How universal service fits into Congress’ planned rewrite of the Telecom Act is expected to come up at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday on the Universal Service Fund, industry lobbyists said Monday. The Senate hearing opens a new avenue of Hill dialog on USF, an issue that lately has been mainly the domain of the House. House and Senate Commerce Committee staff meetings on the telecom law revamp start Friday (CD June 21 p8).
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who was recently in New York to meet with analysts and investors, said the message emanating from Wall Street was clear: Chairman Julius Genachowski’s “third way” broadband reclassification proposal is already having a chilling effect on investment. A divided commission is to take up the Genachowski proposal Thursday. McDowell also said in an interview Wednesday that the FCC should complete action on the stalled white spaces proceeding quickly, so devices can be on store shelves in time for the 2011 holiday buying season.
The ongoing fight over whether broadband should be reclassified as a more heavily regulated “telecom” service has resulted in chaos for the broadband industry, FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker said Thursday at the annual Broadband Policy Summit, sponsored by Pike & Fischer. Baker also said work on the “third way” reclassification plan by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has distracted attention from the National Broadband Plan. Another danger is that increased FCC regulation of the Internet could lead to more government control of the Internet in other nations, she warned.
Cable operators large and small largely are unified on many issues that affect the industry, some of them high profile, that are pending before the FCC, our survey of executives found. Retransmission consent deals, where pay-TV operators contend broadcasters force them to pay unfair carriage fees, are the latest example of a unified message across operators of all sizes (CD May 20 p4) and the NCTA, representing big operators and programmers, and the small-operator lobbying group American Cable Association (ACA). Concern about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s plan to reclassify broadband transport under parts of Title II and a desire to use cheap HD set-top boxes with integrated navigation and security features are shared by many cable system owners.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he’s concerned the proposal for a national wireless broadband network outlined in the National Broadband Plan has not won the support of most public safety groups. Copps also said in an interview he has grown increasingly optimistic Congress will approve funding for the network, as proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Copps also predicted that compromise is possible among the five commissioners on comprehensive Universal Service Fund overhaul. Bringing in outsiders to oversee “every difficult issue” at the commission isn’t necessarily the way to go, Copps said when asked about the hiring of a head for the review of Comcast-NBC Universal deal. (See separate item in this issue.)
The departing head of FCC’s broadband work crew said the agency doesn’t need a permanent czar to ensure that the commission stays focused on high-speed Internet service even after execution of the National Broadband Plan wraps up. Blair Levin sees changes to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation as linked and thinks they need to be done together, he said in an exit interview Friday. He remains confused why broadcasters are publicly resisting the plan’s recommendation to create a market for other uses of TV spectrum and said that, despite much speculation about what he'll do next, he himself doesn’t know.
The departing head of FCC’s broadband work crew said the agency doesn’t need a permanent czar to ensure that the commission stays focused on high-speed Internet service even after execution of the National Broadband Plan wraps up. Blair Levin sees changes to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation as linked and thinks they need to be done together, he said in an exit interview Friday. He remains confused why broadcasters are publicly resisting the plan’s recommendation to create a market for other uses of TV spectrum and said that, despite much speculation about what he'll do next, he himself doesn’t know.
A recent lobbying push by free conference call providers is set on getting “the truth out” to Washington policymakers about how consumers benefit from a business practice that long-distance carriers decry as “traffic pumping,” Free Conferencing Corp. CEO Dave Erickson said in an interview. But House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., who’s working on a bill banning such arrangements, told us his views have changed “not at all.” Congress and the FCC are both mulling curbs on the practice, which involves revenue-sharing agreements under which rural local exchange carriers pay conferencing companies to send traffic to their exchanges.
The FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules are “in big legal trouble” in the wake of the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Comcast v. FCC, Commissioner Robert McDowell told reporters Friday. “The concept of a new regulatory regime is in real trouble.” McDowell is skeptical the commission should get more involved in the retransmission consent process, thinks TV spectrum reallocation won’t be held up by Comcast and hopes the regulator deals with an indecency complaint backlog, he said.
All eyes are on Chairman Julius Genachowski on one of the first controversial orders before the FCC since he became chairman: A proposal to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act in the aftermath of the Comcast v. FCC decision. He faced repeated questions Wednesday, at a Senate Commerce hearing on the National Broadband Plan, about his position on whether the commission needs to reclassify broadband Wednesday. But he offered little beyond what he has said since the decision came down last week. (See related report in this issue).