President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Monday aimed at improving broadband deployments in rural areas of the U.S., saying at an American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Nashville that it will be the first of several actions aimed at changing the current situation. One of the orders is aimed at “streamlining and expediting requests” for rural broadband projects, he said. The other targets siting of tower facilities on Department of the Interior-owned lands. Both orders will ensure citizens in rural areas are “going to have great, great broadband,” Trump said. The texts of the orders weren't available.
The FCC released the long-awaited text of its new net neutrality regulations Thursday evening. Some had expected imminent release. The order was OK'd by commissioners on a party-line vote Dec. 14.
In the latest much-antiticpated consolidation in the communications industry, Disney confirmed it's buying much of 21st Century Fox. Disney plans to acquire the Twentieth Century Fox Film and Television studios and cable and international TV businesses for some $52.4 billion in stock and assume $13.7 billion of net debt, the buyer said this morning. 21st Century Fox will keep Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel and some other cable channels in a "newly listed company that will be spun off to its shareholders," Disney said.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday at just past 11 a.m. EST he's circulating a draft "restoring internet freedom" order to be voted on at the Dec. 14 commissioners' meeting, abandoning the agency's "failed" 2015 "heavy-handed, utility-style" approach. The draft will be released Wednesday, he said. Already, stakeholders including Free Press and USTelecom began reacting.
Plans by DOJ to sue to block AT&T's buy of Time Warner are "a radical and inexplicable departure" from antitrust precedent, AT&T General Counsel David McAtee said Monday. In a statement, he said vertical mergers routinely get approved "because they benefit consumers without removing any competitor from the market" and there's no reason AT&T/TW should be any different. The telco said it will hold a news conference at 5:30 p.m. EST with CEO Randall Stephenson to discuss the litigation.
David Redl won a Senate nod to become the next NTIA head.
The FCC approved CenturyLink's planned buy of Level 3, despite Democrats' concerns. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn dissented, we're told. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel supported the transaction but said the agency's review was seriously flawed. She approved in part and dissented in part. A commission spokesman said Monday the item was approved by commissioners.
A media ownership reconsideration order that does away with cross-ownership rules, joint sales agreement attribution rules and the eight-voices test, and allows case-by-case waivers of the top-four network rule was circulated to the eighth floor for a vote at the Nov. 16 commissioners' meeting, Chairman Ajit Pai told the House Communications Subcommittee Wednesday. The draft of the item will be made public Thursday. Pai framed the recon order as taking steps to keep the government out of newsrooms: “If you believe as I do that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business.” The order also would establish an incubator to encourage diversity in media ownership, and would retain disclosure rules for broadcaster shared service agreements, Pai said. Industry officials told us Wednesday they expect the recon order to be approved with a 3-2 party line vote, and that a court challenge from public interest groups is extremely likely.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lifted his hold on final Senate consideration of David Redl’s nomination as NTIA administrator, Cruz’s office said Monday. Cruz’s longstanding concerns about Redl’s position on the 2016 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition prompted several delays of a Senate Commerce Committee vote on Redl. Cruz placed a hold on Senate action after the committee advanced Redl earlier this month on a voice vote.
President Donald Trump is expected to nominate soon candidates to the three vacant FTC commissioner seats. They are former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Assistant Director Rohit Chopra; Noah Phillips, chief counsel to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Paul Weiss antitrust lawyer Joseph Simons, a White House spokeswoman told us. Trump would designate Simons as FTC chairman if the Senate confirms him, the spokeswoman said.