SAN FRANCISCO -- Republican gains wouldn’t have much effect on National Broadband Plan follow-through by Congress on matters such as spectrum allocation and the Universal Service Fund that don’t depend on how net neutrality and broadband reclassification play out, said the former official who led the FCC’s work on the project and industry lobbyists.
SAN FRANCISCO -- It’s more important that Internet users get useful information, in timely, digestible ways, that they can act on about behavioral advertising than for policymakers to choose between an opt-in or opt-out regulatory system, agreed an FTC lawyer, a privacy advocate and an executive of a location-based services company. The current policy thrust is all toward “simplified, meaningful notice,” FTC lawyer Laura Berger said late Tuesday at the FCBA Seminar West. A privacy report coming from the FTC will stress getting notices to users as they engage in related activities.
An FCC rulemaking notice defines wireless “bill shock” as sudden increases in a subscriber’s bill not caused by changes in a monthly service plan, and says bill shock is a “significant burden” for millions of Americans, said industry sources familiar with the NPRM, slated for a vote at the commission’s Oct. 14 meeting.
SAN FRANCISCO -- State public utility commissions will be the bottleneck through which most smart grid technology investment will pass, industry executives and a California state commissioner said Tuesday. “When we talk about implementation of the grid, what we're really talking about are state policies, state roadmaps and state decisions,” said Mary Brown, Cisco director of technology and spectrum. “There is an awful lot of work to be done where the rubber meets the road at the state commissions,” she told a Federal Communications Bar Association seminar on emerging wireless issues at the CTIA show.
Tea Party gains in the November election would mean more opposition to the FCC from Congress on net neutrality and other regulations for industry, Tea Party supporters said. “Any change in the composition of the House and Senate is only going to exacerbate that friction between [FCC Chairman Julius] Genachowski and Congress,” said Wayne Brough, chief economist of FreedomWorks, a Tea-Party organizer in Washington. CompTel CEO Jerry James said competitive local exchange carriers are watching the Tea Party movement, “as well as other changes potentially resulting from the mid-term elections that may impact telecom policy going forwards.”
Intensifying FCC review of Comcast-NBC Universal shows which issues the agency is focusing on that likely will be addressed in the final merger order, while holding import for how industry, legislators and others perceive Chairman Julius Genachowski and the agency itself, said former commissioners, communications lawyers and antitrust specialists. That more career staffers are spending additional time on Comcast’s multibillion dollar plan to buy control of NBC Universal and late Monday made another request for information from the companies (CD Oct 5 p8) shows an FCC intent on a thorough review. Should that be done with dispatch, Genachowski’s quest to get a reputation as able to timely decide on complex issues may be helped, said lawyers not part of the deal.
The Department of Energy hasn’t drawn any “hard conclusions” on whether utilities should build their own communications networks or rely on commercial networks for smart grid applications, following two smart grid proceedings, DOE General Counsel Scott Harris said Tuesday. The department is leaning toward the position that the utilities should be able to decide on what type of networks they need for smart grid, he told the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. Harris briefed the center on the department’s conclusions in proceedings on smart grid communications needs of utilities and data access and privacy issues related to smart meters.
Marketing and media trade associations’ creation of an icon to give consumers control over the collection and use of their data is a step in the right direction but may not be enough to improve consumer trust, some privacy advocates said. The Direct Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other groups are educating their members about the Advertising Option Icon, a feature that can be displayed near online ads and on Web pages where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The icon leads consumers to disclosure statements regarding a company’s advertising data collection and features an opt-out mechanism.
Verizon Wireless overcharged more than 15 million Americans tens of millions of dollars in unwarranted fees for data use, the FCC Enforcement Bureau found in an investigation, Bureau Chief Michele Ellison said in a statement. The carrier said it will repay subscribers money they don’t owe, but Ellison sharply criticized the company for having responded slowly when complaints emerged last year.
The FCC appears likely to extend an emergency alerting deadline for cable systems and radio and TV stations to start using a newly released warning standard made public last week by FEMA (CD Oct 1 p12) after several delays of its own, commission and industry officials predicted. Under current FCC rules, broadcasters and cable operators must certify compliance with Common Alerting Protocol 180 days after the standard was released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last Thursday. The regulator seems poised to delay that deadline, perhaps for several months and either for all who would be subject to CAP compliance or for those licensees who say they can’t meet the deadline, FCC and industry officials said.