Verizon is buying AOL for $4.4 billion, in a deal aimed at strengthening Verizon's LTE wireless video and over-the-top (OTT) video platforms. AOL still offers dial-up ISP service and is also a content company with assets that include AOL.com, Engadget, Huffington Post, Makers and TechCrunch. The transaction also gives Verizon AOL’s expertise in mobile advertising, the companies said Tuesday.
A group of broadcast attorneys met Wednesday with members of the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force, Media Bureau, Wireless Bureau and the Office of General Counsel to discuss how anti-collusion rules will apply to attorneys representing TV stations in the reverse auction, according to an ex parte filing posted by the FCC Monday. The anti-collusion rules are expected to limit severely communications among attorneys representing TV stations, Communications Daily has reported. Wiley Rein's Kathleen Kirby, Fletcher Heald's Stephen Lovelady and Jack Goodman were the broadcast attorneys in the meeting.
CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said he wants to head off “wrongful activity” under the net neutrality order by giving industry as much guidance as possible. He promised vigorous enforcement tempered by “regulatory humility” to ensure innovation isn’t stifled. LeBlanc was among the speakers Friday and Saturday at the FCBA’s annual retreat, where net neutrality was a hot topic. The net neutrality order also reclassified broadband Internet access as a telecom service under Title II of the Communications Act (see 1502260043 and 1502260050).
Many big U.S. companies are likely to get involved in the brewing fight over the European Union’s 16-step Digital Single Market (DSM) Strategy designed to promote e-commerce across Europe (see 1505060038), industry observers said Thursday. At a summit in Europe, speakers made clear they see the DSM as a tool for helping Europe fight back against U.S. gains in the high-tech world.
The EU released its 16-step digital single market (DSM) strategy designed to promote e-commerce across Europe. The EU concurrently launched an antitrust competition inquiry Wednesday that will look at whether and how companies are impeding cross-border online trade. The European Commission had launched an investigation of Google's comparison shopping service and its Android mobile operating system (see 1504150002).
The Supreme Court said it won't hear appeals of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision a year ago upholding the FCC’s requirement that USF recipients provide broadband. Industry officials said the decision was a big positive for the FCC because if the court agreed to hear the case it would have meant many months of uncertainty for the FCC’s landmark November 2011 order “modernizing” USF and the intercarrier compensation regime. The Monday court order also shifted the fund to support broadband as well as traditional voice service.
The pressure for net neutrality legislation rose last week from some strong advocates of that approach, some of whom have telecom and tech industry ties. Dan Berninger, founder of VCXC and the leader of a nascent group of tech and business industry advocates styling themselves as the Tech Innovators, orchestrated the lobbying of several Senate Commerce Committee Democrats' offices Thursday. He told us the concerted move from industry pressing for a stay of the FCC’s net neutrality order may create a new impetus for net neutrality legislation.
Media General hires Henry Gola, ex-Wiley Rein, as associate general counsel ... Hearst Television promotes Pamela Barber to president-general manager, WMOR-TV Lakeland, Florida, succeeding Kenneth Lucas, who said he will retire in June (see 1504270033) ... VeriSilicon hires Bob Brown, ex-Cadence Design, as chief financial officer, succeeding Shannon Gao, resigned for personal reasons.
LONDON -- Telecom regulators must be "conscious of our fallibility" as they adapt regulations to future and changing circumstances, said Anthony Whelan, director-electronic communications, networks and services for the European Commission Directorate-General Connect, at Wednesday's Digital Regulation Forum. Regulators are trying to figure out what regulation will look like in 2020 and beyond, he and Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) Chairwoman Fátima Barros said. The conference heard Tuesday that the net neutrality debate is raging in the U.K. (see 1504280001).
The FCC may join European regulators in at least looking more closely at Google’s dominant position in the Internet search market, in light of the agency’s new net neutrality rules, observers said in recent interviews. The FCC is intensifying its look at privacy issues, with a workshop Tuesday on broadband consumer privacy, to be opened by Chairman Tom Wheeler.