Dish Network’s Q4 lobbying expenses dropped in 2015 compared with what it spent in Q4 of 2014, according to lobbying disclosure forms filed this week. The Q4 reports are due Wednesday, and several organizations had begun filing by our deadline Tuesday. Dish spent $310,000 the most recent quarter, vs. $350,000 a year earlier. Dish lobbying priorities included satellite broadband, wireless competition and spectrum management, including spectrum auctions, it said, plus retransmission consent reform, video market competition and merger and acquisition activity in the pay-TV industry for the three company lobbyists named. Dish spent $380,000 in 2015's Q3, $440,000 in Q2 and $400,000 in Q1, making the latest quarter spending the lowest in more than a year of reports. The Competitive Carriers Association, meanwhile, spent more on lobbying -- $150,000 this Q4 vs. $135,000 reported a year ago. CCA named more than a dozen issues and many pieces of legislation in its recent lobbying report. Focuses included the FCC broadcast TV incentive auction and other issues such as special access, FirstNet and federal lands siting. U.S. Cellular reported spending $110,000 in its lobbying report. ITTA spent more on lobbying: $43,748 up from $20,000. So did TDS Telecom, which spent $40,214.64 compared with $29,936 in Q4 the year before.
The forward part of the TV incentive auction will look to outsiders much like other FCC spectrum auctions, with the agency releasing a list of qualified bidders beforehand and making basic information available after every round, industry and agency officials said. But the reverse auction, in which broadcasters will offer their licenses for sale, is still taking shape and the FCC is likely to make little information available as that auction progresses, the officials said. Broadcasters will also get less information than is normally available to qualified bidders in standard FCC spectrum auctions. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will address CES Wednesday and the auction is expected to be one of his topics.
T-Mobile arguments that Dish Network and designated entities SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless shouldn't be able to participate in the TV incentive auction without being classified as “former defaulters” is a T-Mobile attempt to further bend the auction rules in its favor, Dish and the two DEs said in a joint opposition posted by the FCC Tuesday. Sanctions are needed to send a message that Dish and the DEs' behavior in the AWS-3 auction was “contrary to the Commission’s rules and policies and must not be allowed to occur in the future,” T-Mobile earlier told the FCC.
The regulatory fee battle raged as the American Cable Association and ITTA urged the FCC to shift some fees from wireline to wireless companies, while CTIA opposed that. CTIA also opposed NAB’s proposal to reapportion regulatory fees to the wireless sector because of the planned incentive auction, which will allow wireless providers to bid for broadcast TV spectrum. ACA and CTIA filed reply comments (here and here), while ITTA made an ex parte filing this week in docket 15-121 on a recent meeting with FCC officials. NAB met with officials last week to discuss its proposal (see 1512030061).
The Form 177 application window for TV licensees to apply to participate in the incentive auction opened Tuesday at noon EST, two hours into the Incentive Auction Task Force’s workshop on filling out and submitting Form 177. “Once you leave here today, you’re on the clock,” IATF Chair Gary Epstein told the crowd of attorneys and broadcasters. “Please file early; we can’t stress this enough,” he said. The window to file Form 177 ends at 6 p.m. EST, Jan. 12, and Epstein said he expects to pull an all-nighter that evening. Broadcasters can still decide not to participate in the auction if they change their mind after the window closes, but those that don’t file Form 177 before Jan. 12 won’t be able to sell their spectrum, said Wireless Bureau Attorney Advisor Erin Griffith.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will plead with Congress not to slash the agency’s budget for FY 2016. He will warn of “severe consequences to the agency’s ability to protect public safety, advance the spectrum agenda, and transact business vital to the U.S. economy and consumers in a timely fashion” if lawmakers proceed with cuts as planned earlier in the year, according to written testimony for his appearance alongside all four other commissioners before the Communications Subcommittee Tuesday.
Senate opposition is growing to the Bipartisan Budget Act’s robocall provision, and Consumers Union is now saying to expect legislation to be filed Tuesday. President Barack Obama signed the two-year budget deal, which includes an entire section on the FCC and spectrum auctions (see 1510270063), into law Monday, after Senate and House passage last week. But Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., intends to introduce, likely by mid-week, what he’s calling the Hang Up Act to repeal a provision of the deal that allows for robocalls to cellphones for the collection of debt owed to the government (see 1510300061). Consumers Union revealed several Democratic co-sponsors who already have signed on to the unreleased legislation in its latest petitioning for supporters -- Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Ron Wyden of Oregon. McCaskill and Blumenthal slammed the provision during a Commerce Committee hearing last week, the same day the White House defended the merits of the provision (see 1510280039). “We’re encouraging you to put pressure on your Senators to co-sponsor the bill,” Consumers Union fellow Maureen Mahoney said in a blog post following Senate passage of the budget deal. “It’s crucial that the Senate quickly passes this measure. Otherwise, millions of consumers will be hassled by these soon-to-be-legal robocalls. Even those of you who don’t hold federally-backed debt could be affected.”
House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., welcomes the “inclusion of provisions to free up additional spectrum for mobile broadband and reform the federal Spectrum Relocation Fund” in the Bipartisan Budget Act deal, unveiled Monday night, she said in a statement. “Spectrum is a finite resource vital to our innovation economy and this agreement makes inroads toward meeting the high demand for mobile broadband and using available spectrum more efficiently.” The spectrum provisions set up future FCC auctions and were believed to be administration priorities in the deal (see 1510270063). An Eshoo spokesman didn’t comment on whether she had any input into the deal’s spectrum provisions. Eshoo called the deal, which the House approved Wednesday, “a remarkable step for a long-term compromise to fund the government.” Another Democrat also praised the provision but saw room for more action. “The budget agreement that we are considering would direct the auction of 30 megahertz of spectrum for commercial use,” said House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., in an opening statement for a Wednesday hearing on broadband deployment. “That is a good start, but we cannot stop there. We should continue our bipartisan work in this committee to authorize more spectrum auctions going forward. By continuing these twin efforts to improve network infrastructure and to free more spectrum, I believe we can meet consumers’ communications needs for years to come.” The White House urged passage of the deal. "The Administration urges the Congress to pass this bipartisan agreement and looks forward to working with the Congress to enact responsible, full‑year FY 2016 appropriations -- without ideological riders -- based on this agreement in order to continue growing the Nation's economy and creating jobs," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement Wednesday.
The Obama administration may have provided the muscle ensuring inclusion of a spectrum title in the two-year Bipartisan Budget Act deal, released to the public minutes before midnight Monday (see Communications Daily Bulletin Oct. 27). Lawmakers told us the administration exerted its will in the negotiations, which yielded provisions setting up future FCC spectrum auctions with new agency authority and administration-desired flexibility for the Office of Management and Budget Spectrum Relocation Fund.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers are assembling spectrum legislation to overhaul parts of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Spectrum Relocation Fund (SRF), in accordance with pressure from the administration, several staffers on Capitol Hill told us. Bipartisan activity fills both chambers on this front, and Hill staffers say they hope to hitch such an overhaul measure to larger spectrum initiatives coming together.