality rules since Netflix is an edge provider and the rules cover only broadband providers. Netflix said it will soon introduce a data-saving feature to help customers not bump up against data caps when they watch programming on a connected device. Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix has been throttling its own stream on AT&T and Verizon devices for five years. Netflix didn't comment on the report.
House Communications Subcommittee members are increasingly at ease with the trajectory of the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, since ICANN's approval last week of two transition-related plans, they said Thursday. They indicated they'll continue to exercise their oversight of the IANA transition process until its completion. ICANN sent NTIA its finalized IANA transition plan and a related set of recommended changes to ICANN's accountability mechanisms after the board passed both plans during its meeting in Marrakech, Morocco (see 1603100070). ICANN stakeholders strongly endorsed the IANA transition plan and the recommendations from the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability), saying during the hearing that the plans collectively meet NTIA criteria for the IANA transition.
CINCINNATI -- Two federal judges questioned both FCC and state arguments on North Carolina and Tennessee challenges to a commission order pre-empting their municipal broadband limits (Tennessee v. FCC, No. 15-3291, North Carolina v. FCC, No. 15-3555). At oral argument Thursday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge John Rogers pressed an FCC attorney particularly hard, suggesting the agency intruded on state authority to regulate its localities, while Judge Helene White pushed both sides more evenly to justify their positions. A third judge, Joseph Hood, who wore a green bow tie, didn't say anything other than to wish one of the attorneys a happy St. Patrick's Day.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., dropped his presidential bid Tuesday after another primary contest loss to GOP front-runner Donald Trump, this time in Rubio's home state of Florida. Rubio is a member of the Commerce Committee fiercely opposed to the FCC net neutrality order and focused on spectrum legislation. He has been largely absent from Commerce and the Capitol in recent months while on the campaign trail. His Senate term continues through the end of this year. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is the other Commerce Committee member running for president, and he is continuing his campaign. Rubio received a mix of high-profile endorsements in the telecom space. Backers included former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, now with Wiley Rein; CTA President Gary Shapiro; and AT&T Vice Chairman Ralph de La Vega.
ICANN sent NTIA its finalized Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition plan and a related set of recommended changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms Thursday, after ICANN’s board approved both proposals, as expected (see 1603040065). IANA Transition Coordination Group Chairwoman Alissa Cooper told the board the IANA transition plan will provide “continuity with how the Internet works today. The proposal keeps in place the same operational realities that have been working on the Internet since the 1990s.” If the IANA transition moves forward as planned, “Internet users should experience no change,” Cooper said during an ICANN news conference Thursday.
The ascendency of Donald Trump as the favorite to be the Republican nominee for president is raising the same kinds of questions in communications circles as it has on many other fronts. Few major communications players have rallied to his support, just as he has tallied few endorsements among Republican officials nationwide. Industry officials express uneasiness with Trump. They said it's unclear who he would pick for his transition teams on the FCC and communications issues, or who he would tap to lead the FTC or FCC, as NTIA administrator, or for the other key positions overseeing communications policy.
Telecommunications Industry Association hires Ashley Simmons, ex-ITS America, as communications director, effective March 15, succeeding April Ward, who moved to FirstNet as senior media adviser ... Zynga names board member Frank Gibeau CEO, succeeding Mark Pincus, who will be executive chairman ... Sprint hires Robert Hackl, ex-Vodafone, as chief experience officer/president-national sales, effective April 1; at end of that month, Chief Experience Officer Bob Johnson will leave ... AT&T moves Bill O’Hern to senior vice president-chief security officer ... Maxwell Technologies hires Jörg Buchheim, ex-Hella KGaA Hueck, as senior vice president-chief sales officer, succeeding Michael Finger, leaving for personal reasons ... Millennium Space Systems hires Bob Newberry, ex-U.S. Air Force, as executive vice president-chief marketing officer ... IDC promotes Phil Carter to chief analyst, IDC Europe.
Satellite operators inevitably will have to cede some of the 28 GHz band to 5G applications, and the key question is how best to do that, industry speakers said Tuesday at an FCBA CLE. "The first step is to accept these terrestrial services … are important and they'll get spectrum," said communications lawyer Scott Blake Harris of Harris Wiltshire, saying a majority of FCC commissioners seem committed to allocating some of the band to 5G. So industry priorities have to focus instead on "how to work this process … to have space to flourish," he said. "You have to look at spectrum sharing," he said. "'No' is not an acceptable answer."