The circulation of draft orders three weeks before meetings has apparently led to a big falloff in the number of ex parte visits to the FCC, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said at a Free State Foundation conference Tuesday. O’Rielly spoke on a panel with fellow Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr. Both also said more than three months after the 3-2 FCC vote to overturn the 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1712140039) they remain convinced the FCC made the right move. Earlier, Chairman Ajit Pai and NTIA Administrator David Redl outlined various initiatives, including to promote 5G.
President Donald Trump’s intended nomination of Rebecca Slaughter, chief counsel to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to the vacant Democratic FTC seat likely ensures she and the other four commission nominees awaiting Senate confirmation will be moved together, several officials and lobbyists told us. The White House said Monday Trump plans to nominate Slaughter, as expected, after Schumer recommended her for the job earlier this year (see 1802060039 and 1803260049). Few communications and tech sector stakeholders commented publicly about Slaughter’s nomination by our deadline Tuesday, with some telling us they view her as essentially a blank slate on a range of tech policy issues before the FTC.
USTelecom will “aggressively challenge” state and municipal net neutrality efforts that are inconsistent with the FCC’s December order, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter said Monday. Many expect industry lawsuits challenging state actions including a Washington state law and five gubernatorial executive orders (see 1803230041). Acknowledging litigation is likely, a Massachusetts Senate special committee said Monday “there are strong arguments to support state action in this area and the uncertainty of the Federal legal landscape should not prevent states from acting.” Democratic lawmakers in Colorado and Baltimore also unveiled proposals.
The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal is further evidence that Congress needs to tighten scrutiny surrounding online political ads, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., argued last week (see 1803220052).
Negotiating for Turner content with New AT&T would put Dish Network between a rock and a hard place -- either accept onerous programming terms and rates or lose must-have programming, meaning subscribers likely would will defect to AT&T's DirecTV. So testified Sling TV President Warren Schlichting Monday in U.S. v. AT&T and Time Warner. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington raised the specter of contempt of court charges after admonishing counsel on both sides to ensure witnesses who aren't experts aren't made privy to testimony of other witnesses.
The FCC is eyeing rural call completion and rural business data service (BDS) actions among others at its April 17 commissioners' meeting. A rural call completion item would set new rules seeking to improve long-distance provider monitoring of "intermediate providers" while easing reporting requirements, and seek comment on a recently enacted rural call law, blogged Chairman Ajit Pai Monday. The item combines an order and Further NPRM, said an agency official. Pai said a separate NPRM would look to offer BDS "inventive regulation" to rural telcos receiving model-based Connect America Fund broadband-oriented support.
The FCC will consider an NPRM at its April 17 meeting proposing to bar the use of money in any of the four USF programs to buy equipment or services from companies that “pose a national security threat” to U.S. communications networks or the communications supply chain. The NPRM appears mainly aimed at Chinese wireless equipment makers Huawei and ZTE, industry experts said. The biggest potential negative could be for smaller carriers, who sometimes find they must rely on Huawei as a low-cost handset provider for markets some larger companies don’t want to serve, industry officials said.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer filed a “request for consultations” at the World Trade Organization to “address China’s discriminatory technology licensing requirements,” said his office Friday. President Donald Trump’s memorandum proposing 25 percent tariffs on about $60 billion worth of Chinese goods imported to the U.S. directed Lighthizer to address “China’s discriminatory technology licensing practices” through a WTO “dispute proceeding” (see 1803220043). The consultations request was the first step in that process, Lighthizer's office said.
Legislators and industry players urged action in response to Facebook-Cambridge Analytica reports and big data’s relationship to privacy (see 1803200047 and 1803210056). And House and Senate Commerce Committee leadership submitted formal requests Friday for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before their respective committees (see 1803220052).
Debate over a European Commission proposal for a new e-privacy law is heating up as telcos and digital companies race to comply with the EU general data protection regulation. The e-privacy regulation (ePR), which would modify existing electronic privacy rules enacted as part of telecom liberalization, is an exception to Europe's general reluctance to impose sector-specific privacy regulations and a political move aimed at leveling the playing field between traditional providers and over-the-top players that offer telco-like services, Hogan Lovells (Paris) telecom and privacy lawyer Winston Maxwell told a Tuesday webinar. Communications providers said the current version of the draft is inflexible, while digital rights activists criticized EU governments' failure to move forward on the regulation.