The U.S. wireless industry is “more vibrant and vigorously competitive than ever before” and the FCC should recognize that in its next wireless competition report, CTIA said in comments. Other industry commenters offered the same take in docket 15-125. But industry observers told us they see little chance the FCC will change course and agree with them. The first seven wireless competition reports didn't include any conclusions on whether the industry was effectively competitive, though the next six reports concluded it was. All reports since 2010 have not drawn a conclusion.
Wiley Rein introduced a spectrum analysis report called SpectrumTrack, a news release said Thursday. The report aims to assist business and regulatory analysts, investment professionals and corporate development professionals in the communications and technology fields, the release said. SpectrumTrack extracts and analyzes data from the FCC’s Universal Licensing System to create detailed licensing information for FCC “spectrum screen” and other regulatory, strategic and investment analyses, the release said. The report includes three sortable sections, including a county-by-county listing by radio service and block, showing each licensee, call sign, parent, the amount of spectrum held and the geographic percentage of the country covered by the license. It also has a sortable list of entities that includes information about the amount of spectrum held by each respective entity and its affiliates for each block in each radio service, as well as a mapping of licensees to parent entities, the release said.
Some industry observers questioned comments by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Thursday that Congress, not the FCC, needs to step in to limit class-action lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The FCC Thursday addressed some 20 petitions seeking clarification of the TCPA. Banking, healthcare and other interests had sought clarification from the FCC to limit the exposure faced by legitimate businesses trying to keep within the strictures of the TCPA.
FCBA officials have been told the FCC is preparing a response to the bar association's letter on the commission's incentive auction anti-collusion rules, Wiley Rein broadcast attorney Kathleen Kirby said Tuesday at an FCBA lunch. The response is being prepared by the Office of General Counsel, she said. In the FCBA letter on the rules (see 1505180056), the association said the rules let broadcast attorneys represent multiple licensees in the auction. If attorneys can't represent multiple licensees, there likely are not enough attorneys to go around, FCBA said. Broadcast attorneys have told us a response to the FCBA letter wasn't expected unless the commission disagreed with the association's stance. The OGC didn't comment.
Channel sharing agreements (CSAs) under new FCC rules (see 1506120051) will be complicated, highly individualized deals that must account for a range of contingencies, said attorneys Tuesday at an FCBA brown bag lunch event on the rules issued in a reconsideration order Friday. Though the new rules allow term limits on CSAs, they’re still largely designed for agreements that last many years, and if a station in a CSA is sold, a station could find itself in a channel sharing agreement with a relative stranger, said Wiley Rein broadcast lawyer Jessica Rosenthal. Broadcasters interested in channel sharing needed to start exploring such deals “a couple months ago,” said Dorann Bunkin, aide to the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force (IATF).
The EU wants to include the private sector in work on its digital single market (DSM) strategy, but “we're not going to be lectured by the private sector on what constitutes a free flow of data within the European Union,” said Andrea Glorioso, Delegation of the EU to the U.S. counselor-digital economy/cyber. “We're not going to be fooled by claims unless those claims are substantiated by hard data.” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other backers of the EU's 16-point DSM strategy, unveiled in May (see 1505060038 and 1505070053), believe the strategy will promote e-commerce across the EU's 28 member nations by overhauling the EU's telecom rules and harmonizing members states' regulations in areas like copyright law.
The House Communications Subcommittee easily cleared a compromise version of the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-805) Wednesday. Industry stakeholders told us that likely sets up swift consideration of the bill by the full House Commerce Committee but doesn’t automatically guarantee that either the House or Senate will consider it soon. Subcommittee leaders said Monday that they had reached a deal on compromise language for HR-805 that would in part require NTIA to submit a report to Congress certifying that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition plans meet the U.S. goal of maintaining global Internet openness (see 1506090067).
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai decided to sidestep the agency’s Office of the General Counsel in complying with document requests from the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Spokespeople for those committees’ Republican chairmen told us they remain just fine with that strategy.
The White House may not be an insurmountable obstacle to bipartisan net neutrality legislation that may be coming together in the Senate, industry observers told us Tuesday. Lawmakers from both parties involved in the negotiations confirmed real progress and activity last week (see 1506040046), but the White House reaffirmed its broader objections to legislation.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler juggles a contentious, complicated and not always visible relationship with GOP-controlled Capitol Hill in executing his agenda, said lawmakers and former FCC chairmen in interviews. More than 20 months into the Wheeler chairmanship, lawmakers from both parties praised Wheeler’s ability to face intense congressional oversight and cultivate relationships outside of the hearing room. Partisan undercurrents affected how some Republicans and Democrats perceive the 69-year-old Wheeler, an Obama administration appointee and former Obama campaign fundraiser, following explosively political debate on net neutrality.