Comments filed on USF contribution reform show little agreement and point to the need for more discussion, Verizon and Verizon Wireless said in FCC reply comments. That conclusion was seconded by many companies and groups filing replies this week. Though many suggested short-term fixes, most agreed there is little consensus to move to a numbers-based or connections-based approach.
Drawback
A duty drawback is a refund by CBP of the duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods, which were imposed upon importation as prescribed in 19 U.S.C. 1313(d). More broadly, a drawback also includes the refund or remission of other excise taxes pursuant to other provisions of law.
Broadcasters have no “reasoned or legitimate explanation” of why keeping “an online political file entails more burden or requires more staff time than is already expended to maintain the existing paper file,” the Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition told the FCC. “In 2012 it is ludicrous for broadcasters to deny the efficiency advantages gained from switching from paper files to electronic ones,” said PIPAC, a coalition of nonprofits seeking to move the information to the FCC’s website from the studios of all TV stations. “Exempting some licensees from the online posting requirement based on station or market size would result in arbitrary line drawing by the Commission.” PIPAC criticized a list of “the limited data” that 11 companies that own TV stations proposed to put online (CD Feb 22 p2), because it wouldn’t include the entire political file. That plan “could be construed to exclude information on political and issue advertising purchased by groups organized under sections 501(c)3 and 527 of the internal revenue code, including ... so-called Super PACs,” it said. Broadcasters want to “omit from online disclosure the cost of individual ads, whether a request to purchase broadcast time was accepted or rejected, the date and time on which the broadcast is aired, or the class of time purchased,” the coalition said. Officials with the Campaign Legal Center, Free Press, Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation and Media Access Project met with aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmt9j4) posted Thursday in docket 00-168. Another filing from Steve Waldman, author of the FCC report that recommended public files go online, outlined pros and cons from his view of the industry proposal. A “potential positive” is the possibility that the information could be in an easily searchable database format,” Waldman wrote (http://xrl.us/bmt9mu) of conversations with FCC Chief of Staff Zac Katz and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. A drawback is “the possibility that it could leave some important information out of the online system,” Waldman said. “Pursuing this approach could cause delays that might undermine the ability to get meaningful disclosure implemented this year, which would be a very unfortunate outcome.” The filing was made four days late, and expanded on a recent ex parte document (http://xrl.us/bmt9o4).
The record so far shows that commenters “overwhelmingly” support “voluntary, industry-led collaborative efforts” aimed at developing a mechanism allowing texting to 911, CTIA said in reply comments filed at the FCC. Carriers offered similar comments. But the National Emergency Number Association advised the FCC to act quickly and warned that any interim solution is likely to be in place for some time. Several commenters said the best short-term solution would be IP Relay, as identified by the ATIS Interim Nonvoice Emergency Services Incubator.
Building a communications network to facilitate a smart grid energy network will require more than one networking technology, and utilities and vendors are looking at hybrid powerline communications (PLC) and wireless networks to meet the task, said executives at the HomePlug Powerline Alliance technology conference Tuesday. “We're using what we call a dual approach,” said Gary Stuebing, a strategic planning manager for Duke Energy. “When we start looking at over-the-air technologies, we decided we're going to use Wi-Fi,” he said. “Our long-range approach is for PLC technologies, because we're going to need both."
An energy-saving transmitter technology the FCC is letting AM stations use has some drawbacks, a law firm with radio clients noted. Modulation dependent carrier level (MDCL) control technology, which the Media Bureau said broadcasters can seek waivers to use (CD Sept 14 p18), isn’t “perfect,” lawyer Harry Cole wrote on Fletcher Heald’s blog. “Audio distortion or decreases in the signal-to-noise ratio in the receiver may occur, along with slight erosion of coverage at the fringes of the station’s protected service area,” he wrote, citing the bureau’s recent public notice. “Testing is still on-going relative to the compatibility of MDCL with hybrid AM IBOC on various types of receivers,” he wrote of in-band/on-channel digital radio.
More small and mid-size cable and broadcasting assets sales are expected, executives and brokers said. Cable systems and channels and radio and TV stations will continue to be sold, but not in the numbers of the boom times for mergers and acquisitions that the media industry saw about 10 years ago, they said. And it has become harder for some prospective buyers to borrow money for deals than it was six months ago, brokers and executives said.
House Republicans are thinking about using the Universal Service Fund to help pay down the budget deficit, Congressional documents show and Hill and industry officials told us. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., circulated a slide presentation among his colleagues Tuesday that contained cuts and savings proposed in talks with Vice President Joe Biden, including between $20 billion and $25 billion in “spectrum/USF” savings.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) formally withdrew its support for the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, the group said in a letter sent Wednesday to the FCC. Many GLAAD members were upset after the group endorsed the deal in May, said the letter by acting President Mike Thompson. Former GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios resigned in the wake of complaints over the endorsement. “We have taken those concerns under consideration, and have over the last several weeks engaged in a much more rigorous and consultative examination of the relative benefits and drawbacks to AT&T’s application than we undertook in advance of the filing of our initial letter,” he wrote. GLAAD is now officially neutral on the deal. “We recognize, and fully respect that these organizations, which do important work, will make up their own minds about whether to support the merger or remain neutral,” said an AT&T spokesman in response. “And, though it should go without saying, the decisions made by these organizations will not in any way impact our desire to work with, partner with, or support those organizations in the future."
There’s disagreement along industry lines on whether changes to licenses that let pay-TV providers carry broadcast programming without signing deals with every copyright holder have import for retransmission consent deals. At a Copyright Office hearing Friday on changes it may propose to Congress on statutory licenses, broadcasters and some content creators said the licenses and retrans are unrelated to whatever the office ultimately proposes about phasing out some sections of the licenses. Cable, DBS and telco-TV providers said they may go hand-in-hand. PBS, which doesn’t strike retrans deals, doesn’t want to “become collateral damage” to any changes in that system, its lawyer said.
With some of the larger pay-TV operators having made TV Everywhere deployments, vendors are looking to the second tier of the market to try to win business. Cable operators and telco TV providers with less than a million subscribers are both seeking and being courted by video technology vendors that offer a range of technological approaches to delivering multi-screen video services both in and out of the home, industry executives said. “They look at what Cablevision and Time Warner Cable have done, but they don’t have the resources to build it themselves,” said Marc Sokol, executive vice president of marketing and business development for NeuLion. He said NeuLion expects to announce new customers in the U.S. and U.K. soon. Vendors are presenting pay-TV providers with a variety of ways to begin offering multi-screen services.