From mandatory reporting of a satellite failure to revising the FCC's satellite licensing regime, satellite interests and others brought an array of must-dos in docket 18-251 comments due Friday regarding the satellite communications industry (see 1808170024). There were calls for protecting incumbent users of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band.
Local government and public, educational and government (PEG) access programming interests plan to push back on proposed rules changes governing local franchise authorities that are teed up in the Further NPRM on FCC members' Sept. 26 agenda (see 1809050056). Local government authority is seen under attack in a variety of proceedings.
DOJ appeal of a lower court decision allowing AT&T's buy of Time Warner hasn't notably affected how New AT&T operates, WarnerMedia head John Stankey said at an analysts' presentation Thursday. He said the appeal is "a weak case." Over the months since the close on TW, the focus has been on getting management teams in place and on more cooperation between the TW operating divisions that traditionally operated more as silos, Stankey said.
As it looks to unload some mobile traffic carried via its mobile virtual network operator, Charter Communications is considering licensed as well as unlicensed spectrum and Wi-Fi, Chief Financial Officer Chris Winfrey told analysts Thursday. He said the company is doing tests to evaluate 3.5 GHz spectrum and hopes to do the same with 3.7-4.2 GHz spectrum. Asked about 5G competition, he said it's unlikely to be direct competition for fixed line service, though Charter likely will employ 5G in some limited use cases or in partnership with other operators. He said Charter's footprint-wide rollout of its Spectrum Mobile service (see 1809040003) -- as well as other cable operators' own mobile offerings -- could help push broadband penetration broadly since customers could get web and mobile service at bundled pricing comparable to what many pay for mobile service alone. He said the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks integration "has gone extremely well" and New Charter will operate as a single cable system by early next year. He said New Charter's conversion to all digital and all DOCSIS 3.1 will be done by year's end. Asked about declining video subscriptions, Winfrey said Charter is "becoming more and more indifferent" about small growth or losses of video customers, though having a video offering remains important to the connectivity business.
From encouraging spectrum sharing to ensuring regulatory streamlining, Congress has plenty of levers to promote the commercial space industry, space interests said during a Satellite Industry Association panel Wednesday. To have a bigger voice in spectrum policy issues, the space community needs to be unified, said House Space Subcommittee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas. "Without spectrum, there is no space business."
Local franchising authorities shouldn't use video franchising power to regulate incumbent operators' non-cable services offered over their cable systems, under a tentative conclusion in a draft Further NPRM on the Sept. 26 commissioners' meeting tentative agenda. The agency Wednesday released other draft meeting items that would propose to improve 911 calling in buildings and complexes, establish a framework for auctioning toll-free numbers, set rules governing earth stations in motion (ESIM) and eliminate the cable data collection Form 325 reporting requirement (see 1809040058). A draft wireless infrastructure was posted (see 1809050029).
Some of the gray legal issues for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act aren't likely to become more black and white in the near future, with the Supreme Court unlikely to take up one petition for writ of certiorari filed last week on safe harbor issues and no looming good test cases for a host of others, copyright experts said. District Court rehearing of BMG's copyright complaint against Cox, which was to start this week after last week's settlement, pre-empted a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remand and decision that the cable operator wasn't entitled to safe harbor protections (see 1808240013).
AMG Technology Investment Group, Wisper ISP, Rural Electric Cooperative Consortium and ViaSat will be big recipients in the Connect America Fund Phase II auction, receiving nine-figure support, showed results released Tuesday. The FCC said $1.49 billion will be allocated over the next 10 years to expand rural broadband connectivity to 713,716 unserved homes and small businesses in 45 states. Oklahoma (16 winning bidders), Minnesota (12) and Missouri (11) attracted the most attention, the FCC said. The agency said 53 percent of those unserved homes and small businesses will receive service of at least 100 Mbps download speed, and 19 percent will have 1 Gbps speeds, and 0.25 percent of locations will have speeds of less than 25 Mbps. The 103 providers that were winning bidders must build out 40 percent of the assigned homes and businesses in a state within three years of becoming authorized to receive support, increasing by 20 percent in each subsequent year until completed by the end of year six, the FCC said. Missouri is the biggest recipient of CAF II financial support under the bidding results at $254.8 million to connect 95,130 locations, followed by California at $149 million for 51,682 locations, it said. Missouri will have the most locations connected under the auction, followed by Oklahoma with 70,727. The winners will deliver connectivity "using far less universal service support than the price cap carriers that received model-based support are now doing in the areas they elected to serve," emailed American Cable Association Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. "That’s a win for consumers and for ensuring limited federal funds are used most efficiently." He said the auction, "while certainly requiring fine-tuning, establishes the paradigm for awarding by auction model-based support in price cap territories when it lapses in a few of years.” The 33 electric co-ops among the CAF II reverse auction winners were the first such ones to receive FCC funding as broadband service providers, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association said. The 33 collectively are receiving $220 million over 10 years, it said. “We thank the FCC for allowing electric co-ops to participate," said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. "We are committed to continuing the rural broadband conversation.”
Telecom industry interests are supporting the FCC's proposal for extending the current jurisdictional separations freeze and allowing RLECs that chose to lock in their category relationships in 2001 a chance to opt out, in docket 80-286 comments. Commissioners unanimously approved the Further NPRM in July (see 1807180059). Monday was the comment deadline, with replies and state public utility commission initial comments due Sept. 10 (see 1808200025).
Geopolitics could be a big hurdle for Doreen Bogdan-Martin's candidacy to be director of ITU's Development Sector, watchers and even supporters say. Since a representative of a developing nation, usually from Africa, always has held the seat, the odds of her being elected "are somewhere between zero and none," emailed Tony Rutkowski, who previously worked in the ITU secretariat. He said that history is one reason the U.S. and other developed nations generally haven't fielded candidates.