John Eggerton

Led by Senate Commerce Committee members Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), nine Republican senators have asked the chairman and ranking member of the committee to hold a hearing on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s planned transition of some Internet domain name (ICANN) functions to a multistakeholder model.

That came the same day that the House agreed to amend the DOTCOM Act to a must-pass defense bill. The Act would require a Government Accountability Office study before that hand-off.

It was primarily backed by Republicans, though 17 Democrats also voted to amend to the National Defense Authorization Act. In a letter to chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Communications Subcommittee chairman Mark Pryor (D-AS), Rubio and company shared House Republican (and some Democrat) concern over the transition, pointing to the "success of the existing bottom-up, multistakeholder approach to Internet governance."

Actually, Democrats opposed to the DOTCOM Act, say that the hand-off is in service of that goal, since it is transitioning from US oversight -- though they argue that has been primarily ceremonial -- to the multistakeholder model.

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) has asked Comcast to clarify what it means in ads suggesting the Time Warner Cable deal will be a boon to network neutrality.

Comcast is subject to network neutrality regulations through 2018 regardless of the legal status of FCC rules -- they are currently mostly invalidated but the FCC is reworking them.

In a letter to company CEO Brian Roberts, Sen Franken, who is a vocal critic of that deal, wants to know if Comcast will extend that condition beyond 2018 whether or not the FCC succeeds in reinstating them.

"Comcast has made net neutrality a central issue in its affirmative case for the Comcast-TWC deal. As such, it should explain fully its intentions with respect to net neutrality, not just for the period that runs from now until 2018," said Sen Franken.

The House Commerce Committee’s Republican leadership wants input on how and whether the Federal Communications Commission should regulate edge providers.

That was one of the questions teed up in the third in a series of white papers the committee is issuing as part of its review and planned rewrite of communications law.

The latest white paper focuses on competition policy and what role the FCC should have. Among the questions for stakeholder comment is one on competition at the network level and the substitutability of various delivery mechanisms.

"Following the Verizon decision, the reach of the Commission to regulate 'edge providers' on the Internet is the subject of some disagreement," the white paper says, then asks. "How should we define competition among edge providers? What role, if any, should the Commission have to regulate edge providers," which it describes as "providers of services that are network agnostic."

The issue the white paper raises is whether edge providers are also potentially subject to that regulation (for example, would paid priority in a search engine's rankings be something that impedes the "virtuous cycle" of unfettered access to content that the FCC is pledging to preserve through new open Internet rules).

The House Rules Committee has set the rules for the House floor debate of the USA Freedom Act (H.R. 3361).

The bill, which passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee would end bulk data collection by the National Security Agency, as well as boost transparency and reporting requirements for targeted data requests, require more specificity in those requests, and minimize retention and dissemination of nonpublic data.

The bill now goes to the House floor for one hour of debate, 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of Judiciary, and 20 minutes divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It could be scheduled for that House vote as early as May 21 according to the office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), which has it on the calendar for "possible consideration."

There will be a mix of Republican and Democratic amendments to consider, including ones that would allow intelligence agencies to negotiate with telephone companies to store call record details for national security purposes, one that could require the government provide the public with the total number of requests for data and the number of individuals affected, requires probable cause for data searches, and prevents intelligence agencies from mandating that a device manufacturer, software developer, or standards organization build in a backdoor to circumvent encryption or privacy protections of their products.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said at the House Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing that he had reached out to the Administration on the network neutrality issue, but that it had not tried to direct a decision.

Rep Mike Pompeo (R-KS) asked Chairman Wheeler point blank if he had spoken with anyone at the White House Office of Management and Budget about network neutrality -- it was a campaign issue with then-Senator Obama, who has remained a supporter of open Internet rules. Chairman Wheeler said yes, but only to keep it apprised. He said the Administration recognized the FCC was an independent agency and said he was the one who called them. He said from his discussions "with the President on down" that "never have I or anyone felt any pressure to decide any issue."

During questioning by Rep Peter Welch (D-VT) in a House Communications Subcommittee Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said he was concerned, and everyone else should be too, about instances where subscriber access to online content was blocked as part of a programming dispute.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler signaled the FCC does not plan to score stations giving up spectrum for auction on their "enterprise" value and said he expects the FCC will have border spectrum coordination "understandings" with Canada and Mexico -- if not signatures on the bottom line -- before the incentive auction.

While network neutrality was the major topic at the House Communications Subcommittee hearing, the legislators minored in peppering the chairman with questions about the incentive auction and recent FCC moves on joint sales agreements, sharing agreement guidance and the overdue quadrennial review(s).

Chairman Wheeler's seemingly neutral position on auction participation came in response to pointed questions from Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), chair of the Subcommittee and himself a former broadcaster. Chairman Wheeler has repeatedly said the goal is not to prevent sharing in the public interest, but what he sees as efforts to circumvent the ownership rules. He said the reality with JSA's was that it was becoming a K Street cottage industry of lawyers finding creative ways to get around the FCC's rules and "pervert" the basic concept of ownership.

According to Consumers Union, a group of organizations and local residents plan to protest the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger by staging a "people's vote" outside the Comcast shareholder meeting in Philadelphia May 21, complete with signs, balloons and ballot boxes.

That vote on whether the government should approve the merger won't be hard to predict. Consumers Union says 400,000 signatures have been gathered on a petition opposing the merger.

"If approved, the merger would create a cable TV and Internet giant with unprecedented power and consumers can expect higher prices, fewer choices, and even worse customer service," said Consumers Union in announcing the protest.

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a reserve price of a combined $10,066,326,600 for the paired spectrum bands (1755-1780/2155-2180 MHz licenses) in the AWS-3 auction.

The auction (dubbed Auction 97) must raise at least that much for it to conclude. It has also set Nov. 13, 2014 as the scheduled start date of the auction. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had signaled to Congress in written testimony that the auction outline notice would be released soon.

The 65 megahertz of AWS-3 spectrum available (1,614 licenses) will be licensed on a geographic area basis. Of those, 880 will be by Economic Area (EA) and 734 will be Cellular Market Area (CMA). The frequencies will be licensed in five and 10 MHz blocks, with licenses available for five, 10 and 20 MHZ. That 65 will be the largest amount of spectrum auctioned since the FCC's 2008 700 MHz auction.

Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) says she will hold a hearing on AT&T's proposal to buy DirecTV. She said the deal has the potential to "dramatically change" the TV marketplace.

The concern over the deal was bipartisan. “The announcement of an additional merger in the telecommunications and media industry raises concerns about the level of consolidation in these markets,” said Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Lee (R-UT). “At the same time, consolidation can benefit consumers in some circumstances. I look forward to carefully reviewing the evidence and examining the effect this transaction may have on consumer welfare.”

Also adding his concern was Sen Ed Markey (D-MA). “I am deeply concerned consumer choice may be undermined by the proposed AT&T -- DirecTV deal," he said. "The proposed AT&T -- DirecTV deal represents yet two more communications colossi combining into one even larger company, narrowing competition in the telecommunications marketplace. With the proposed Comcast -- Time Warner Cable deal occurring at the same time as this new AT&T -- DirecTV proposal, I fear the only competition consumers will have in their living rooms will be who handles the remote control."