Daily Digest 12/22/2017 (Dick Enberg)

On the same day the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal its 2015 network neutrality rules, the Walt Disney Company announced a deal to buy most of 21st Century Fox. The all-stock transaction is valued at roughly $52.4 billion. If approved, Disney would go from being “a juggernaut to being a megajuggernaut.” Disney hopes the acquisition of Fox’s sports and entertainment content will give it new market power in the growing online distribution market (streaming services). The FCC’s move is not unrelated. The repeal of net neutrality empowers internet service providers; a Disney colossus will have the heft to negotiate favorable terms with any broadband carrier. But how will the Department of Justice view the deal?

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced that she introduced the “Open Internet Preservation Act,” which she claims would “ensure there is no blocking” and “no throttling,” of internet traffic. However, critics fear that Blackburn’s bill would only enhance some of the fears internet activists have had before and after the Federal Communications Commission voted, along party lines, to dismantle the 2015 Open Internet Order, essentially killing net neutrality rules. Net neutrality is a founding principle of the internet that ensures all internet traffic is treated equally. Craig Aaron, the CEO of Free Press Action Fund, said Blackburn’s bill “opens the door to rampant abuse through paid prioritization schemes” that would “split the internet into fast lanes for the richest companies and slow lanes for everyone else.”

[Commentary] We can’t trust that Comcast will protect our right to communicate without rules forcing them to do just that. So we’re back from Washington and ready to fight to keep the internet open for the poorest big city in America and beyond. Local communities have a big role to play. First, Congressional leaders have already moved to fully undo the horrible vote Ajit Pai’s Federal Communications Commission took on the 14th, with something called the Congressional Review Act. Second, state Attorneys General nationwide – including ours – are signing onto a lawsuit to sue the FCC over those fake comments – our Attorney General Shapiro estimates at least 100,000 Pennsylvanians’ names were fraudulently used to file pro-ISP, anti-net neutrality comments on the FCC’s rule-making on the issue. Third, Philly already has led the nation in using our power over local telecoms – our franchise agreements – to force them to truly serve the city’s needs. [Hannah Sassaman is the policy director at Media Mobilizing Project]

[Commentary] Oregonians may recall that Portland was on the front lines of defending an open internet when cable companies first planned high-speed "broadband" in the late 1990s. A unanimous City Council vote on a cable ownership transfer led Portland's "Open Access" fight and became what is now known as the net neutrality issue. It's the idea that internet content should not be favored, blocked or slowed down based on where the content originates. Our best hope to halt this historic wrong turn is through grassroots activism -- already evident on the streets of Portland -- as well as changes by Congress or through the ballot box.  Kudos to the Oregon Attorney General for demanding an investigation of flaws in the federal agency's current process.In the meantime, Oregonians who already were on the front lines of this battle in the 1990s must have no hesitation in continuing to fight to preserve the open internet we have always known.  [David Olson served as the City of Portland's cable communications director from 1983 to 2012, and is currently an adjunct professor of telecommunications law at Lewis & Clark Law School.]

Bonds related to KentuckyWired’s plans to build a fiber network in Kentucky via a public-private partnership received a downgrade—from stable to negative—from Moody's Investors Service. “The change in outlook to negative from stable reflects the further delays in project completion and the rising disagreement between the Project Co and the Commonwealth related to the amount of schedule and compensation relief due to the Project Co for certain material supervening events,” Moody’s wrote. “The resolution of these ongoing negotiations over the next few months will be the next key credit event,” the firm added. “The Commonwealth is working diligently with its private sector partners in completing construction of the KentuckyWired project,” KentuckyWired said. “The project is very complex but progress is being made weekly, and the Commonwealth remains fully committed to the statewide scope of this broadband initiative.” KentuckyWired communications director Randy Lutke added that the effort has so far deployed a total of 564 miles of fiber, after working in part to obtain access to roughly 80,000 utility poles owned by a total of 70 different entities—a time-consuming process he said KentuckyWired is close to completing. He added that KentuckyWired has also worked to address the “make-ready” engineering and construction process, which he said is a “necessary process that commonly takes longer than desired.”

There's still a lot to be gleaned about the state of the E-rate and school connectivity. Here are six big numbers to know.

1. The E-rate program continues to have extraordinary reach, impacting more than 118,000 school and library facilities across the US.
2. Schools' appetite for bandwidth continues to grow, with $2.5 billion in E-rate requests for data & internet service. 
3. Among surveyed applicants, 55 percent want voice services to remain E-rate-eligible.
4. The average school site requesting E-rate funding now spends $32,576 on Wi-Fi equipment and services.
5. Among surveyed applicants, 48 percent said the E-rate's 'self-provisioning' option lowers bandwidth costs.
6. Among surveyed applicants, 44 percent still don't like the E-rate application process.

The Attorney General of Washington has filed a new amended complaint in an ongoing lawsuit against Comcast, claiming that "new evidence" reveals "even more deceptive conduct than previously alleged." The lawsuit, which was initially submitted in August 2016, alleged that hundreds of thousands of Washington residents were "deceived" into paying "at least $73 million in subscription fees over the last five years for a near-worthless ‘protection plan.’" According to the amended complaint, which was filed in King County Superior Court on Thursday, newly obtained recorded calls between Comcast and its Washington customers who subscribed to its "Service Protection Plan" show "that Comcast may have signed up more than half of all SPP subscribers without their consent. Comcast deceived consumers even when mentioning the SPP, telling them the SPP plan was ‘free’ when they signed up, when in fact, Comcast would automatically charge them every month after the first month."