Matt Daneman

Any FCC rulemaking about the set-top box market first needs more-thorough study of the market and its dynamics, GAO reported. It may be moot because odds of Chairman Ajit Pai's administration picking up the set-top issue seem scant, experts tell us. "If I were Pai, I wouldn't want to touch this," Public Knowledge Senior Counsel John Bergmayer said. Pai conceivably could initiate a study of the set-top market just so it could be declared effectively competitive, closing the door on the matter permanently, said Gigi Sohn, who was an aide to former Chairman Tom Wheeler. She disputed the GAO saying the FCC didn't have enough analyses to back Wheeler's set-top regulation course.

Whether Wednesday's Senate confirmation of DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim (see 1709270058) will affect the department's review of AT&T/Time Warner isn't clear, with some seeing it likely speeding up resolution and others saying the agency demonstrably hasn't been waiting for a permanent head. AT&T told us it still expects the deal to close by year's end.

Cord cutting is accelerating, with roughly 23 percent of people surveyed who don't subscribe to a pay-TV service having been subscribers within the past 12 months but then quitting their subscriptions, up 4.8 percentage points year over year, TiVo reported Wednesday. It said of those without pay TV, 46 percent catch over-the-air broadcasts using an antenna, a trend up 12 percentage points over the past two years. Price and availability of subscription VOD services continue to be the leading reasons for cord cutting, TiVo said. It said 8.9 percent of those who subscribe to a pay-TV service switched providers in the past three months and churn is up 3 percentage points over the past three years. Comparing commonly selected a la carte channels with existing virtual MVPD offerings, the company said virtual MVPD offerings skew heavily toward sports and medium-to-large market channel offerings, indicating the virtual MVPD market can further diversify offerings without any notable increase in bundle size and that no bundle contains just core channels and most-watched channels, even though that's a bundle commonly cited as desirable by viewers. The survey of 3,069 adults in the U.S. and Canada was done by an outside party during Q2. The results show pay-TV operators can stem subscriber losses by aggregating online video services for customers, and they need to do so quickly since consumers increasingly are opting for subscription VOD over pay TV, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Wednesday.

Garmin and Iridium brought concerns about Ligado's broadband terrestrial low-power service plans to meetings with Wireless Bureau and eighth-floor staff, said FCC docket 11-109 filings posted Tuesday. Recapping a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Garmin said it discussed its worries about Ligado interference with Garmin's certified aviation devices. It repeated its oft-made argument in favor of the 1 dB standard for determining harmful interference to GPS receivers. Iridium -- recapping meetings with the Office of Engineering and Technology, the Wireless and International bureaus and the offices of Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel (see here, here, here, here, here and here) -- said it repeated its technical analysis findings (see 1609020029 and 1612140061) that Ligado's L-band operations would cause significant harmful out-of-band emission interference to Iridium's mobile terminals. It said Ligado's proposed OOBE limit at 1626.5 MHz doesn't provide enough interference protection. It said the FCC shouldn't grant Ligado's application on its 1627.5-1637.5 MHz plans but that if it does, it must impose conditions to ensure enough interference protection for Iridium services. Ligado didn't comment.

The FCC International Bureau appears intent on getting at least some non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation applications processed and before the commissioners for approval before year's end, industry officials told us. Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday his office circulated U.S. market access applications of Space Norway and Telesat Canada, among 11 companies that submitted Ka- and Ku-band constellation plans in a processing round in November (see 1611160010). Asked after Tuesday's commissioners' meeting about the timing of processing and approving those NGSO applications, he said the agency will get them out "as we have the facts before us."

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking any analyses done by or for the FCC of public comments during the 2014-2015 open internet proceeding, the Wireline Bureau last week gave us 25 pages of various blog posts and said it was withholding the remaining responsive records. It said it was withholding reports, emails, memos and other materials on the analysis of docket 14-28 comments because releasing them through the FOIA process would cause competitive harm to the entity that created them. It cited the exemption of interagency and intra-agency records, saying since they reflect staff analysis, thought processes and recommendations, they "would impair candid discussions about the subject-matter [of the docket] and thereby diminish the deliberative process" that goes with agency orders. It also said such nonexempt information is so intertwined with exempt information that "reasonable segregation is not possible." The blog posts the FCC provided were on NPR in 2014, looking at a breakdown done by data analysis firm Quid, and a series of 2014 blog posts by social media analysis firm Textifter -- three about open internet comments and a variety of unrelated blog posts. How the agency is handling public comments in the current net neutrality proceeding has been questioned (see 1707180019).

Two items were removed Friday from Tuesday's commissioners' meeting agenda after being approved, the FCC said. Adopted was a requirement that QAM-based cable operators comply with the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers 40 standard for cable signal quality, and a draft item on relaxing certification and measurement requirements for AM broadcasters that use directional arrays. Both items were considered non-controversial and unanimous approval was expected (see 1709150003) and 1709150058). An FCC spokesman confirmed that both votes were unanimous.

Venture capital aversion to space startups is increasingly going by the wayside, speakers said at a Friday Women in Aerospace forum. "Space and venture capital would never be in the same room five years ago," but now most of the money behind the array of new launch startups is coming from VC, Quilty Analytics President Chris Quilty said. Euroconsult U.S.A. Managing Director Sima Fishman said in the commercial launch universe, it's generally thought there will be more private investors, but also fewer but larger commercial satellite operators due to mergers and acquisitions.

Despite questions about President Donald Trump's receptiveness to telco and media mergers and acquisitions, the administration likely showed less hostility to larger horizontal or vertical M&A, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen said in an interview on C-SPAN's The Communicators to be televised starting Saturday and put online. At the same time, Cohen said, Trump's populist streak "could be a bit of a governor on M&A policy."

Satellite operators in low Earth orbit are falling behind geostationary orbit operators in preventing orbital debris, due to the age of some LEO satellites and less-rigorous regulation and enforcement by some nations, said Aerospace Space Innovation Directorate Senior Project Engineer Marlon Sorge during a panel Thursday. Global agreement and coordination on debris issues seems unlikely now, given the struggle international space rules face in general, said Michiru Nishida, the Japanese embassy's special adviser-arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation policy.