Cambridge Net Neutrality Hearing Delayed Indefinitely
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants to delay an en banc hearing on net neutrality, scheduled for Feb. 26 in Cambridge, Mass., to an unspecified date, commission aides were told late Thursday. The FCC’s monthly meeting scheduled for Washington, then moved to Cambridge, is back in Washington where commissioners will take up media and wireless items. Martin had hoped the meeting that day in Cambridge would be devoted only to the net neutrality debate. For a time Thursday, commissioners were under pressure to vote on at least some of the agenda items ahead of time to clear the schedule so only the hearing would remain, said agency officials.
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But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., telecommunications subcommittee chairman and an important net neutrality supporter, couldn’t attend that day. The decision to postpone the hearing followed several hours of uncertainty at the agency, sources said. The FCC scheduled the hearing Tuesday.
Two wireless items for the meeting have circulated, but neither is controversial. The first deals with several matters involving the 2.5 GHz band used by broadband radio service and educational broadband service operators.
“The FCC is being very closed-mouth as to what is in the order, so I'm not sure what is in and what is not in the order,” said an industry attorney active on 2.5 GHz issues. “I'm hoping for the best.” The second is an order requested by the Coast Guard that concerns use of VHF maritime channel 87B in inland areas as part of a national system to track ship movements.
Meanwhile, commissioners never faced pressure to vote on four media items that Martin wants acted on by the meeting, FCC officials said. The chairman had asked the other commissioners to vote on the two wireless items before Feb. 26 but not on the media items, they said. If he had, they probably would have balked, said an agency source. An official from Martin’s office told aides to other commissioners Thursday that they should be ready to vote before Feb. 26 on the two wireless items, commission officials said. But at a meeting later that day, aides were told there’s no hurry on the media items.
The most controversial media item probably will be a rulemaking notice on setting a 2012 digital transition for low-power stations with cable must-carry implications, commission officials said. They said at least two commissioners seem worried by a tentative finding that all Class A stations could demand to be carried on cable systems, they said. But commissioners seem to think 2012 is a reasonable deadline.
The commissioners probably will adopt an order approving a transfer of control of DirecTV from News Corp. to Liberty Media, FCC officials said. But some commissioners may try to add conditions to the $11 billion deal to the two that Martin said last Friday he had imposed, a source said. Some commissioners may want to require DirecTV to do more to let subscribers get the signals of TV stations in their areas, said the official. Commissioners probably will consider whether to give DirecTV and EchoStar additional time to meet a high definition TV requirement in a satellite order that Martin wants a vote on, an official said. The order would require satellite companies starting in 2009 to let subscribers get the HD signals of all TV stations in a market if they carry any in the format, an official said. DirecTV and EchoStar want four additional years to meet the deadline, said the official.