Over-the-top services such as DirecTV Now that offer live linear TV are projected to grow to $7 billion in worldwide revenue by 2021, from $1 billion last year, ABI Research reported. The services align with carriers’ efforts to adopt “mobile-first mindsets” as mobile subscriber bases and revenue advance beyond fixed line revenue with per-consumer, vs. per-household, connections, said the research firm. The new model “helps win the battle for exclusive content rights but poses strong technical challenges,” said analyst Sam Rosen, citing the need to develop robust content management systems, video transcoding and storage pipelines and application ecosystems. Cobbling together video distribution networks is “just the beginning,” said Rosen. As mobile video consumption increases, mobile operators are exploring policy-based approaches to meet customer expectations and manage the effects of video services on mobile data caps, said the firm. The formidable technical challenges have led operators to make investments in technology platforms, ABI noted, citing the AT&T's purchase of Quickplay Technologies (see 1605160025) and Disney’s stake in BAMTech (see 1609220053). "Despite the technical challenges, OTT services help pay-TV operators attract cord-cutters with a cheaper pay-TV alternative, as well as next-generation customers who never planned to subscribe to a traditional pay-TV service," said analyst Khin Sandi Lynn, saying live OTT services, especially those with sports packages, are gaining the most traction.

Local number portability administrator Neustar asked the FCC to reverse a staff letter siding with North American Portability Management (NAPM) in a dispute over confidentiality protections in the LNPA transition to iconectiv (see 1701060065). Neustar said the letter from the Wireline and Public Safety bureau chiefs sought to "compel resolution" of its contract talks with NAPM by demanding the company enter into one of two nondisclosure agreements (NDAs). "The Commission should instruct the Bureaus not to interfere in any future disputes between Neustar and the NAPM until the parties have first attempted to resolve their dispute through negotiation or arbitration according to the terms of the MSA" (master services agreement), said the LNPA incumbent's application for review Thursday in docket 09-109. Neustar said the bureaus violated the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) by abrogating an arbitration clause in Neustar's contract with NAPM. "Instead of arbitrating its confidentiality dispute with Neustar, the NAPM apparently sought the Bureaus’ assistance in getting Neustar to agree to the NAPM’s preferred NDA," the company said. "By favoring the NAPM’s position and seeking to compel Neustar to concede, the Bureaus resolved the dispute in the NAPM’s favor, and thereby neutered the MSA’s arbitration clause in violation of the FAA." Neustar also said the bureau intervention "improperly interfered with private contractual negotiations" in conflict with "longstanding" commission policy. With the transition scheduled to last into 2018, the company said, "a Commission ruling is necessary to define the scope of the Bureaus’ delegated authority and to confirm they possess no power to abrogate arbitration clauses and interfere with matters of private contract." Neustar Wednesday said it had delivered a revised draft NDA to NAPM but it said it reserved the right to seek review of the bureau action and blamed iconectiv for any delay in the transition (see 1701180049). An iconectiv spokeswoman said the transition is on track to be completed in May 2018. "Any suggestion to the contrary is false. We have been onboarding vendors, service providers, service bureaus, and providers of telecom-related services for several months," she emailed. "As to Neustar's challenge to the Bureau's letter, Neustar today serves as the Local Number Portability Administrator based on an appointment by the FCC. As such, Neustar is subject to the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction. The FCC, in its order designating Telcordia dba iconectiv as the next LNPA, directed Neustar to cooperate with the transition and certainly has the right to take actions to ensure that Neustar does so." FCC officials and NAPM didn't comment.

Expect President-elect Donald Trump to “talk about infrastructure and education” Friday during his inaugural address, spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday. Trump will lay out “a vision of where he sees the country, the role of government, the role of citizens,” Spicer said. Commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross touted the role broadband would play in a Trump administration infrastructure package earlier this week (see 1701180069), a point also made by House Communications Subcommittee Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., last week. The transition has “made sure that in every department, there’s a key individual ready to go,” Spicer said.

FCC staff cleared Windstream's planned takeover of EarthLink, granting associated communications licenses. The Wireline and International bureaus issued a public notice Thursday in docket 13-393 that noted there had been no opposition to the transaction. Windstream had just asked for quick action. In a filing posted earlier in the day, Windstream counsel Julie Veach of Harris Wiltshire said she spoke Tuesday with Kris Monteith, acting Wireline Bureau chief. "No comments or oppositions had been filed in the ... proceeding, and I encouraged the Bureau to approve the pending application expeditiously," Veach wrote. Windstream and EarthLink expressed confidence they would get federal and state regulatory approvals in the first half of 2017 when they unveiled their $1.1 billion deal (see 1611070032). The deal already has been cleared on antitrust grounds (see 1612210031).

Parks Associates estimates 15 percent of U.S. broadband homes now use only antennas to receive TV and that the portion has “steadily increased” since Q2 2013 when it was under 9 percent, the research firm reported Wednesday. The increase coincides with a drop in pay-TV subscriptions and an increase in internet-only video subscriptions, it said. “Several factors have played a part in this decline,” including growth in over-the-top video services, increasing costs for pay-TV services and “consumer awareness of available online alternatives,” it said. Parks found that in 2016, twice as many pay-TV subscribers downgraded their service as upgraded it.

AT&T met with FCC Republicans to discuss business data services, net neutrality, broadband privacy and AT&T Mobility's spectrum deal with Rainbow Telecommunications Association. Senior Executive Vice President Robert Quinn and other AT&T executives held separate meetings with Commissioner Michael O'Rielly and his aides, and with aides to Commissioner Ajit Pai last week, as the two Republicans prepare to become the FCC majority. "No new arguments were raised during the meeting and AT&T's position in each of these proceedings remains unchanged," said the telco's filings posted Wednesday and Friday (here and here).

The Radio Television Digital News Association and 60 journalism organizations sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence asking for a meeting on news-media access to their administration, RTDNA said in a post on its website. The letter requests a discussion on access to the president's activities, the Freedom of Information Act, and “the ability of reporters to directly interact with government employees who are subject matter experts, rather than interacting with Public Information Officers (or having all conversations monitored by Public Information Officers).” It's “imperative that the incoming administration understand the importance of transparency in government and the cooperative spirit needed in working with the journalists who cover it,” said Mike Cavender, RTDNA executive director, in the posting. “Information-control practices have gone too far and must be curtailed for the good of our democracy and reputation in the world,” said the letter. The journalism organizations “would be happy to send a delegation to Washington, D.C., to have this discussion, or we invite Mr. Pence to meet with us the next time he is back in his hometown, which is also home of the Society of Professional Journalists’ national headquarters,” the letter said. The organization sent a similar letter to the White House in 2015, during the Obama administration (see 1508120028). The Trump transition team didn't comment.

Neustar said it gave North American Portability Management a draft nondisclosure agreement (NDA) on the local number portability administrator transition to Telcordia/iconectiv. But the LNPA incumbent said it had concerns about the intervention of FCC bureaus, which sided with NAPM in a dispute over the treatment of confidential information and asked Neustar to agree to a new NDA by Tuesday (see 1701060065). "Although we object to the Bureaus' overreach in this matter, we delivered a revised NDA that should be reasonably acceptable to the other parties and resolve the matter," said a Neustar letter posted Wednesday in docket 09-109. The company said it "remains committed to working diligently with the NAPM to bridge any perceived gaps" but it "reserves all rights and remedies, including the right to seek review" of a recent bureau letter at the appropriate time. Neustar said the bureau letter called NAPM's Nov. 22 draft NDA a "workable solution" without noting it reflected the consortium's "rejection of the draft the FCC staff reviewed and was sufficiently satisfied with" to deliver to the NAPM. It also disputed the letter's implication that "national security-related information" could be at risk due to the NDA negotiations. "Neustar originally proposed making explicit in the NDA that national security information must be protected" and also proposed measures "to mitigate potential risks" to U.S. national security in the transition, said the company. Neustar also called any suggestion it was to blame for transition delay "baseless," and said, "Any delay to this point is the result of iconectiv being required to start from scratch its software development because of its impermissible use of foreign nationals." The FCC, NAPM and iconectiv didn't comment. Meanwhile, Neustar's planned sale to a private investor group got antitrust clearance, said an early termination notice Tuesday of the FTC, which posts such notices for both it and DOJ. Its sale to a group led by Golden Gate Capital is expected to need review by the FCC and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, but the transaction isn't expected to slow the LNPA transition (see 1612140062).

Regulatory oversight is a critical part of reducing cyber risk on telecom networks, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said Wednesday. “As the end-to-end Internet user experience continues to expand and diversify, the Commission's ability to reduce cyber risk for individuals and businesses will continue to be taxed,” the bureau said in a white paper. “But shifting this risk oversight responsibility to a non-regulatory body would not be good policy. It would be resource intensive and ultimately drive dramatic federal costs and still most certainly fail to address the risk for over 30,000 communications service providers and their vendor base.” The FCC can’t rely on organic market incentives alone to reduce cyber risk, it said. “As private actors, ISPs operate in economic environments that pressure against investments that do not directly contribute to profit. Protective actions taken by one ISP can be undermined by the failure of other ISPs to take similar actions. This weakens the incentive of all ISPs to invest in such protections. Cyber-accountability therefore requires a combination of market-based incentives and appropriate regulatory oversight where the market does not, or cannot, do the job effectively.” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who steps down Friday, mailed the cybersecurity white paper to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. “This whitepaper outlines risk reduction activity engaged in by the Commission during my tenure and suggests actions that would continue to affirmatively reduce cyber risk in a manner that benefits from and incents further competition, protects consumers, and addresses significant national security vulnerabilities,” Wheeler wrote. Earlier, Wheeler was seen as backing off more ambitious cybersecurity plans (see 1611300063).

The FCC and critics diverged on whether inmate calling service litigation should be suspended as Republican commissioners prepare to take control of the agency Friday. The commission and DOJ said it shouldn't be delayed, but ICS providers and state and local government officials challenging the FCC orders said it should be. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asked litigants to show cause by Tuesday why its review shouldn't be delayed "in light of the impending changes to the Commission" (see 1701110073). "The Court should allow these cases -- which are fully briefed and ready for argument -- to proceed on the current schedule," said an FCC/DOJ response (in Pacer) in Global Tel-Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461, which is scheduled for oral argument Feb. 6. "Particularly given how long inmates and their families have awaited relief from the exorbitant rates they pay for inmate calls, and given the considerable resources all parties have already invested in this litigation, the Court should not place these cases in abeyance based on a possibility that a newly constituted Commission might adopt different policies." Others disagreed. "It makes perfect sense to give the Commission a reasonable period of time -- as explained below, we propose 60 days -- to inform the Court as to whether it intends to revisit the confusing array of orders issued by the prior Commission," said a Global Tel*Link and CenturyLink response (in Pacer). "Republican commissioners will hold a 2-1 majority on the Commission. Both of the Republican commissioners issued vigorous dissents from the Commissions prior rulings. It is therefore appropriate for the Court to give the new Commission an opportunity to take a position on the issues implicated by the petitions for review before the Court devotes further resources to this case." Pay Tel Communications, Securus, Telmate and NARUC and state and local government officials also filed responses (here, here, here and here, all in Pacer) that backed holding the case in abeyance. But a Network Communications International response (in Pacer) said the case shouldn't be held in abeyance.