June 2010

[Commentary] The must-carry rules have dodged another bullet. T

he Supreme Court last month declined to hear an appeal filed by Cablevision of last year's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upholding a must-carry "market modification" ruling by the Federal Communications Commission. The must-carry rules have long been a thorn in the side of the cable industry — and understandably so. Those rules compel cable companies to carry local stations in their markets, for free. Of course, recent developments on the retransmission consent front might indicate that local station carriage may in fact have considerable value to cable operators. But still, the concept of "must-carry" — where the government orders a company to give away some of its services for free — is a source of considerable unhappiness in Cable Land.

Geoffrey Blackwell will return to the Federal Communications Commission will lead the FCC's efforts to work with Native Nations and carry out the National Broadband Plan's recommendations for bringing broadband to all Native communities.

Among his other responsibilities, Blackwell will be charged with helping to implement the recommendations outlined in the National Broadband Plan, including establishing a new office dedicated to addressing Native needs and overseeing a new FCC-Native Nations Broadband Task Force. He will also be responsible for developing and implementing a robust policy of meaningful dialog and consultation with Tribal entities.

Blackwell is a recognized expert in the fields of Tribal economic infrastructure development. In April 2009, Mr. Blackwell was appointed to the FCC's Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age. In September 2009, he was elected to be the Commissioner representing the United States on the Indigenous Commission for Communications Technologies in the Americas. From 1999-2005, Mr. Blackwell served at the FCC as Senior Attorney and Liaison to Tribal Governments. While at the FCC, he played a central role in the FCC's initiatives to stimulate Tribal telecommunications and broadcast services, including the development of the FCC's 2000 Statement of Policy on Establishing a Government-to-Government Relationship with Indian Tribes, adoption of the enhanced Lifeline and Link-Up support for residents of Tribal lands, and rules for cultural preservation review of Tribal sacred sites in tower siting.

Since his previous service at the FCC, Mr. Blackwell has been the Director of Strategic Relations and Minority Business Development for Chickasaw Nation Industries, Inc., which oversees a family of companies wholly-owned by the Chickasaw Nation. In addition, Mr. Blackwell has chaired the Telecommunications Subcommittee of the National Congress of American Indians for five years. He has also served on the boards of the National Small Business Association, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, the Acoma Business Board of Acoma Pueblo, and Native Public Media. Earlier in his career, Mr. Blackwell practiced law in Boston at Hale and Dorr LLP. He holds an B.A. in Government from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Mr. Blackwell is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and is also of Omaha, Choctaw, and Chickasaw heritage.

In comments about the proposed Comcast-NBC merger filed at the Federal Communications Commission, Public Knowledge says that it doesn't like the merger, but can see it moving forward under various conditions... like network neutrality.

"The Commission must impose strict non-discrimination rules that prevent the [new] entity from interfering with the distribution of non-affiliated content through filtering, blocking, or degrading distribution. The growth of Internet distributed content should not be stifled simply because the newly formed entity would prefer consumers continue paying for its MVPD [multi-channel video program distribution] service." Comcast's ability to control users' access to content means that it can unfairly discriminate against non-NBCU content," PK warns, "either by refusing to connect users to the online video content of established competitors, or, more likely, simply de-prioritizing or throttling the bandwidth available to these competitors versus NBCU content." But the group doesn't just want "strict non-discrimination rules" attached to the new entity. The government should also require it to provide wholesale broadband access to unaffiliated Internet Service Providers. In other words, line-sharing, which cable companies have never been required to offer.

Consumer Research Director for the Federal Communications Commission John Horrigan led a panel on broadband adoption at the Roadmap for Broadband Adoption conference sponsored by Broadband for America.

Horrigan detailed the new data obtained via a large scale phone survey which contacted over 5,000 people that purposefully oversampled non-adopters to obtain detailed data. The sample showed that price was still the main reason why individuals do not adopt with 15% of respondents claiming the monthly fee is too high for them along in addition the cost of the hardware is too expensive and the fees are too high.

But Intel's Rick Herrmann emphasized the need for increased education as a mechanism for increasing long term adoption. Robert Shapiro, a Senior Fellow of the Georgetown School of Business, claimed that there is not a digital divide but rather a lag; lower income communities which are unable or unwilling to adopt will eventually adopt as the price drops.