Sprint Nextel’s successful bid to buy full ownership of Clearwire is unlikely to face a tough time winning regulatory approval, industry legal experts told us. Sprint, which already owned 51 percent of Clearwire, said Monday that Clearwire’s other shareholders had unanimously agreed to sell Sprint their 49 percent stake for $2.2 billion. That deal represented an improvement from the $2.1 billion Sprint offered last week (CD Dec 14 p15).
FCC staff working toward a redrafted quadrennial media ownership order to end the current review early next year are considering adding provisions that target some deregulation to aid diversity beyond the current draft, agency, industry and nonprofit officials said. They said career staffers appear to be giving attention to including provisions that industry and nonprofit backers say would help diversity without targeting only minorities. Targeting women and minorities can’t be done until research on barriers to entry is completed (CD Nov 19 p1). If staff finds provisions that are non-controversial inside and outside the agency, those adds could go in the new order to end the review due in 2010 under the Telecom Act, said officials observing the redrafting.
A new FCC task force will provide recommendations on ways to modernize and coordinate the commission’s policies on Internet Protocol interconnection, the resiliency of modern communications networks, business broadband competition and consumer protection on voice services, officials said. Recommendations for the proper focus of the Technology Transitions Policy Task Force were divided. Large telcos and anti-regulation think tanks encouraged deregulation; CLECs, special access purchasers and smaller providers encouraged adoption of IP interconnection policies. All told us their recommended policies would maximize consumer welfare, competition and innovation.
Nonprofits lobbied the FCC more against media ownership deregulation, while NAB asked that the forthcoming quadrennial review order address last year’s remand of 2007 rules, say ex parte filings in docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/bn4y3c). The 30-day comment period that ends Jan. 4 on Media Bureau figures (CD Dec 5 p1) showing who owns what radio and TV stations by race and gender isn’t enough time, a coalition of civil-rights groups said. “This extremely brief period leaves the Commission open to challenge before the courts because it is self-evidently insufficient,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote FCC members. The bureau’s public notice this week “seeks comment on raw data that provides no analysis explaining why the proposed rule changes in the 2010 Quadrennial Review docket will improve ownership rates by women and people of color,” the group continued. NAB wants the agency to “address the specific issues” in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ remand “in a direct and clear manner,” NAB General Counsel Jane Mago reported telling FCC General Counsel Sean Lev (http://xrl.us/bn4y3r). There’s “no justification for voting out an order that fails to comply with the Third Circuit’s mandate” by not considering rule changes’ effect on the ability for women and people of color to buy broadcast assets, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood reported telling an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “Increased media consolidation is exactly the wrong remedy for this longstanding problem” of low ownership rates among people in those demographic groups, Wood said (http://xrl.us/bn4y4d). It’s “entirely possible that large media conglomerates with broadcast licenses in markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago could -- and likely would -- pursue daily newspaper properties in the same” area if the commission allows common ownership of a TV station not rated top four and a daily in the region, he said. A blog post Wednesday on Free Press’s website (http://xrl.us/bn4y4j) titled “FCC Spin vs. Fact” was on what deregulation could allow, as the group opposed to consolidation and FCC officials working for Chairman Julius Genachowski debate whether the draft order that’s circulating would allow further concentration. The final order “should impose reporting requirements and collect data about” shared services agreements between separately owned TV stations within a market, public-interest communications lawyer Andrew Schwartzman reported telling an aide to Rosenworcel. Only seeking information “would be insufficient,” Schwartzman wrote, representing only himself (http://xrl.us/bn4zm7). To NAB, “sharing arrangements facilitate the production of local news” and “economic efficiencies” by TV stations, Mago and other association lawyers told bureau officials. NAB said (http://xrl.us/bn4y46) it backs several proposals from the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council that are “technical in nature and are not specific to ownership,” including technical rule deregulation, that would “reduce entry barriers and promote efficiencies for existing broadcast stations owned by minorities, women and small entities."
The FCC survived a critical challenge to its regulatory authority under Title III of the Communications Act, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding the commission’s April 7, 2011, data roaming order over a challenge from Verizon Wireless. The case was widely viewed as a key test of FCC jurisdiction. Another big test awaits, with the D.C. Circuit slated to consider arguments on the commission’s 2010 net neutrality rules next year.
The U.S. could find itself in a position where it has to offer compromises this week as the World Conference on International Telecommunications gets started in Dubai, observers say. They noted that Ambassador Terry Kramer has indicated the U.S. will stand firm on Internet governance at WCIT, though he must answer to the State Department and the Obama administration. If the U.S. decides it must move toward compromise, the decision won’t be Kramer’s alone.
The U.S. could find itself in a position where it has to offer compromises this week as the World Conference on International Telecommunications gets started in Dubai, observers say. They noted that Ambassador Terry Kramer has indicated the U.S. will stand firm on Internet governance at WCIT, though he must answer to the State Department and the Obama administration. If the U.S. decides it must move toward compromise, the decision won’t be Kramer’s alone.
Verizon’s First Amendment Arguments ‘Startling,’ Amici Say in Briefs Supporting Net Neutrality Rules
Law professors, engineers, computer scientists, Internet company reps, state regulators, public interest groups and former FCC commissioners told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday that Verizon was way off the mark when it claimed First Amendment rights trumped the commission’s December 2010 net neutrality order, which mandated nondiscriminatory treatment of Internet traffic across ISPs’ networks. The groups also argued that Section 706 of the Telecom Act gave the commission the authority needed to pass its Open Internet order. “As leading Internet content, applications and network companies, legal scholars and investors, and former FCC commissioners have confirmed, the Commission’s order preserves the Internet as the most powerful platform in human history for innovation, investment and free expression,” a commission spokesman said.
Lacking the “benefit of public comment” on broadcast ownership data before moving to adopt FCC media ownership rules was opposed by public-interest lawyer Andrew Schwartzman. His filing posted Thursday to docket 09-182 reported on a lobbying meeting last week with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, before the quadrennial media ownership order circulated and the Media Bureau released such data, both occurring Wednesday (CD Nov 15 p1). “The failure to seek comment under similar circumstances resulted in a reversal of the Commission’s earlier ownership decision,” Schwartzman wrote (http://xrl.us/bnzum4) of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ remand last year of the last quadrennial ownership order. The conversation was made only on Schwartzman’s behalf, though Free Press, which he represents on media ownership, shares his view, he told us.
Verizon’s First Amendment Arguments ‘Startling,’ Amici Say in Briefs Supporting Net Neutrality Rules
Law professors, engineers, computer scientists, Internet company executives, state regulators, public interest groups and former FCC members told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday that Verizon was way off the mark when it claimed First Amendment rights trumped the commission’s December 2010 net neutrality order. The order mandated nondiscriminatory treatment of Internet traffic across ISPs’ networks. The groups argued that Section 706 of the Telecom Act gave the commission the authority needed to pass its Open Internet order. “As leading Internet content, applications and network companies, legal scholars and investors, and former FCC commissioners have confirmed, the Commission’s order preserves the Internet as the most powerful platform in human history for innovation, investment and free expression,” a commission spokesman said by email.