The FCC asks a battery of questions in an NPRM approved Wednesday that tries to get to the bottom of what went wrong in June when the derecho storm led to problems at 77 public safety answering points across Ohio, the central Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic states, with 17 PSAPs losing service completely. FCC officials said the NPRM is open-ended and doesn’t draw tentative conclusions, though it could lead to new requirements for carriers. The questions raised are based on the problems identified in the Jan. 10 FCC report on the storm (http://bit.ly/ZTzB3M).
Whether wireless can be an effective substitute for fiber was a key question industry representatives struggled with Monday at the inaugural meeting of the Technology Transitions Policy Task Force. The main objective of Monday’s workshop was to establish a “factual baseline” for understanding three main transitions, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski: the evolution of network protocols from TDM to IP, replacement of copper networks with fiber, and the shift from wireline to wireless service. More than a third of households have already cut the voice cord and gone totally wireless, several panelists said. But some said that, as a replacement for wired broadband, wireless leaves much to be desired.
The focus of the FCC in March is once again on public safety communications, with a rulemaking likely to force the agency to revisit whether to again impose backup power requirements on carriers. An NPRM for the March 20 meeting, which circulated late Wednesday, raises numerous questions following up on the commission’s January derecho report (CD Jan 11 p3).
The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council no longer seeks an immediate vote on an FCC media ownership order that has deadlocked commissioners (CD Feb 19 p13). MMTC made a new proposal for steps to take before a vote on whether to deregulate newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules. The council last month sought a vote on the draft Media Bureau order before studies were complete on the rules’ effect on minority ownership (CD Jan 28 p7), saying if the research showed deregulation would harm people of color, the order could be reversed. Executive Director David Honig told us the council now wants the proceeding put on hold so a study the group will pay for on cross ownership’s effects on minority-owned stations can be done by a research firm.
The FCC approved 5-0 on Wednesday rules for cell signal boosters, designed to extend the reach of carrier networks. Commission Democrats and Republicans expressed some concerns about the order, which has been in the works since 2011 (CD Feb 20 p1). Major wireless carriers and 90 rural carriers have assured the FCC they plan to allow the use of boosters as long as they meet the technical requirements specified in the order, officials said. Public Knowledge criticized the order for not grandfathering in the use of more than two million cell boosters already being used by consumers. The order had not been posted online by the FCC by our deadline.
The FCC approved by unanimous vote Wednesday an NPRM that could add another 195 MHz to the spectrum open for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use in the 5 GHz band. The notice also proposes changes to FCC rules and equipment authorization procedures for devices used in the band. FCC officials told us more harmonization of the 5 GHz band could be helpful to industry and consumers.
The federal government’s broadband initiatives must continue, said FCC commissioners Thursday at the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services. But such programs need more accountability and a sharper focus, they said. Panelists emphasized the importance of digital literacy, and telco executives promoted a message of grassroots outreach in encouraging broadband adoption. “We are going to approach adoption with a little more nuance than we have in the past,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the conference’s new federal chair, told the summit. The FCC will be looking at “how to quantify how much can be saved when services migrate online and how citizens and consumers can help by sharing in those savings,” she said, describing an intention to look at the accountability of sustainable broadband programs to find out which are “truly sustainable” and strengthen the successes.
Pressure is growing on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to say something, anything, about his plans for the future, now that the second term of the Obama administration is underway. Last week, Genachowski was peppered with questions in the news conference after the commission meeting, but said nothing about his departure plans (CD Feb 1 p11). Also on the rise is pressure on the administration to appoint the first-ever woman to chair the FCC, one of the most high-profile of the independent federal commissions, following the departure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
NAB still supports some FCC broadcast ownership deregulation for those getting an overcoming disadvantages preference (ODP), while nonprofits that oppose other types of deregulation shared those concerns with aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, ex parte filings in docket 09-182 say. Shared service agreements and other contracts “between putatively separate stations” should be addressed in coming ownership rules, as a draft order’s focus on just joint sales agreements (JSA) continues to be “puzzling” to SSA foe Free Press, an official at the group reported telling an aide to Clyburn (http://xrl.us/bobd2n). “News co-production and ’sharing’ arrangements seem more likely to allow for control or influence over another licensee’s programming than do JSAs.” Clyburn has been considering whether some JSAs may be beneficial, as she and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel have concerns about deregulating other ownership rules before the agency conducts barriers-to-entry studies (CD Jan 18 p1). NAB continues to be willing to discuss with the FCC and others “practical steps” to implement an ODP, the association reported executives told Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (http://xrl.us/bobd27). It said that NAB, which backs ownership incubator programs to provide deregulation for various media assets, wouldn’t oppose such a “program that was initially limited to radio,” as the Diversity and Competition Supporters coalition has sought. Clyburn’s aide was also lobbied against deregulation by Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation, which also is against consolidation (http://xrl.us/bobd27).
Lobbying on FCC media ownership rules continues, as what’s expected to be the final comment cycle (CD Dec 29 p1) before a draft order is recirculated ended Jan. 4. Those seeking more deregulation than is in the draft circulated Nov. 14, including the Newspaper Association of America, reported in docket 09-182 visiting the agency in recent days (http://xrl.us/boa4d8). Meanwhile the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance continued seeking more regulation than is in the draft. Commissioner Robert McDowell said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/boa4d4) that the agency shouldn’t limit joint sales agreements, something the draft does for JSAs. (See separate report above in this issue.) Media General wants exemption from any restrictions on JSAs where the station brokering ads for the other broadcaster in the agreement provides local news and information to its partner, CEO George Mahoney wrote in a handwritten letter to an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a copy of which is in the docket (http://xrl.us/boa4va). With the agency “poised to conclude” JSAs “should be deemed attributable ownership stakes,” the commission should “take the additional step of ensuring” that those and any other sharing deals that allow coordinated retransmission consent negotiations for multiple stations in a market don’t “harm competition and consumers,” ITTA told (http://xrl.us/boa4gz) the aide to Rosenworcel. There’s a “complete lack of any potential harm” that “liberalization of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule” would have on ownership diversity, a lawyer for NAA reported telling an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. NABOB Executive Director Jim Winston told Genachowski’s aide of its continued opposition to ownership-rule relaxation without developing a record on the potential impact on ownership opportunities for minorities and women, and said doing so wouldn’t meet the requirements of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2011 remand of the last media ownership order (http://xrl.us/boa4f8). It would “be very difficult for a standalone radio station to compete with a radio group of multiple stations in a market if that radio group owner also owned the daily newspaper,” Winston reported a month late that he and other NABOB directors told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The draft order has been said to allow common ownership of radio stations and daily newspapers within a market. Because auto advertisers like to buy ads in the automotive sales supplements that dailies run weekly, “it would be very difficult for a standalone station to compete with a combined daily newspaper-radio combination,” Winston and executives from Access.1 Communications, Inner City Broadcasting and Taxi Productions told Clyburn. The notice covered no arguments not made in previous on-time filings by the association, so its lateness didn’t prejudice any party, Winston wrote (http://xrl.us/boa4gt).