NTIA and RUS sought comment Tuesday on how to change their broadband stimulus programs to deal with complaints by applicants and members of Congress. The agencies also said the two planned funding rounds remaining will be combined. The actions had been widely expected, but some observers said they were surprised by how comprehensively the agencies are taking up concerns and complaints.
Broadcasters have raised privacy and other concerns with the Office of Management and Budget over proposed changes in way the FCC collects broadcast ownership information. The changes are meant to help the commission get a better picture of broadcast ownership by minorities and women. But the exact changes to the form weren’t published until the FCC submitted them for OMB review in August, after the commission’s deadline for public comment on the changes. When broadcasters saw the new Form 323, they became worried about the amount of time it would take to fill out and the risk that it will force licensees to collect sensitive personal information from investors, NAB lobbyists told Media Bureau Chief William Lake and other bureau officials Sept. 17, an ex parte filing shows.
The FCC sometimes doesn’t make letters between it and Congress public because the agency has no automatic way to do so, Communications Daily has learned. Most of the letters we reviewed under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request didn’t appear in docket files where they would be accessible to the public. Sometimes letters aren’t there because they don’t address specific rulemakings, but we couldn’t find in dockets some letters between the agency and Congress that are germane to particular rulemakings.
New at LTE startup AirHop Communications: Garrett Choi, ex-Continuous Computing, as chief operating officer; Jerry Hall, ex-PriveSec, as vice president-marketing; Anand Parikh, ex-Cartiza Networks, vice president-business development … Additions to Wiley Rein communications practice: Former associate William Consovoy returns as partner after clerking for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Claire Evans, ex-clerk to Justice Thomas, associate; Brendan Carr, ex-clerk to 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Dennis Shedd, associate; and Michael Connolly ex-clerk to 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerome Holmes, associate … Ikanos names Debajyoti Pal, ex-Tallwood Venture Capital, chief technology officer … Matthew Wood, ex-Hogan & Hartson, joins Media Access Project as associate director.
Many communications CEOs are heading to the FCC to meet with Chairman Julius Genachowski, and in most cases other commissioners, we hear from commission and industry officials. A few have filed ex parte letters after making the trip. In general, Genachowski’s message has been the same, an FCC official said: The chairman’s office does not want to short-circuit the standard procedures, and the executives first need to make their cases on specific issues to the bureaus and other FCC staff.
Hundreds of applicants for new digital low-power TV and translator stations filed paperwork with the FCC this week after a filing window opened Tuesday (CD Aug 18 p6). The first-come first-served application process also prompted some existing licensees to modify or reapply for construction permits, said Chairman Byron St. Clair of the National Translator Association. “A lot of translators in the last couple of weeks crawled out of the woodwork and decided to file an application to flash cut to digital.” Had they waited, those stations could have been displaced by new entrants.
The NTIA announced Thursday that applicants who couldn’t file supporting documents for applications for grants under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program have until 5 p.m. Monday to send the papers by hand-delivery, overnight express or regular mail. The system generally seemed to work well Thursday, the last day for first-round applications.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to put substantial emphasis on process, ensuring that the commission’s work is done through the its bureaus and offices, staffed by longtime experts. That emphasis, industry and commission officials said, marks a major change from the Kevin Martin FCC, in which power was concentrated in the chairman’s office. An immediate result, commission officials acknowledged, is that the FCC probably won’t make major policy calls in August.
The RUS’s definition of “remote” in the notice of funds availability has stirred complaints from potential applicants and oversight committees. But this isn’t the first time that the agency has had problems defining the most rural areas.
Preparing clients to seek federal broadband funds has helped many communications law practices offset stagnation in other areas, as the recession continues and FCC-related work proves elusive, a Communications Daily survey found. Ten of the 11 communications practices responding said they were getting more business advising parties on whether and how to pursue some of the $7.2 billion in grants and loans. Those billings helped make up for an ebb in work on takeovers and regulatory submissions found in an earlier survey (CD July 1 p3) as well as lessened demand for interactions with an FCC between permanent chairmen Jan. 20 to June 29, many respondents said.