The C-Band Alliance and a panel of critics of its midband clearing plan clashed on efficacy of a government-run spectrum auction and whether the FCC has ever allowed similar private spectrum sales, at New America event Tuesday. It was the "most unbalanced panel in the history of panels,” said CBA Head-Advocacy and Government Relations Preston Padden.
Experts doubt the partial federal shutdown and looming threat of another will mean more worker turnover in coming months at the FCC and other agencies. That's especially among professionals ranks such as engineers and lawyers. Others are less sure.
Lack of fiber connectivity everywhere, such as rural areas and poorer urban areas, reflects U.S. policy failure, said Susan Crawford, Harvard Law professor, Wednesday at a reading from her book Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution -- and Why America Might Miss It, released in January. South Korea -- with its ubiquitous high-speed connectivity -- is "the future," she said. The U.S. "took a wrong turn" in 2004 when it assumed a fiber-wireline battle would lead to competitive markets, but instead phone companies have focused on wireless, and cable ISPs now dominate a stagnant market with little competition. She said broadband connectivity is following the same pattern electrification did last century, when a few companies dominated the market and largely bypassed rural and poorer residential areas until major efforts by the Franklin Roosevelt administration. She said the interest by hundreds of communities -- often with Republican mayors -- and cooperatives in municipal fiber networks shows it's not partisan. She hopes pressure from cities eventually will "embarrass" federal policymakers. She said federal tax policies are needed to make capital cheaper for such co-ops and startup network providers. Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said a policy problem is the billions spent annually subsidizing carriers' operating expenses instead of paying for fiber network buildouts in specific areas. Crawford said a separate connectivity concern is China's plan to have 80 percent of its homes wired with fiber, and to extend that to developing countries, bringing an "essentially a Chinese internet." She said 5G almost surely isn't the route to closing the connectivity divide because it won't increase coverage but instead likely lead to markets being divided up, each with a single operator dominating.
5G's inefficiency as a fixed mobile broadband business, due to capital costs to get close to the home, means it's not a big competitive worry, Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge said during a Q4 call Thursday. "We're going to 10G," he said, citing cable industry plans for 10 gigabit networks (see 1901070048). That would provide better broadband at lower cost, and skyrocketing data consumption should help drive demand, he said. Charter ended 2018 with its national footprint nearly all digital and its 1 GB service available throughout. It said Q4 revenue was $11.2 billion, up 5.9 percent year over year. It ended 2018 with 16.1 million residential video customers, down 1.8 percent; 23.6 million broadband customers, up 4.9 percent; and 10.1 million voice customers, down 2.8 percent. Rutledge said Charter is embracing the video anywhere marketplace but bundled video remains its primary service. Capital expenditures for 2018 were $9.1 billion, and Rutledge said lower capital spending this year -- an estimated $7 billion -- comes as it increasingly employs IP-based and cloud-based services. Analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson called that $7 billion lower than expected to an "eye-popping" degree. New Street Research's Jonathan Chaplin said the decline in capex is much faster than expected. He said the broadband subscriber growth puts the company "on a strong path for faster growth in 2019." The stock closed at $331.05, up 14 percent.
The Federal Register ran two FCC NPRM notices Thursday, the first since the agency mostly shut Jan. 2 and subsequent resumption of operations Monday. The Office of the Federal Register said it couldn’t discuss any FCC backlog but has seen “a significant increase” in document submissions since Monday over what it usually would get during a three- or four-day span. It said 80 percent of the pending documents have been submitted since 8:45 a.m. Monday. The FCC didn't comment. Comments are due Feb. 15 on Ion’s request to change the community of license for Tennessee’s WNPX Cookeville to Franklin, replies Feb. 25. Comments are due March 18, replies April 16 on a draft NPRM for an optional unified license that covers satellites and earth stations in a geostationary fixed satellite service network, and repealing or streamlining some annual reporting requirements of satellite operators.
The commercial space industry is closely watching the FCC-proposed update of rules governing orbital debris (see 1811020003) to ensure the agency "threads the needle" between avoiding undue burdens on industry and addressing a growing concern, said Vector-Launch Washington operations Director Courtney Stadd on a Space Foundation panel Wednesday. He said nations need to be more aggressive about debris. Panelists agreed commercial space has strong momentum, though Made in Space CEO Andrew Rush called the industry “simultaneously strong but really fragile." Allen Herbert, vice president-business development and strategy at commercial space station company NanoRacks, said emerging new players in space such as the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Africa could help drive more commercial opportunity. "The jury is out" on what kind of collateral effects the federal shutdown had on commercial space, said Stadd. He said the FAA's draft regulatory overhaul of launches will be pushed further out. Rush said the shutdown "pinched" a hiring push at his space manufacturing company, though it's now tentatively resuming. Inmarsat Senior Vice President-Government Strategy and Policy Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch said shutdowns mean an even slower regulatory process, leaving her company to look to other nations for launches. Space Foundation CEO Tom Zelibor said the industry faces challenges of workforce and educational focus and to explain developments and measure them. Stadd said miniaturization of satellites is leading to an "unbelievable change in the economics" of deploying assets and should lead to “unbelievable” new applications. Rush said just as the launch industry has moved from expendable to reusable rockets, the satellite industry is next with reusability via reconfigurable and repairable satellites.
Some on the FCC eighth floor remained active during the partial federal shutdown, according to commissioners and judging by ex parte filings and social media. Some worry about what any resumption of the partial federal shutdown next month could mean for progress on issues before the agency. The commissioners had a handful of ex parte conversations during the shutdown, and most were active on Twitter throughout.
Pointing to electronic systems and databases not fully accessible during the partial federal shutdown, the FCC is again extending filing deadlines, said a public notice Tuesday (see 1901290014). Filings due Jan. 3-7 remain due Jan. 30. Now, those due Jan. 8-Feb. 7 aren't due until Feb. 8. Responsive pleadings to filings with new deadlines get an extension of the same amount of time after the comment deadline. Any transaction shot clocks that froze Jan. 2 when the agency closed restarted Tuesday. Universal licensing system applications and notifications due Jan. 3-Feb. 8 now have a Feb. 8 deadline. ULS filings held during the shutdown and afterward will be considered received as of Tuesday. The large number of ULS filings received during the shutdown will be entered in batches over weeks, with a Jan. 29 receipt date. Written provider responses to informal consumer complaints filed via the complaint center that became due during the shutdown now are due Wednesday. Online public inspection quarterly filings due Jan. 10, and all non-quarterly filings required for a station’s online public inspection Jan. 3-28, now must be submitted by Feb. 11. Filings during the shutdown must be resubmitted to the proper online public inspection file site. The FCC said it can't waive statutory deadlines but won't consider itself open for the filing of documents with statutory deadlines -- other than filings related to spectrum auctions -- until Wednesday. Special temporary authorities that would have expired Jan. 3-29 are extended until Feb. 8. Fee and other payments that can be made only through the fee filer system and due Jan. 3-Feb. 7 are extended by the same schedule as regulatory filings. Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee membership nominations to BDAC@fcc.gov are needed by Feb. 4. The tower construction notification system, electronic Section 106 system and antenna structure registration system resume Jan. 30. Related deadlines and tribal review timelines are tolled Jan. 3-30. Tribal nations have 30 days to review an application uploaded to the E-106 system. The PN supersedes earlier guidance. A separate PN said the Media Bureau will set new deadlines on NAB/NCTA's election cycle notification proposal in the Federal Register. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai got positive reactions for moving next month's meeting to Feb. 14, the day before the next shutdown would occur if there's no new budget, and making the tentative agenda the same as originally planned for this Wednesday (see 1901290031).
Broadcasters and networks are supporting NAB/NCTA's election cycle notification proposal (see 1812100051). Meredith said in an FCC docket 17-317 posting Monday that sending election notices only in a change of election would reduce hundreds of letters to "handfuls" and minimize "'gotcha' gamesmanship" since the status quo would remain absent affirmative broadcaster choice. Meredith said certified mail is expensive and slow, and the proposal should apply to all MVPDs, including direct broadcast satellite, since two rules regimes would be confusing. The ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC TV affiliates associations and their networks said the current system often "devolved into gamesmanship" with arguments about technicalities of who hadn't fulfilled obligations, and the compromise could make "such useless sparring a thing of the past." Nexstar and Ion Media backed it (see here and here).
Media deals making their way through federal court -- AT&T/Time Warner at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Disney/Fox at U.S. District Court in Manhattan -- shouldn't face a delay in judicial action due to the partial federal shutdown, antitrust and law experts told us. The month-long shutdown also isn’t seen having much effect on broadcast deals, analysts and attorneys told us.