Copps Wants a More Predictable FCC

Copps wants the commission work in line with “the rule of law,” make it easier for the public to take part in rulemakings and get more-detailed ex partes so observers can understand what’s taking place in meetings between lobbyists and FCC officials, he said. “We're starting down that road now,” Copps said. “It will take a while to get all the way” there.

The FCC must increase “transparency” because it’s “a consumer protection agency,” Copps said. The commission and other such agencies “have become more opaque,” he said, saying he wasn’t “singling” out anyone or any “regime.” Copps said “we have too often morphed into being a referee between well-heeled interests. Consumers have too often not been brought into the loop, not even informed of actions we are about to take, and excluded from input by arcane rules and sometimes expensive methodologies.” Ex partes that don’t describe the substance of meetings are “not the kind of public record that a transparent agency needs to have,” Copps said. “Knowing who met with who is important, but so it knowing what is actually said.”

Copps set open commission meetings April 8 and May 14. He said the meeting previously scheduled for March 5 will deal only with the switch to DTV. He circulated no items for votes at next month’s meeting, which will resemble February’s meeting, with experts discussing the transition, Copps said. “Next week is going to be among the most difficult in the history of the commission” as some stations turn off analog service Tuesday, the old deadline, and others wait until the new one of June 12, he said. “I don’t think we're going to make lemonade out of lemons. But we can make something we can at least get down our throat.” The FCC in coming days will decide which of the 491 stations that want to stop analog broadcasts Tuesday will be allowed to do so, Copps said. (See separate report in this issue.)

DTV will remain the commission’s “overwhelming” priority, but the FCC can achieve much else in coming months, Copps said. He said he’s “trying to get a handle” on which items have sat “around here for a long, long time” and are “maybe not all that controversial,” so the commission can act on them soon. “We will be teeing things up” and won’t be “absent from the field” on pressing public-safety issues like the D block, he said. “A lot of this depends on how long” Copps is interim chairman, he said.

Intercarrier Compensation Overhaul Possible

Commissioners “would still be open” to looking at overhauls of intercarrier compensation and the Universal Service Fund “in the near-term future,” Copps said. He said he has long pushed for an intercarrier compensation overhaul and had hoped last year “to make even more progress than we did.” Copps plans to talk with his colleagues to identify areas of agreement, he said. But the FCC must also “stay cognizant” of Capitol Hill interest in a USF revamp and respond, he said.

Copps applauded Congress for promoting broadband deployment in economic stimulus legislation. The effort will require “effective interagency coordination” to ensure that stimulus money goes to the right places, he said. The FCC is “trying to hit the ground running” by collecting more- detailed broadband data, he said. The House version of the bill would impose a 45-day deadline for the commission to write broadband definitions, including defining “open access.” But the Senate took the 45-day language out before it passed the bill. Either way, Copps didn’t seem worried. “We will do what Congress requires.”

At our deadline a House-Senate conference committee reached agreement on a unified version of the bill, which now faces another vote in both houses. The Senate version of the bill reportedly was chosen over the House, according to those who saw copies of the conference report.

The FCC should collect more information on the special- access market, as recommended in a recent report commissioned by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, Copps said. Most FCC commissioners supported the idea last year, he said. The members still need to discuss whether the FCC should require all companies to report special access data, as AT&T has asked (CD Feb 10 p9), a commission official said later. Special access “is a big problem,” Copps said. “If we're not going to be able to make final decisions in the next month or so, we should be pursuing the data we need to make a decision, so when the next group gets here, they'll be poised to do that.”

Satellite Radio Deadline, Prices Eyed

Copps said the commission will act by the extended deadline for Sirius XM to lease capacity for minority programming. The company agreed to set aside 4 percent of channel capacity for minority programming and to stay out of choosing programs. Under its merger commitments, the satellite radio operator said it would sign leases with “qualified entities” within four months of closing the deal. That deadline was in November. When the commission didn’t release criteria to guide Sirius XM in choosing programmers, the Media Bureau extended the deadline to Feb. 27 (CD Dec 2 p9). Nothing has happened since. “We're going to make that deadline,” Copps said, not saying how but hinting that the FCC might release another public notice extending the deadline further but seeking comment about how the criteria should be structured.

The FCC will also watch closely Sirius XM’s performance on a promise to not raise prices, Copps said. Sirius is beginning to charge subscribers $9 for additional accounts instead of the current $7 unless they agree to long-term contract extensions or pay up to $500 for lifetime subscriptions. Sirius XM also plans to begin charging all customers $3 a month to listen to the audio stream on the Internet. To gain commission approval of its acquisition of XM, Sirius agreed not to “raise the retail prices on their basic $12.95 per month subscription package, their a la carte programming package, their ‘best of both’ programming packages, their ‘mostly music’ and their ‘news, sports, and talk’ programming packages, and their discounted family- friendly programming package,” said the commission’s merger order. “I think we need to monitor the conditions of the transaction,” Copps said.