A draft FCC order that would significantly broaden the number of cable companies exempt from rate regulation is expected to go on circulation Friday, agency officials told us. The effective competition draft order was expected to be shared among eighth-floor offices at the start of the week, but that didn’t happen, commission officials told us. A wave of broadcaster opposition and legislator letters opposing the rule change’s breadth may be connected to the item's not being circulated when it was expected, industry officials said.
Though the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee had its shortest, least contentious meeting Wednesday, opposing letters to the FCC from its member groups (see 1505110060) and an after-meeting tech presentation that turned contentious show that the DSTAC is still divided along industry lines. While multichannel video programming distributors favor an approach that concentrates narrowly on downloadable security solutions, Google, Public Knowledge, TiVo and others want a more comprehensive product that promotes competitive third-party devices and user interfaces, they said in a letter Monday.
Verizon and Sprint agreed to consent decrees requiring them to pay $158 million in penalties and redress for wireless cramming, said the FCC, FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and state attorneys general in a news conference Tuesday. Sprint will have to pay $68 million under the settlement, while Verizon will have to pay $90 million, said the consent decrees. Sprint and Verizon set up a third-party billing system that included consumers without their approval, allowed them to be billed for questionable services, and ignored “red flags” about the issue, Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell said Tuesday. Companies representing “98.5 percent of the wireless market” were charging consumers “for things they didn't buy,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Last year regulators reached consent decrees with AT&T and T-Mobile addressing alleged cramming.
An FCC order on the agenda for next Thursday’s meeting is expected to require multichannel video programming distributors to pass through a secondary audio stream of emergency alerts which appear as an on-screen crawl on TV sets to tablets and smartphones streaming MVPD content through the companies' apps, said agency officials. It's "my hope and expectation that these new rules will enable individuals who are blind or visually impaired to more quickly respond to time-sensitive emergency situations,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in an April 30 blog post on the items.
CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- A new FCC website and an updated electronic comment filing system (ECFS) are in the works, said Gigi Sohn, Chairman Tom Wheeler's counselor, on a panel Saturday at the 2015 FCBA annual seminar. The beta version of the new fcc.gov is expected to launch this year. Sohn declined to offer a date for what she called “ECFS 2.0.”
An FCC order that would have let participants in the commission's AT&T/DirecTV transaction proceeding review confidential programming and retransmission consent contract data is “substantively and procedurally flawed,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel said in a unanimous opinion in CBS et al. v. FCC, vacating the order. The Comcast/Time Warner Cable proceeding had been part of the case, but that portion was rendered moot by the collapse of that deal. The court loss is seen as putting the FCC in a difficult position in its review of AT&T/DirecTV, industry officials connected with the court proceeding told us. Though the opinion leaves the door open for the FCC to issue a new protective order, doing so could further delay AT&T/DirecTV, while not doing so could expose an agency decision approving the deal to court challenge, said industry officials.
CHICAGO -- All four FCC commissioners believe Wi-Fi should be permitted in the 5 GHz band, said Mignon Clyburn, Mike O'Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel during a panel at INTX 2015 Wednesday. “I think this is something we all agree on,” said O'Rielly, saying such cohesion is rare among the commissioners. The FCC members, their aides and bureau chiefs participated in nearly back-to-back panels Wednesday.
CHICAGO -- Cable companies are now principally broadband companies, and the importance of their product means they have bigger obligations and responsibilities, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at INTX 2015 Wednesday. The industry deserves “straight talk” about the net neutrality order, Wheeler said. "I take you at your word to protect an open Internet, but what about those that follow you?” he said in defense of his Internet conduct rules, a focus of his talk. Wheeler's speech also included a brief mention of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction review and indications that the FCC might act to keep cable companies from suffering higher pole attachment rates.
CHICAGO -- The cable industry needs an image change that better reflects its importance to the era of Internet innovation, said NCTA CEO Michael Powell Tuesday at the kickoff general session of INTX 2015, the first year of NCTA's rebranded cable show. Powell said of the word "cable," "I hate the name." Innovations in online video and the IoT and nearly all new Internet technology depend on cable's infrastructure to exist, said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who demo'd new customer service, voice control and connected home technology at the INTX session as expected (see 1505040059).
Comcast is "disappointed" in the failure of the Time Warner Cable deal and is focusing on accelerating the rollout of its X1 DVR platform, said CEO Brian Roberts during the company's Q1 earnings call Monday. Comcast had a 7.2 percent increase in revenue for Q1 as compared to the same quarter last year, going from $17.4 billion to $17.8 billion, the company said in a news release. Roberts also said the company is planning some large announcements about its customer service operation for INTX 2015, which kicks off this week in Chicago (see 1504300078). Comcast had strong Q1 results but needs to "craft a new story" in the wake of its failed deal, said MoffetNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.