Comcast is widening the reach of its home automation offering beyond Xfinity Home to its 15 million-plus Xfinity internet customers over the next 90 days, Xfinity Home Senior Vice President-General Manager Dan Herscovici told us Wednesday.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he plans to circulate soon a rural high-cost USF item, which he said would explore an appropriate budget and other ways to increase program certainty. The aim is to spur broadband deployment without inviting inefficient investment or operations, he said. Pai has been making increasing noises about updating rate-of-return USF funding rules (see 1711030065 and 1712210041), but his comments in a recent letter were his most explicit yet on expected action. He responded Dec. 19 to an Oct. 30 letter from Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, who asked the FCC to address a funding "shortfall" impeding the broadband efforts of smaller rural carriers. Both letters were posted Wednesday in docket 17-18.
LAS VEGAS -- The move to 5G is a top priority for NTIA, said Administrator David Redl in remarks Tuesday at CES, one of his first major policy addresses since he took the job late last year. “We must do everything we can this year and beyond to accelerate America’s 5G leadership,” Redl said. “CES is a great showcase of how high-speed connectivity has driven economic growth and innovation in this country and around the world.”
LAS VEGAS -- Relations among FCC members remain the same as they were before the highly charged net neutrality debate resulting in last month’s vote overturning the 2015 net neutrality rules, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told us at CES Tuesday. Clyburn joined Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr on a CES panel Tuesday, amid tight security. Meanwhile, preoccupying CES Wednesday was a blackout that struck the Las Vegas Convention Center's Central Hall and kept that portion of the show in total darkness for several hours. Later in the day the blackout was blamed on the torrential rains that poured down on Las Vegas Tuesday.
LAS VEGAS -- The heads of ATSC, CTA and NAB raised glasses of champagne and sparkling apple cider Tuesday to toast the release of the last of the suite of ATSC 3.0 standards. The toast came on the opening morning of CES in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Grand Lobby.
LAS VEGAS -- The city of the future won’t look like The Jetsons or Bladerunner, or other visions of the future. It will look like the city of the past, but using new communications technology, said Rohit Aggarwala, head of urban systems, at Sidewalk Labs, which is launching a prototype smart city on Toronto’s waterfront. Aggarwala keynoted a summit on smart cities at CES, which started Tuesday and devoted an entire pavilion to smart cities.
LAS VEGAS -- The FTC is looking forward to its renewed role policing competition in the broadband market, with the recent FCC repeal of the 2015 net neutrality order, acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen said in an interview with CTA President Gary Shapiro at CES Tuesday. New transparency requirements included in the rule require carriers to provide information about how they manage traffic, Ohlhausen said. “If they don’t fulfill promises they make to consumers, then the FTC can bring an enforcement action,” she said, saying her commission will work with the FCC and DOJ to ensure competition in the market.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, went on record Tuesday as the first Senate Republican to support a planned Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval aimed at reversing the FCC's order to rescind its 2015 net neutrality rules amid Democratic leaders' claims of growing momentum for a Senate-side version of the measure led by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., meanwhile told reporters he believes Congress likely will need to get the debate over the CRA resolution “behind us before Democrats are going to be sufficiently motivated” to actively negotiate on a legislative compromise on net neutrality.
LAS VEGAS -- A growing number of subscription-video and other services with many ways that advertisements can be delivered and multiple devices used to view content in a variety of ways has some stakeholders scrambling to catch up with people's changing habits, said CES panelists Tuesday. Amid consumer fragmentation and many programming choices, some see using voice commands to search for and discover video becoming increasingly popular. A sign of how technology is changing habits is that more people are watching full-length content and not just video clips on a plethora of devices other than TVs, said speakers including MGM's Epix Chief Digital Officer Jon Dakss.
Democratic state lawmakers are promising another run at ISP privacy rules this year as legislative sessions open. Legislators recently introduced fresh bills countering congressional repeal of the FCC broadband privacy rules in states including Florida, Kentucky, Vermont and Wisconsin (see 1801080044), and many of last year’s state bills that didn’t get final votes will carry over into 2018 sessions, said state legislative association officials. State lawmakers backing the bills told us they’re not daunted by 2017 failures or possible federal pre-emption. But the more recent controversial take-back of 2015 FCC net neutrality rules is spurring many state bills and could take attention from privacy (see 1712210034), some observers said.