1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2017

January 2017

Donald Trump asked Rupert Murdoch to name picks for FCC chair

Newscorp CEO Rupert Murdoch may have a significant influence in the next four years of American telecommunication policy. According to a new report from New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the conservative Australian broadcast titan to submit names of his preferred candidates for chair of the Federal Communications Commission. There’s no guarantee Trump will follow Murdoch’s recommendations, but the news suggests Murdoch already wields significant influence in the incoming administration. Apparently, Murdoch is also lobbying for further conditions on AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, potentially because he sees the new conglomerate as a threat to his holdings.

FCC Calls Emergency Alert System Test A Success

The Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has published the initial results from its Sept. 28 nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS)—particularly a new online delivery component—and it boiled down to: shows improvement from the 2011 test but needs improvement.

The test was christened a success per the standard that the vast majority of participants successfully received (94%) and transmitted (82%) the warning code and, in comparison to the 2011 test, there was "significant improvement." That included the 21,000-plus participants—TV and radio stations, cable and satellite providers, and others, which was a 26% increase from 2011. The 94% reception success rate was also a 12% improvement over 2011. In the room for improvement department, there were problems with poor audio and with disability access. The bureau had some recommendations for improvement, including requiring EAS participants to check for the internet feed warning when they get broadcast alert and transmit the "crystal clear" audio from the former's digital file.

FCC: Stage 4 of Reverse Auction to End Jan. 13

The Federal Communications Commission is again increasing the pace of bidding in the reverse portion of the incentive spectrum auction, with a target end date of Friday, Jan 13. So far, broadcasters have not had much luck getting wireless providers and other forward auction bidders, which includes Comcast, to collectively pay their clearing price. The reverse portion is now in its fourth round, with wireless companies not coming close to the first three price points.

Currently, there are three rounds of bidding per day, an hour per round. Starting Jan 10, the FCC will increase that to four one-hour rounds per day. At that rate, the FCC's base clock will have reached zero on Jan. 13, round 52. It could take an additional two rounds depending on whether the final bidding status of any VHF station was not settled by then. If so, the FCC will add a couple more rounds on that day to make sure it wraps up Jan. 13.

Apple confirmed it’s putting $1 billion into the SoftBank fund that Donald Trump loves

Apple is indeed investing some of its cash in a SoftBank fund that has won praise from President-elect Donald Trump for promising to put $50 billion into US tech companies. “Apple is planning to invest $1 billion in SoftBank’s Vision Fund,” Apple said. “We've worked closely with SoftBank for many years and we believe their new fund will speed the development of technologies which may be strategically important to Apple.” The move could help the company get some goodwill from Trump, who has criticized the company for its privacy stance and called on the company to start making iPhones in the US, something that is unlikely to happen.

Apple Removes New York Times Apps From Its Store in China

Apple, complying with what it said was a request from Chinese authorities, removed news apps created by The New York Times from its app store in China late in Dec. The move limits access to one of the few remaining channels for readers in mainland China to read The Times without resorting to special software.

The government began blocking The Times’s websites in 2012, after a series of articles on the wealth amassed by the family of Wen Jiabao, who was then prime minister, but it had struggled in recent months to prevent readers from using the Chinese-language app. Apple removed both the English-language and Chinese-language apps from the app store in China on Dec 23. Apps from other international publications, including The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, were still available in the app store.

It’s begun: Internet providers are pushing to repeal Obama-era privacy rules

Some of the nation's biggest Internet providers are asking the government to roll back a landmark set of privacy regulations it approved last fall — kicking off an effort by the industry and its allies to dismantle key Internet policies of the Obama years. In a petition filed to federal regulators Jan 2, a top Washington trade group whose members include Comcast, Charter and Cox argued that the rules should be thrown out. “They are unnecessary, unjustified, unmoored from a cost-benefit assessment, and unlikely to advance the Commission’s stated goal of enhancing consumer privacy,” wrote the Internet & Television Association, known as NCTA.

The petition joins a bevy of others from groups representing telecom companies, wireless carriers, tech companies and advertisers. The rules, which passed by a 3-to-2 partisan vote favoring Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission in October, are meant to keep Internet providers such as Comcast, Verizon and others from abusing the behavioral data they collect on customers as they regularly use the Internet.

Public Knowledge Opposes Industry Effort to Exploit Routine FCC Regulatory Review

The Biennial Review is generally a housekeeping process, giving the Federal Communications Commission an ongoing duty to clear away truly outdated telecommunications regulations that are still on the books solely because nobody has taken the time to repeal them. It is most definitely not meant to provide an opportunity to re-argue the Commission’s most recent policy initiatives, like net neutrality, or to seek broad forbearance and deregulation to harm consumers and disadvantage smaller competitors.

Major industry incumbents need to remember that the community that fought for strong net neutrality rules and real privacy protections is watching every backdoor and loophole. We will not stand idly by while companies that fought the adoption of these policies probe for opportunities to move policy in the direction of anti-competitive, anti-consumer deregulation at the expense of the public interest.

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