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.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a zoning board in Paramus, New Jersey, violated federal law in denying a wireless tower siting application jointly submitted by Sprint and T-Mobile, agreeing with the federal district court in the District of New Jersey. The "effective prohibition" of wireless service violated the Communications Act, the 3rd Circuit panel said in an April 20 opinion in case number 14-2954. A "significant gap in wireless coverage existed within the area presented, the monopole proposed would adequately fill that gap, and [the carriers] had adequately considered alternative sites before arriving at the ones proposed." A distributed antenna system would be insufficient because it would be susceptible to outages, less flexible and cover a smaller gap, the court said. The wireless carriers don't bear the burden of proving that every potential alternative is unavailable, it said. The zoning board's denial of Sprint and T-Mobile's zoning variance violated the act's “effective prohibition” language, and wasn't based on “substantial evidence” required by the act and Municipal Land Use Law, so the 3rd Circuit affirmed the District Court. T-Mobile had urged the 3rd Circuit to affirm, in all respects, the lower court's judgment, Wiley Rein said Wednesday.
CTIA, NCTA and the American Cable Association filed legal challenges Tuesday to the FCC’s net neutrality rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The appeals weren't a surprise -- industry officials had predicted the trade associations would largely carry the load this time around (see 1503300055). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is the former president of both NCTA and CTIA. Wheeler defended the order Tuesday in a speech to the Broadband Communities Summit in Austin (see 1504140045).
The FCC net neutrality order is to be published in the Federal Register Monday. That means the FCC will know soon which major players will challenge the order in court, industry officials said Friday. CTIA, USTelecom and possibly NCTA are expected to lead the charge against the order, which reclassifies broadband as a Title II service under the Communications Act (see 1503300055).