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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a Fifth Order on Reconsideration and Sixth Report and Order that expands low power radio opportunities for diverse media voices nationwide. Processing approximately 6,000 FM translator applications and setting the rules of the road for LPFM are the last steps necessary before opening a window for community groups to seek new low power FM licenses starting in October of 2013. The Orders follow the FCC’s Fourth Report and Order and Fourth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted on March 19, 2012.
Fifth Order on Reconsideration. A number of parties filed petitions for reconsideration of the Fourth Report and Order, challenging the per-market and/or the national caps on translator applications that will be processed. The Fifth Order on Reconsideration: (1) establishes a national limit of 70 applications so long as no more than 50 of them are inside of the Appendix A markets; (2) increases the per-market cap in 156 larger markets from one application to up to three applications for each market, subject to certain conditions; and (3) clarifies the application of the per-market cap in “embedded” markets.
Sixth Report and Order. The Sixth Report and Order lays the groundwork for introduction of LPFM stations into major urban markets for the first time. It establishes, as mandated by the Local Community Radio Act, a second-adjacent channel spacing waiver standard and an interference-remediation scheme to ensure that operations of stations with these waivers will not cause interference to other stations. The Order also creates separate third-adjacent channel interference remediation regimes for short-spaced and fully-spaced LPFM stations. Finally, the rules address the potential for predicted interference to FM translator input signals from LPFM stations operating on third-adjacent channels. The Sixth Report and Order additionally makes a number of rule changes to better promote the core localism and diversity goals of LPFM service.
FCC Adopts Rules to Expand Low Power Radio Service FCC (Report and Order) FCC Approves LPFM Item (B&C)
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission is about to make a little-watched decision that could have a tremendous impact on the way people in the United States get news.
After over a decade of Congressional obstruction, the FCC will finally vote to create thousands of new local radio stations across the United States. As a result of a bill I sponsored, the Local Community Radio Act, the FCC is issuing rules that will allow community groups and organizations to apply for licenses to operate noncommercial low-power FM (LPFM) radio stations on certain unoccupied parts of the dial. This means that if you've ever dreamed of starting a radio station, you just might have your chance soon. It also means that millions of Americans will have more choices on the FM radio dial and more access to local news and entertainment. This year's election cycle illustrated just how important it is for us to have more access to information about our own communities. Although we heard non-stop reporting on the presidential race for months, local and state political campaigns received a lot less coverage. Many people went to the polls on November 6 with little knowledge about their candidates for state attorney general, state representative, or school board. Yet those voters will be greatly impacted by the decisions their local and state representatives will make once in office. In places where noncommercial radio is already available, listeners really know the difference. This FCC action has the potential to dramatically expand the range of voices on FM radio and provide better coverage of community issues at a time of substantial media consolidation. It will give many radio listeners a real choice of content and perspective, and will empower local radio in many communities across the country.
Big Changes on the FM Dial: FCC Okays More Community Radio Stations
In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski dated Nov. 30, nine senators -- including Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) -- asked the chairman not to proceed with any media ownership rule changes without providing "clear, evidence-based response" to concerns about the impact of those changes on diversity of ownership.
They say the response that is necessary to comply with a federal court and would be responsive to "significant public objection." A number of minority groups, media activists and unions have asked the FCC to hold off on a vote until the diversity impact is better gauged. The senators said the current media ownership rules have been a "bulwark" against mass consolidation. Pointing to FCC figures showing minority media ownership at what they called "abysmally low levels," they said the impact of the changes on those levels had not been sufficiently analyzed per a Third Circuit Court order.
Senators Ask FCC to Hold Off on Ownership Vote
[Commentary] According to a story in the Washington Post, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is an overly cautious and plodding regulator who has accomplished little in his tenure that everybody in Washington believes is coming to an end. That's not the way I see it.
For better or worse (and most broadcasters would say worse), Chairman Genachowski has had an extraordinary, if not revolutionary, impact on at least a couple of the key industries he oversees. He set in motion a policy that, if allowed to play out over the next several years, could transform the mediascape and broadcasting's place in it. It was bold, it was radical and it came out of nowhere in the early days of his administration. I am speaking, of course, of what's come to be called the incentive auction, by which the FCC hopes to recapture a huge swath of TV spectrum and turn around and auctions it off to wireless broadband carriers that will, in Genachowski's way of thinking, put it to much better use.
FCC Chairman Genachowski is Far from Plodding, Cautious
The U.S. Department of Commerce on November 29, 2012, approved renewal of the .com Registry Agreement between Verisign, Inc., and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Through this agreement, Verisign will manage the registry for the .com top level domain for six more years. “I'm pleased the Department of Commerce was able to find that renewal of the agreement is in the public interest,” said Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator. “Consumers will benefit from Verisign's removal of the automatic price increases. At the same time, the agreement protects the security and stability of the Internet by allowing Verisign to take cost-based price increases where justified.”
Department of Commerce Approves Verisign-ICANN .com Registry Renewal Agreement VeriSign Falls as Dot-Com Registry Contract Limits Prices (Bloomberg) New Verisign deal blocks .com price hikes (CNNMoney)
The Consumer Electronics Association has asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny Charter's request for a waiver of the FCC's ban on integrated digital set-top boxes, calling its proposal a "nominal and partial 'solution' that cannot fairly be projected to work in the real world."
"There is no considered FCC precedent for the open-ended evisceration of this regulation," CEA said in comments to the FCC on Charter's request earlier this month for a two-year waiver of the prohibition. Charter says the waiver is necessary for the company to make the transition to all-digital networks and downloadable software-based security. CEA says no waiver is warranted. It says the cable industry's promise of a downloadable security standard interface the functional equivalent of the CableCARD hardware has yet to materialize after years of promises, and that Charter's partially chip-based interim solution "affords access only to a single conditional access system, and only Charter systems are likely to be able to download software that uses the conditional access hardware in the chip."
CEA to FCC: Deny Charter Set-Top Waiver and Come Up With Standard
A new draft of the White House's cybersecurity executive order maintains the Administration's effort to improve the digital defenses of critical infrastructure — but it includes a number of changes, following several Administration meetings with stakeholders.
The Nov. 21 draft obtained by POLITICO grants more time to the feds to devise and implement a voluntary system to protect power plants, water systems and other forms of critical infrastructure from crippling attacks. Yet it makes clear that commercial products won't fall into that category. It further calls on the feds to figure out how to incentivize companies to agree to abide by new security standards. And it leaves it to agencies to figure out whether cybersecurity should factor into the federal procurement process. In general, the latest draft order follows the same contours as another draft that leaked at the end of September —improving cybersecurity practices at critical infrastructure, and pursuing new information-sharing capabilities. But the new version appears to specify in clearer terms that NIST would lead the way in developing a so-called Cybersecurity Framework, to identify gaps in the country's digital defenses and set forward standards and methodologies to address the risks. In the latest proposal, agencies have more time — 240 days, rather than 180 days — to put forward their initial draft of that framework, but still have a year after that to publish the final guidance. And the new version emphasizes the framework should be developed through "open public review and comment," and reviewed every three years. The September draft, shared among top deputies, had called on federal agencies to report on ways to make any new voluntary measures mandatory. The new draft preserves the section, and it asks agencies to evaluate if their current cybersecurity authorities are sufficient or duplicative. It also tasks the Pentagon and other agencies to determine whether the government procurement process — a multi-billion-dollar industry — should grant preferences to vendors adhering to strong cybersecurity standards. And it includes a key, highly desired carve-out for commercial IT: It makes clear those products cannot be designated as critical infrastructure at the greatest risk, which is an exception that industry had sought in legislation. The new draft further requires the Commerce and Treasury Departments to devise recommendations on how to incentivize companies to participate — a key sticking point for the Obama Administration, which has said it can only provide the best incentives to businesses through an act of Congress.
Draft cybersecurity executive order excludes commercial products
A maverick member of the Federal Trade Commission, J. Thomas Rosch, may hold the keys to whether the agency’s handling of the antitrust case against Google is viewed as a Democratic attack on Big Business or a bipartisan effort to ensure Internet competition.
Commissioner Rosch is a Republican appointee who has sometimes been a renegade — pushing the agency to be more aggressive yet arguing for limits in its application of antitrust laws. FTC commissioners could decide any day now whether to file an antitrust case against Google over the firm’s search business and use of industry standard patents against rivals — or settle for certain behavioral conditions that reports indicate might not even touch on Google’s dominance in Internet search. And while it’s generally believed that the two Democratic appointees will support FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, also a Democratic appointee, and that the newest GOP panelist will likely side against them, it’s unclear where Commissioner Rosch will fall.
FTC maverick a mystery on Google case
In comments to the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T and Verizon Wireless argued against rules that would reduce how much spectrum carriers can hold in certain markets. Meanwhile, smaller carriers pushed for proposals that would limit the spectrum holdings of the nation's two largest carriers.
The FCC is considering changes to its so-called spectrum-screen, which it uses when reviewing spectrum transactions. If a carrier acquires too much spectrum and violates the screen, the deal is more closely scrutinized. Currently, the screen is different for each proposed transaction. The FCC voted in late September to open up a review of its rules.
- Verizon said in its comments that the FCC should build on the strengths of the current system by including a "safe harbor providing certainty for transactions that do not exceed the screen, while enabling more detailed review of markets triggered by the screen for potential competitive harm." Verizon said the FCC should reject a spectrum cap "which is an inherently inflexible tool ill-suited to the dynamic spectrum market, and which can block spectrum transactions that are clearly pro-consumer."
- AT&T said the FCC should update the screen "to include all of the available spectrum that is 'suitable' for mobile wireless services," and specifically include spectrum that Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) controls when it makes that consideration. AT&T also wants the FCC to "reaffirm that the 'safe harbor' provided by the screen is truly safe," meaning that the FCC "will not entertain spectrum aggregation-related challenges to any proposed spectrum acquisition that does not exceed the safe harbor level." The FCC also needs to update its screen to reflect the realities of the market, and the screen should reflect that it is "simply not realistic to assume that any holding of more than a third of the available spectrum in any market may create a risk of market foreclosure."
- In contrast, Sprint said Verizon and AT&T have aggregated around 75 percent of the spectrum for wireless below 1 GHz, and that the FCC should treat this spectrum differently. Sprint said the FCC "should adopt a cap for spectrum below 1 GHz that would apply prospectively to both commission spectrum auctions and secondary market transactions, including the incentive auction the commission will be conducting for broadcast TV spectrum.
Verizon, AT&T clash with Sprint and others over spectrum caps
The hottest free agents in Chicago tech right now are the former members of the Obama campaign's tech team.
Companies are lining up to recruit the 40 engineers who built and ran the widely praised technology platform credited with giving President Barack Obama a significant edge in turning out the vote necessary to win crucial states, such as Ohio and Florida. GrubHub recently wooed the techies over beers at its Loop headquarters. It has offered at least one of them a job. “It's so hard to find good talent,” says CEO Matt Maloney. Public relations giant Edelman also hosted a recruiting event, and others are in the works with Orbitz Worldwide Inc. and possibly with venture fund Lightbank (run by Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell) and Groupon Inc., says Jason Kunesh, who was director of user experience for the campaign. The core tech team was led by Harper Reed, Mr. Kunesh, Dylan Richard, Scott VanDenPlas, Aaron Salmon, Jesse Kriss and Dan Ratner. Messrs. Reed and Richard already have said they'll form their own software shop.
Chicago's most-coveted talent: Obama's techies