A May 26 hearing on AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile will be held by the House Judiciary Internet subcommittee, its chairman, Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., announced. After a net neutrality hearing Thursday (see separate report in this issue), Goodlatte told reporters the AT&T/T-Mobile hearing should “generate a lot of interest … and there’s some related issues I suspect.”
President Barack Obama didn’t encourage the FCC to act on net neutrality, Chairman Julius Genachowski said at a hearing Thursday of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Internet. Genachowski and Commissioner Robert McDowell clashed over whether antitrust laws would have been enough to keep the Internet open. Internet Subcommittee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said he continues to explore legislation updating antitrust laws to reduce costs for those with net neutrality complaints.
Wireless carriers can’t completely control how third parties use location and other personal data of consumers, top carriers said. Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, on Thursday released the carriers’ responses to the lawmakers’ inquiry on customer location tracking (CD March 31 p15). Also Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee announced a hearing next month on mobile privacy and consumer protection, becoming the second Senate panel to do so. The developments on Capitol Hill came one day after Apple said it would fix an iPhone “bug” that stores users’ location logs (CD April 28 p5).
The House Communications Subcommittee invited all five FCC commissioners to a hearing next Tuesday on FCC process reform, a subcommittee spokeswoman said Wednesday. “There’s a strong possibility” that AT&T’s T-Mobile purchase “will come up since it is relevant, but it is not the focus of the hearing,” she said. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. in Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building.
The top executives of AT&T and T-Mobile are scheduled to testify at a May 11 Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on AT&T’s acquisition. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm will testify, said a spokeswoman for subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. “There will be other witnesses, but no decisions have been made on who else to invite,” she said. The hearing is 10:15 a.m in Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building.
The Senate Commerce Committee hopes next month to mark up a spectrum bill by Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., multiple Senate aides said. Democratic and Republican staffs are trying to merge the Rockefeller bill with the draft Wireless Innovation and Spectrum Enhancement (WISE) Act by Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, they said. The combined bill could later meet a roadblock if more conservative senators balk on the government paying broadcasters for spectrum the broadcasters never paid for, said one Senate aide.
The sudden resignation of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., opened the ranking member seat on the Senate Communications Subcommittee. Ensign said late Thursday he would resign effective May 3. A replacement hasn’t been picked, but multiple communications lobbyists said Friday they view Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., as a strong contender to lead subcommittee Republicans. However, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, outranks DeMint in seniority.
Public safety spending on 700 MHz D-block lobbying more than quadrupled in Q1 2011 compared to the same quarter last year, according to Q1 lobbying reports. The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials spent $80,563, 303 percent more than what the group spent in Q1 2010 and 66 percent more than Q4 2010. Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association spent nearly five times what it did last year, and NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said she expects the association of small rural telcos to continue spending at that level.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he visited the White House about 20 times since he was confirmed as chairman. In an April 6 letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the FCC chairman said Issa was “incorrect” that Genachowski made 81 visits from January 2009 to year-end 2010. White House visitor logs show more than 80 scheduled visits by Genachowski to the White House or Old Executive Office Building between January 2009 and December 2010. He’s listed as arriving at 41 White House meetings in that time frame, but only 20 meetings took place after his June 25, 2009, confirmation. The White House logs fail to specify a time of arrival for the rest of the scheduled visits, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t happen. FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick met April 4 with majority and minority committee staff, Genachowski said in the letter, released by the commission last week. “As I further understand the General Counsel discussed with staff, the visitor records made publicly available by the White House, and my appointments calendar for the corresponding times, indicate that since being confirmed as Chairman I visited the White House complex on approximately 20 occasions through 2010, including ceremonial and widely attended events,” Genachowski said. Genachowski said his staff would arrange a follow-up talk with committee staff. The meeting hasn’t been scheduled, said a spokeswoman for Oversight Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, D-Md. Issa, who has tied the White House visits to the FCC’s net neutrality order, said last week that he planned to call the FCC in for a hearing on the matter (CD April 15 p2) OR (WID April 15 p8).
Mid-sized carriers were finalizing letters Monday to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., responding to Rockefeller’s investigation into bill “cramming” (CD April 1 p7). Cramming is adding unauthorized and often recurring charges to a person’s phone bill. Letters were due Monday but not made public. “We are sending the letter directly to the chairman and ranking member … and are not releasing it to the public,” said a CenturyLink spokesman. Windstream and FairPoint officials said they also planned to send their responses Monday. A Frontier spokeswoman said the company is “working on a comprehensive response for Senator Rockefeller and we expect to submit it very soon.” Cincinnati Bell, another carrier pinged by Rockefeller, didn’t respond to requests for comment.