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SEN STEVENS OFFERS DEAL ON NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky]
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens has offered a compromise in the fierce fight over legislation on Internet network neutrality, but stopped short of demands sought by content companies like Google. Sen Stevens has added a new section to his bill aimed at preserving consumers' ability to surf anywhere on the public Internet and use any Web-based application. However, the new draft does not include a ban on pricing content companies have demanded. Sen Stevens' compromise would also create a complaint process through the FCC if consumers believe their access rights were violated and the agency would be authorized to adjudicate complaints with penalties, according to the draft. However, the FCC would be barred from issuing any regulations under the new law that would add to the obligations on Internet service providers. The compromise is somewhat similar to legislation that passed the House of Representatives. However, there are other differences between the House and Senate that would have to be resolved. Earlier versions of the Stevens bill only called for the Federal Communications Commission to report on Internet access, prompting Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, the top Democrat on the committee, and some others to call for more protections. Striking a compromise would likely make it easier for the bill to pass this year. The Senate committee is scheduled to consider amendments and vote on the measure at a meeting on Thursday.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...
* Stevens Floats New Net Neutrality Compromise
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6344840.html?display=Breaking+News
** For more on the bill see http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/2173
THREE DRAFTS OF SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE COMMUNICATIONS BILL
[SOURCE: Drew Clark]
A copy of Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Steven's new telecom legislation is available -- and it keeps growing. What started out as 135 pages on May 1 grew to 151 pages in the June 9 draft that was released on June 12. This third draft -- dated June 16 and expected to be officially unveiled in a 10 a.m. briefing on Capitol Hill -- tops off at 151 pages. Most significantly, this new draft makes good on the pledge Stevens made, 11 days ago, to significantly modify the Net Neutrality provisions of the legislation. Indeed, an entire new section is present -- "Internet Consumer Bill of Rights Act" -- goes so far as to "apply" the First Amendment to Bell companies that would attempt to "limit, restrict, ban, prohibit or otherwise regulate content on the Internet because of the religious views, political views, or any other views expressed in such content unless specifically authorized by law." All of the Bell and cable companies have already said that they wouldn't block or impede the ability of consumers to access such sites. Advocates of strict net neutrality note that this new consumer bill of rights says nothing about discrimination or non-discrimination. And that is certain to set up a conflict over whether Stevens' new approach does more, less or about the same as the House-passed version's limited approach to net neutrality.
http://www.drewclark.com/2006/06/three-drafts-of-stevens-bill.shtml
Three Drafts of Senate Commerce Committee Communications Bill
SPEED BUMPS ON THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Tom Abate]
In this age of information, wealth and ideas flow through wires and cables just as wheat, iron and other goods once traveled over railroads and highways. Who controls today's digital thoroughfares, and whether they get to charge extra for safe and speedy passage, has emerged as a potentially defining debate for the Internet. This issue is commonly referred to as "network neutrality," a slogan that leans heavily to one side of the argument. The debate, which the Senate is poised to consider as soon as this week, centers on whether all Internet traffic should be given the same delivery treatment at the same price, as it has since the start of the Internet, or whether the companies that deliver the traffic to consumer's homes can charge heavy users more. A major reason for the debate is the Internet's stunning growth -- and the new uses to which companies and their customers are putting it. A system once used almost exclusively for e-mail is now eyed by businesses that want to send huge video files as large as 75,000 e-mails. The result is a growing traffic jam that threatens everyone's deliveries.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/18/NET.TMP
* Analysis: Courts May Have To Decide Rules Of The Internet Road
[SOURCE: InfoWeek, AUTHOR: K.C. Jones]
http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RI0...
* Tangled web of fear, greed and Internet's fate
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/14850257.htm
* Small companies want to maintain Net's neutrality
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20060619/1b_smallbiznet19.art...
FCC PUTS OFF VOTE ON TV MULTICASTING ON CABLE
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has withdrawn plans for the agency to vote this week on a proposal requiring U.S. cable operators to carry extra digital channels that television broadcasters plan to air, an agency official said on Sunday. Chairman Martin had proposed cable operators be required to carry all the digital TV channels aired by TV broadcasters and he had scheduled a vote for Wednesday at the FCC's monthly open meeting. It appeared he was unable to win at this time the vote of the third Republican commissioner, Robert McDowell, on the five-member FCC. McDowell was recently sworn in, giving Martin the first working Republican majority in over a year. The two Democrats on the FCC, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, have previously demanded the agency first consider the public interest obligations of broadcasters with these new channels.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=industryNews&storyID...
* FCC Drops Planned Vote On Multicasts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR200606...
* Martin Bails on Must-Carry Vote
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6344841.html?display=Breaking+News
CAC MEETING AGENDA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
The next meeting of the FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee will take place on Friday, July 21, 2006, 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., at the Commission's Headquarters Building, Room TW-C305, 445 12th Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20554. At its July 21, 2006 meeting, the Committee will receive (1) a briefing by FCC staff regarding Agency activities; (2) recommendations from its TRS Working Group regarding captioned telephony, the existence and role of the Interstate TRS advisory Council, and the definition of "effective communication" for TRS purposes; (3) a revised recommendation from its Media Working Group regarding media ownership rules; (4) a recommendation from its Consumer Affairs Working Group regarding the Commission's consumer publications and outreach programs; and (5) a report of activities by its Rural and Underserved Populations Working Group. The full Committee may take action on any or all of these agenda items. The meeting site is fully accessible to people using wheelchairs or other mobility aids. Meeting agendas and handouts will be provided in accessible formats; sign language interpreters, open captioning, and assistive listening devices will be provided on site. The meeting will be webcast with open captioning at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/cac. Request other reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities as early as possible; please allow at least five (5) days advance notice. Include a description of the accommodation you will need including as much detail as you can. Also include a way we can contact you if we need more information. Send an e-mail to: fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (tty). For further information contact: Scott Marshall, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, 202-418-2809 (voice) or 202-418-0179 (TTY), scott.marshall@fcc.gov (e-mail).
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1284A1.doc
FCC Consumer Panel Meeting Agenda (July 21)
NELSON TO FCC'S MARTIN: DIVERSITY NOW
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) recently wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin recently asking the Chairman not to begin rewriting media ownership rules until the FCC first takes a look at minority, women and small-business-ownership issues. Sen Nelson was responding, in part, to another letter sent to Chairman Martin by Julie Johnson, chairperson of the FCC's Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age. She provided a copy of a number of recommendations already submitted by the committee on topics including diversity credits, ownership incentives, and transparency in transactions.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6344704?display=Breaking+News
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6344704?display=Breaking%20News
FCC RULES ON OWNERSHIP LOOM IN DUEL FOR UNIVISION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Ross Sorkin]
The auction for Univision, which is expected to conclude tomorrow when final bids are due, has become focused in recent days on the potential regulatory hurdles that the two suitors who are dueling for control of the company may face, according to people involved in the process. At issue is whether the two groups -- one led by Grupo Televisa, Mexico's biggest media company, and another led by a group of private equity firms that control many media properties -- could, should they win the auction, face a challenge by the Federal Communications Commission over foreign ownership restrictions and concentration concerns, these people said. The Televisa consortium, which is being backed by the Venezuelan media investor Gustavos Cisneros, Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, Cascade Investment and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, is expected to face the most scrutiny because federal regulations prevent foreign entities from owning more than 25 percent of an American broadcaster. While the group's offer is specifically being structured so that Televisa would own no more than 25 percent of Univision should it win, some Univision executives and advisers are concerned that the F.C.C. could determine that it is still acting as a controlling shareholder because of its influence over the bidding group. It is possible that the F.C.C. could force the winning group to divest overlapping assets like radio stations in certain areas and broadcast licenses in cities where it owns newspapers. Interestingly, stakes in Freedom Communications and Cumulus are also owned by the Blackstone Group, which is part of the rival bidding group for Univision. The possibility that the F.C.C. could block a deal and how long it may take the agency to approve a deal is expected to weigh on Univision's decision.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/business/worldbusiness/19univision.html
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FCC Rules on Ownership Loom in Duel for Univision
FITFULLY BLENDING PAPERS AND TV
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Silkos & Katharine Seelye]
Where's the synergy? In hometown Chicago, the Tribune owns the Chicago Tribune, WGN radio, WGN TV, CLTV (a regional cable news channel) and our beloved Cubs. Reporters for The Trib share their work with their broadcast siblings appearing on screen or being heard over the air. When it works well, information from each outlet flows in a coordinated way among all the outlets and onto their Web sites. When the Tribune Company brought the Times Mirror company for $8.3 billion in 2000, the promise was that this approach could be successfully transplanted to the nation's most cutthroat media markets, on the East and West Coasts. With its combined properties -- The Los Angeles Times and KTLA in Los Angeles, and Newsday and WPIX in New York -- Tribune would have a stake in the three biggest markets in the country and could reach 80 percent of all Americans. Not only would the properties in each city cross-promote and cross-pollinate their editorial content, but advertisers could make sweeping national buys across the media and across the country. John W. Madigan, then Tribune's chief executive, called the merger with Times Mirror "the multimedia company of the future." But the strategy has failed. While the entire media landscape is in turmoil, the Tribune properties in Los Angeles and New York have fared particularly poorly. Circulation is down, below the industry standards at both The Los Angeles Times and Newsday; at KTLA and WPIX, viewers have declined and audience share has plummeted. Nor has a synergistic bump in ad revenue materialized.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/business/media/19tribune.html
(requires registration)
Fitfully Blending Papers and TV
COURT BACKS FCC ON UNBUNDLING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the Federal Communications Commission's latest attempt to implement rules requiring regional phone companies to lease parts of their networks to competitors. It marked a victory for federal regulators, whose three previous attempts to implement the unbundling requirements of the 1996 Telecommunications Act had been struck down by courts. The 1996 law forced the regional phone companies to unbundle their local phone networks and lease them to rivals at wholesale prices. The companies complained that the FCC's latest rules went too far, requiring them to share parts of their network at steep discounts. Smaller rivals complained that the rules didn't go far enough. With the court's ruling, companies such as Covad will now be able to continue providing high-capacity telecommunications service over existing phone lines without the risk that the rules will change.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115048051542282567.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
(requires subscription)
* Appeals court backs FCC on telephone network unbundling
http://news.com.com/Appeals+court+backs+FCC+on+telephone+network+unbundl...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115048051542282567.html?mod=todays_us_marketplac…
JUSTICE SUES JERSEY TO KEEP TELCOS QUIET
[SOURCE: Reuters]
The Department of Justice has sued the New Jersey Attorney General's office on grounds of security concerns to prevent it from asking telephone companies if they gave customer call records to the National Security Agency. DoJ wants to stop the disclosure of confidential and sensitive information, according to the lawsuit filed on Wednesday, a day before phone companies were due to reply to subpoenas issued by the New Jersey attorney general.
http://news.com.com/Justice+sues+Jersey+to+keep+telcos+quiet/2100-1028_3...
Justice sues Jersey to keep telcos quiet