FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell warned that time is running short for Congress to authorize the commission to hold voluntary incentive auctions of broadcast spectrum. McDowell, speaking on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, said a mechanism must be created to make auctions “fair and voluntary” for broadcasters.
With budget negotiations between Congress and the White House still stalled at our deadline, the FCC said a government shut down would idle 1,751 FCC employees. In a “Shutdown-Plan” issued Friday, the commission said that 37 employees, including Chairman Julius Genachowski and the four commissioners, would remain on duty. It said it anticipated it would take less than four hours on Monday to have employees come in, secure their desks, cancel travel plans and meetings, change their outgoing voice mail messages, and receive furlough letters.
The U.S. Trade Representatives urged trading partners to remove access barriers to supplier networks, and provide reasonable termination rates and more transparency in satellite rules, said its annual review of the operation and effectiveness of telecom trade agreements. The 2011 Section 1377 Review noted increases in fixed and mobile call termination rates in Tonga, Ghana and Jamaica; access challenge to major supplier networks in Chile, Germany, India and Mexico; and licensing, transparency and regulatory requirement issues in China, Costa Rica and India.
A growing number of cable operators are working on applications for the iPad and other tablet devices, and they are adding functionality to apps already available, they said. Some details of the carriage agreements between Time Warner Cable and Viacom have emerged meanwhile, as they sued each other over TWC’s use of Viacom TV programming on its iPad app. Charter Communications will release an iPad app later this year in conjunction with its TiVo launch and will expand that application’s functionality, a spokeswoman said in an email.
The House issued a sharp rebuke to FCC net neutrality rules, passing a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act Friday afternoon. As expected, the 240-179 vote split the parties. Six Democrats voted for HJ Res 37, and two Republicans voted against it. While the bill passed the House with relative ease, the road ahead looks difficult. The resolution next moves to the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the Obama administration has threatened to veto if it gets any further. The House failed to demonstrate Friday that the body has a two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto.
BOSTON -- Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she’s paying close attention to wireless competition. Remarks by Clyburn prepared for delivery Friday to the National Conference for Media Reform dealt only with the wireless industry. She said she'll review AT&T’s proposed $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile with an eye toward encouraging competition. The comments came the day after the FCC approved data-roaming requirements, 3-2 (CD April 8 p1).
New automatic content-recognition technology is allowing interactive TV applications on second- and third-screen devices such as the iPad to synchronize with programming on a user’s TV set, setting up a battle among application developers, content owners and distributors over who will control this kind of applications and profit from them.
BOSTON -- Success stories of broadband projects that received federal money should be shared widely with those who seek to start new efforts, because Congress may not set aside additional money to support them, a funder and recipients of stimulus awards agreed Friday. It will be “a challenge expanding this beyond the federal money,” said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling. Hurdles can be overcome by understanding what worked in projects that got federal subsidies, he said. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act set aside $7 billion for the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service to help pay for broadband projects.
BOSTON -- AT&T’s plan to buy T-Mobile points up industry practices that some non-profit advocates have been trying for some time to draw regulatory and legislative attention to, they said Friday. Issues include spectrum policy, early termination fees, bill shock and handset exclusivity. Potential job losses because of the $39 billion deal also were mentioned, during a wireless panel at the National Conference for Media Reform. AT&T contends the transaction will speed the rollout of 4G wireless broadband and stimulate the economy. A company spokesman had no comment on the panel.
Satellite companies are watching closely the FCC’s proceeding on NTIA suggestions for spectrum suitable for terrestrial broadband deployment, executives said. Several of the bands overlap with spectrum used by the satellite industry or are adjacent to it. The FCC asked for comment on the proposals in a public notice last month (CD March 9 p11) and comments are due April 22 in docket 10-123.