The FCC issued an order Thursday giving small video relay service providers some relief, retroactively and prospectively, from a four-year schedule of VRS compensation rate cuts -- relief that was expected after the order was adopted this week (see 1603020033). Under that schedule, affecting all six VRS providers, the rate of the three small (“Tier 1”) providers (handling fewer than 500,000 minutes per month) was cut from $5.29 per minute to $5.06/minute on July 1, 2015, and cut again to $4.82/minute on Jan. 1. In the order approved by the commission without dissent and released Thursday, the FCC returned the VRS compensation rate of the three smallest providers to $5.29/minute for the period between July 1, 2015, and Oct. 31, 2016. The commission set the rate at $5.06/minute for the period from Nov. 1, 2016, to April 30, 2017, and at $4.82/minute for the period from May 1 to June 30, 2017. One of the three small VRS providers, Hancock Jahn, notified the agency this week it was withdrawing from the VRS market. It cited FCC rate cuts and other policies, and said the relief was "too late."

Correction: The date of the Tennessee 700 MHz and 800 MHz Regional Planning committees' meetings is March 23, said the FCC corrected in a public notice. Event information is here.

Data breaches occurred 10 years ago, but are much more common today, said Michael Stawasz, Department of Justice deputy chief-computer crime, during a panel Thursday sponsored by FCBA. When people think of data breaches, they think of Target and the theft of personal information, he said. “We do a lot of those cases,” Stawasz said. “But today, the model is changing. The market is saturated with people’s information,” the price of stolen data has decreased and cyberthieves are looking for other ways to make money, he said. “Their new business model is. 'I’m just going to mess with you and get you to pay me to stop,'” he said. “Ransomware” has become easier to do and it’s easier to profit from virtual currencies, he said. “Virtual currencies allow them to scale that model to a much larger degree and now you see mass market ransomware.” There has been an “evolution” in the kinds of risks companies face on data breaches, said privacy lawyer Colleen Brown of Sidley Austin. The playing field has changed significantly in recent years, she said. Who is behind the threats, the kind of data targeted and motives have all changed, she said. “Now we have those hacktivists, who aren’t necessarily motivated by financial concerns,” she said. “You have the disgruntled insiders. … The people you’re up against are increasingly sophisticated. They’re increasingly better resourced. … Sometimes these can be very, very large groups of organized individuals.” The threat isn’t domestic, with many perpetrators living in other countries and some even state-sponsored, she said. “This is a very different playing field and there are different fronts to the war.”

A Donald Trump administration likely wouldn't stake out positions too far removed from the Republican norm on communications issues, New Street Research said in a note to investors. “Even without classical campaign position papers, we think Trump will likely be supportive of the general GOP direction in telecommunications policy,” the firm said. “For example, we suspect he would favor reversing current FCC efforts on pre-empting state municipal broadband bans, Set-Top Boxes, Special Access, and Privacy, while being more sympathetic to consolidation than the [Department of Justice] and FCC have been in recent years.” But New Street conceded there’s not a lot to go on. Trump has presented himself as an anti-establishment candidate. “As with most Trump policy pronouncements, we only discern two consistent elements: adjectives and deal making,” New Street said. “That is, the policy will be great, believe me. It will make America winning winners. Further Trump will appoint the smartest people and they will strike great deals. Stated differently ... nothing to date on the campaign trail provides much of a hint on real policy direction on telecom and media.”

Apple formally objected to a Feb. 16 order from U.S. District Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in Riverside, California, which tried to compel the company to help the FBI access an iPhone used by one of the alleged San Bernardino, California, mass shooters (see 1602170068). Apple filed the notice Tuesday. The next day, the company filed a notice of supplemental authority to call attention to Monday's decision by U.S. District Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in New York's Eastern District that rejected the government's use of the All Writs Act to force Apple to help the FBI unlock the passcode on an iPhone used in a drug case (see 1603010013). The FBI is invoking the All Writs Act in the California case and several others across the country. Apple is using Orenstein's decision to support its motion that the California case be dismissed (see 1602250056).

Several more low-power TV broadcasters challenging FCC incentive auction policies in court asked the commission to stay the auction, said joint filings from Free Access and Broadcast Telemedia, Mako and Word of God Fellowship, and separately from Class A broadcaster Videohouse. It was excluded from the auction along with Class A broadcasters Fifth Street and WMTM. Class A Latina Broadcasters, also excluded from the auction, requested a stay last week but the Media Bureau denied that request (see 1602260013). All the filings ask the FCC to hold off on the March 29 auction start pending resolution of court challenges against the auction. “The brief delay of a stay pending appellate review will not have any material adverse impact on the auction,” said the filing from FAB et al. “Immediate commencement of the initial phase of the auction under the current shadow of legal uncertainty is altogether unnecessary.” FAB’s court case is based on arguments the FCC didn't sufficiently study the auction’s effects on LPTV, while Mako argued the agency is violating congressional intent and the law by not protecting LPTV stations. The Class A stations all seek to be included or protected in the incentive auction, and Videohouse said the FCC is likely to lose that case. Its request for stay should be granted because being displaced by the incentive auction is likely to cause irreparable harm to the station, the filing said.

The FCC doesn't have a good basis for increasing special access regulation on incumbent telcos in the broadband business market, said speakers sympathetic to ILEC views on a Digital Policy Institute webinar Wednesday. "It's an extremely competitive market," said Anna-Maria Kovacs, senior visiting fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. CLECs and other competitors have built facilities in virtually every census block where there's special access demand, and in most there are multiple providers that could reach nearby buildings by installing relatively short connections, she said, calling cable "omnipresent." Asked about the possibility of FCC regulation, she said, "I don't like to see attempts to fix something that is not broken because it can result in something that is broken." Phoenix Center President Larry Spiwak said there aren't any barriers to entry, "It's just expensive." He said it's cheaper to buy access to existing ILEC facilities than it is to deploy new facilities. "What we're really doing is quibbling over rates," he said. The FCC didn't do a cost-benefit analysis, complicating calls for new regulation, he said: "I'm not quite sure what the case is for regulation." Kellogg Huber attorney Evan Leo said cable industry opposition to CLEC regulatory calls (see 1602220059) "is a pretty significant and telling sign of where the marketplace is headed." He said "basically zero" large corporations are complaining to the FCC about special access. "We do not see a constituency of American businesses complaining," he said. Colleen Boothby -- counsel for the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, which represents business customers -- wasn't on the call, but she took issue with Leo's statements. In an email response when we sought comment, she said: "In 2002, the Fortune 500 business customers that are the members of Ad Hoc were the first to point out, in writing and on the record, that carriers were using special access de-regulation solely to raise prices, which is not something companies typically do when they face real competition. In the 14 years since then, Ad Hoc and its members have participated in every phase of every proceeding opened at the FCC to examine (or not) the special access marketplace, including merger proceedings, tariff investigations, and the special access docket itself. Ad Hoc has consistently complained that the FCC’s ill-advised, premature de-regulation of special access has been, and still is, costing real businesses real money due to the lack of competition that would otherwise discipline the ILECs’ prices and practices. Now that the FCC has finally required parties to provide data instead of self-serving rhetoric, our complaints have been vindicated.”

The FCC released an order Wednesday relaxing out-of-band emission limits (see 1602120044) for operation of U-NII-3 devices in the 5.725-5.85 GHz band. The order also gives manufacturers a revised transition period to meet the new requirements. "We are grateful for the FCC's order and the cooperative effort that led to this result,” said Alex Phillips, president of the Wireless ISP Association, one of the petitioners. “It has been a long process to get the rules right. The FCC's adoption of the new technical requirements proposed by industry will enable rural Americans to receive broadband access over fixed wireless networks where other options are not available.” The order, approved 5-0, is a "a win for rural America," wrote Commissioner Ajit Pai. Residents of such places rely on WISPS, which would have otherwise struggled with emissions limits, he said.

Identity theft was the second most reported complaint to the FTC in 2015, soaring by more than 47 percent from the prior year, the commission said in its annual summary of consumer complaints released Tuesday. The commission said the increase is attributable to a "massive jump" in tax ID theft complaints. ID theft complaints had been the top category for the previous 15 years before debt collection complaints eclipsed it last year, said the commission. Debt collection complaints rose largely because of submissions by a data contributor who collects such complaints via a mobile app, FTC said. “Steps like the recent upgrade to IdentityTheft.gov [see 1601280051] and our leadership of a nationwide initiative to combat unlawful debt collection practices are critical to our ongoing work to protect consumers from these harms," said Consumer Protection Bureau Chief Jessica Rich in a statement. The FTC's annual Consumer Sentinel Network data book contains complaints made directly by consumers to the commission, plus those received by other federal and state law enforcement agencies, national consumer protection groups and nongovernmental organizations.

Numerous radio and TV broadcasters met with FCC Media Bureau staff Thursday to discuss a wide range of broadcasting issues, according to a pair of ex parte filings in docket 12-268. TV broadcasters including representatives of Gray, Nexstar, Raycom, Sinclair and several state associations asked the bureau not to change retransmission consent and exclusivity rules, said one ex parte filing. The FCC should ”keep in place the current regulatory framework” and close the retransmission and exclusivity proceedings, the filing said. “The best way for the FCC to ensure that consumers have uninterrupted broadcast TV content through [multichannel video programming distributors] distribution is to have pay TV operators negotiate with broadcasters and not the federal government,” the filing said. The FCC should act to prevent “the worsening noise floor” from further interfering with AM and FM broadcasts, radio broadcasters including iHeartRadio and Platte River Radio, and the Colorado Broadcasters Association told Audio Division staff. Division staff also discussed proposed changes to the nighttime power restrictions on some radio stations, the ex parte said. “The staff discussed the impact of relaxing these limits on other radio services, and raised potential alternatives for alleviating these challenges, such as participation in the new FM translator application auctions windows to be opened in 2017,” the filing said.