The supplemental coverage from space (SCS) licensing framework on the FCC’s Thursday open meeting agenda should receive unanimous approval, space industry experts tell us. There was heavy lobbying last week on the draft order, with suggestions for edits and tweaks.
Wi-Fi advocates strongly opposed a December request from Axon Enterprise for a waiver allowing it to market three investigation and surveillance devices to law enforcement agencies. These devices would operate at higher power levels than allowed under FCC rules in heavily used 5 GHz spectrum. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment in February (see 2402060082). Oppositions were posted on Friday in docket 24-40. Axon didn’t comment Friday.
Backers of Congress giving the FCC stopgap funding to keep the affordable connectivity program running through FY 2024 latched onto President Joe Biden's short mention of internet affordability in his State of the Union speech Thursday night to bolster that push. Biden also said Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy legislation and briefly touched on other tech policy issues. He didn't mention the House Commerce Committee's push to require TikTok Chinese owner ByteDance to divest the app for it to continue operating in the U.S., despite its supporters' rapid push to advance it (see 2403080035).
Some pay-TV providers are telling the FCC that a ban on early-termination fees (ETF) and a requirement for prorated refunds should be limited to residential subscribers, not business subs, and shouldn't be applied retroactively to existing contracts, according to reply comments this week in docket 23-405. FCC commissioners voted 3-2 in December to adopt the video service fees NPRM, which proposes banning ETFs and requires prorated refunds when service is canceled (see 2312130019). Verizon said that while only a small portion of its subscriber base is potentially subject to ETFs, a ban on them should be done prospectively, as eliminating the fees in existing contracts "would improperly upset the economic bargains reflected in those contracts and would impose an undue administrative burden on Verizon." It defended keeping ETFs for business customers, calling them "sophisticated actors who may individually negotiate their contracts with Verizon." Altice urged similarly for business subs and for not applying a ban on existing contracts. NCTA said a ban on "unjust" ETFs should apply only to practices that don't transparently disclose them or give consumers the option to go on a month-to-month plan without such fees. It argued against letting state and local governments apply other ETF and whole-month billing requirements to cable service. "A patchwork of state and local regulations would be unduly burdensome" and make competition with satellite TV and online video distributors a chore, it said. Dish Network also defended ETFs and said they need to be clearly and prominently disclosed. It called for transparency standards in the billing and onboarding process. Opposing the FCC proposal on ETFs and prorated refunds, NTCA said the FCC can accomplish its objectives via its all-in pricing proceeding "without the unintended consequences to consumers or impermissible rate regulation." The FCC proposal received some support. The pay-TV industry argument that ETFs and billing cycle fees benefit consumers "may shock some observers, who have come to know the pay TV industry as a reliable advocate for the Commission imposing new regulations on behalf of consumers," a sarcastic NAB said. Local governments, including Boston, the District of Columbia and Fairfax County, Virginia, said eliminating fees won't drive up prices. Instead, they said competition that enhances consumer choice "will promote lower prices and will permit consumers to choose the highest value products for their budgets."
ACA Connects "will take a serious look" at challenging the FCC's "all-in" video pricing rules, which are set for a vote during the commissioners' March 14 open meeting (see 2402210057), ACA President Grant Spellmeyer said. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks in an address Wednesday at the ACA Connects policy summit (see 2403060005) mentioned the all-in pricing draft order, saying it would curb the “indecipherable asterisks and fine print” that make comparison shopping difficult. Starks said the order is consistent with the TV Viewer Protection Act, which requires that MVPDs disclose the all-in price at the point of sale and within 24 hours of sign-up and let customers cancel without penalty. The item is part of a larger agenda with broad support against junk fees and favors greater transparency for consumers, said Best Best's Cheryl Leanza. She noted the Ticket Act (HR-3950), requiring greater transparency in prices for event tickets, and the No Hidden Fees Act, (HR-6543), which prompts greater transparency in hotel and motel costs. Leanza represented local government clients in the proceeding. Cable and satellite TV promotional materials and bills would prominently display an all-in price that covers programming-related costs, including broadcast retransmission consent fees and regional sports programming charges, under the draft order. The requirement would be only for ads where price is mentioned, according to the draft. Operators would have nine months to comply after the approved order is released. In advertising for bundled services, providers should have the option to either provide the full price of the bundle, including video fees, or separately list the bundle's all-in video portion, NCTA told aides to the five FCC commissioners and FCC Media Bureau staffers, according to a docket 23-203 filing Thursday. NCTA urged that franchise fees and public, educational and government programming fees be excluded from the all-in pricing. It also urged that the commission to give providers a year to implement the all-in rules. Joining NCTA in the meetings were representatives of Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox. In meetings with aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks, Verizon reiterated its argument for exempting legacy plans no longer marketed or offered to consumers from the all-in pricing rule (see 2308010028). Pointing to existing federal transparency requirements as well as market forces, state cable associations said in a docket filing this week that the proposed all-in rules "rest on unsound legal footing, are unnecessary, and would produce results contrary to the Commission’s goals." Behind the filing were the Florida Internet & Television Association, Missouri Internet & Television Association, Ohio Cable Telecommunications Association and Texas Cable Association.
The FCC Wireline Bureau extended until May 1 the deadline to apply for the rural healthcare program. In an order Thursday in docket 17-310, the bureau extended the FY 2024 application filing window due to "two instances of outages of a program form that delayed some program participants’ ability [to] begin competitive bidding."
Former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly raised security concerns this week about wireless routers from Chinese companies. “Bad actors can misuse wireless routers to infect millions of home networks to obtain consumer information and documents, proliferate misinformation, disrupt functionality, or cause other harm,” O’Rielly wrote in a Hudson Institute blog post. “While the underlying internet infrastructure is protected by layers of encryption and other security features in its embedded standards, routers can give malicious actors entry to these systems, potentially affecting service providers, wider networks, and the global internet.” O’Rielly said policymakers should look at whether wireless routers could give China-sponsored hackers their “next entry point into U.S. networks.”
Representatives of the Open Technology Institute at New America and Public Knowledge spoke with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in favor of handset unlocking requirements as a condition of T-Mobile’s proposed buy of Mint Mobile (see 2402220032). “The process for unlocking phones can be cumbersome and stifle consumer choice and hence, competition,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-319.
T-Mobile and SpaceX met with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez on their pursuit of tweaking the supplemental coverage from space (SCS) service order on the FCC’s March 14 agenda (see 2403060055). AT&T, meanwhile, discussed its concerns (see 2402210067) with an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington. Filings were posted on Thursday in docket 23-65.
CTIA sought a tweak to the FCC’s proposed cyber mark order, set for a vote March 14 (see 2402220059). In a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-239, CTIA asked the regulator to clarify that “general purpose computing and networking equipment -- including routers,” is excluded from the order. Clarifying the scope of covered devices will “promote consistency with [the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s] efforts more broadly and ensure the FCC’s program conforms to the intended scope,” said the filing. “The clarification on the scope of ‘IoT device’ is useful not just to ensure definitional consistency, but also to promote broader consistency between two parallel workstreams by the FCC and NIST,” CTIA said. NCTA also sought clarity in meetings with Public Safety Bureau and commissioner staff. Clarifications will “make the program more successful in driving security improvements by making it more appealing for manufacturers to join,” NCTA said. Cablers asked for additional clarity on the definition of “IoT product” and “IoT product components.” The FCC should make clear that “decisions related to the certification and renewal requirements and processes should be based on NIST’s standards and guidance,” the group said. NCTA urged the launch of a “centralized registry that can be easily accessed by consumers to inform their purchasing decisions.” A searchable, “one-stop-shop” will “allow consumers to more readily research and compare products that bear the Mark, and it would support the efforts of network operators, security researchers, and other entities to enhance security across the IoT ecosystem.”