Broadcasting&Cable

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has now circulated his latest draft to all the commissioners, according to Gigi Sohn, FCC special counsel for external affairs.

Sohn also signaled the public and stakeholders would have most of 120 days to comment on the draft.

In a Twitter chat on the new rules, Sohn confirmed it had been circulated to the other commissioners, though the outlines of the changes had already been reported widely in the press. Chairman Wheeler signaled to cable Internet service providers in a speech to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association that without rules in place, they would be a threat to open Internet.

Sohn seconded that in her chat, saying: "chairman knows free market won't protect the Internet. That's why he's proposing new rules." Sohn said she was having the Twitter chat because the chairman wanted to engage with the public.

Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly suggests neither the old or new network neutrality rules are necessary since there is no problem that those rules presume need solving.

Commissioner O'Rielly worked on Sec. 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is using to buttress his new network neutrality draft rules, on the advice of a Federal Court, and told a C-SPAN Communicators audience that he disagrees with both Wheeler and the court that the section gives the FCC that authority.

"That is a big hurdle for me to get past," he said. He also said the talk has been about prospective harms but that there aren't actually any instances of harm today.

Commissioner O'Rielly said that broadband providers are providing a "good experience" and complying with "simple principles they think meet the needs of consumers." He said he did not want to regulate what "may happen" in the future.

Commissioner O'Rielly said the IPS's he has talked to have said they don't block or discriminate and have no intention to do so. "They want to provide a good experience to consumers," he said.

PopularResistance.org and Fight for the Future organized a protest and camp-out in front of (and to the side of) the Federal Communications Commission’s DC headquarters, demanding the FCC protect the Internet by applying common carrier regulations.

At press time they were still there and pledging to remain until the May 15 vote on the new rules.

Margaret Flowers from PopularResistance.org said she had been there since the morning of May 7 and that the group, which she said was growing, would be there until the FCC’s May 15 vote on the new rules. Flowers said Code Pink was helping out, as was Free Press, and that Occupy Wall Street planned to join the protest.

The goal is to get the FCC to classify Internet access under Title II. “We want the vote to include reclassifying the Internet as a common carrier service,” she said.

The House Commerce Committee passed the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) on a bipartisan vote, but that doesn't mean the legislation is done in the House.

The Judiciary Committee, which shares jurisdiction, held a hearing on compulsory cable and satellite licenses, including those in STELA, only hours after that vote, and it was clear cable, satellite, and broadcast representatives would get another venue to pitch their positions.

Retransmission blackouts were a hot topic of discussion among some concerned lawmakers, as were orphan counties -- where viewers can't get in-state news or sports or weather because of gerrymandered DMAs that put them in the market of another state. Cable operators -- represented by American Cable Association President Matt Polka -- would like to see more retransmission reforms than were in the STELA bill that passed in the E&C committee, though they were pleased with its provision preventing coordinated retransmission negotiations, while broadcasters were not happy with that provision.

Satellite operators, too, would like to see more retransmission muscle in the STELA bill that ultimately passes. Polka and Dish exec Stanton Dodge squared off with National Association of Broadcasters witness Marci Burdick at the STELA hearing, which was in the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith says the Federal Communications Commission is "myopically focused" on broadband and getting broadcaster spectrum into the hands of wireless companies, when those companies cannot match the reliability of broadcasting to get critical info "to the masses."

In a speech to the Advanced Television Systems Committee convention in Washington, Smith said the irony was that in the hands of wireless companies, the spectrum could not deliver video as efficiently as broadcasters, and would be charging viewers for a service broadcasters deliver to them for free.

"The focus of the FCC shouldn't be how can spectrum be taken away from broadcasters in order to bolster the wireless industry's goal of developing an architecture with the reach and reliability of ours, but rather, how can we continue to expand broadcasting's robust and efficient architecture to other platforms," he said.

The New America Foundation hosted a briefing in Washington in which it argued that the Federal Communications Commission has the authority and duty to set spectrum limits on wireless carriers in order to "ensure that the upcoming broadcast incentive auction maximizes competition and innovation in the wireless industry."

Carriers and public interest groups assembled for the pitch on competitive auctions said that aggregation limits were necessary and appropriate.

Michael Calabrese, who directs the Wireless Future Project at New America's Open Technology Institute, said that the FCC's proposal to set aside some low-band spectrum for carriers who don't have at least a third of the low band spectrum in a market was hardly a severe limitation on participation in the auction and that AT&T and Verizon were looking to foreclose competition.

Chip Pickering, president of COMPTEL, evoked one of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's favorites, Abe Lincoln, in saying that score years ago competitive auctions were created and have since spurred investment and innovation and should not be allowed to perish from the earth by duopolists looking to foreclose that competition.

The National Association of Broadcasters has joined with the National Religious Broadcasters and others to back low-power TV and translator advocates concerned about their future after broadcast incentive auctions.

LPTVs are essentially second-class citizens in the auction, with no interference protections, a point made to the Federal Communications Commission by the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance (one of the aforementioned "others"), which said it took issue with that secondary status.

In the combined filing to the FCC, the broadcasters urged the commission to do everything it could to preserve the benefits of both LPTVs and translators and insure they are not undermined by the auction. LPTVs and translators often provide the kind of diverse programming the FCC has said it wants to encourage, are ownership opportunities for minorities, another FCC priority, and can be the only access to free TV for some viewers in hard-to-reach areas, the groups said, all values the FCC has acknowledged and even highlighted.

David Smith, Sinclair Broadcast Group president and CEO, voiced his interest in mobilizing broadcasters to petition elected officials to support hopes for a change in ownership limits.

Smith called the 39% US households cap “kind of ridiculous.” People receive content from the phone company, cable and broadcast, he said, yet only broadcast is subject to stiff restrictions.

“The reality is, the phone company reaches 100%, the satellite guys reach 100% and the cable guys do whatever they want to do, and broadcasters are constrained,” said Smith. We think it’s completely lopsided in terms of the ownership cap.” Smith urged broadcasters to use their local democracies to make change.

Civil disobedience Web site popularresistance.org was calling for picketers to meet at the Federal Communications Commission from noon to 5 p.m. to protest what they said was FCC Chairman Wheeler's effort to end network neutrality, with a rally at 5 p.m.

Appearing in a YouTube video, Sen Al Franken (D-MN) said that net neutrality is "under threat as it never has been" because he says Chairman Wheeler's new rule proposal would "permit a fast lane for content providers who are willing and able to pay for it."

He said that would mean big corporations would be even more dominant over mom and pop stores and that "big media companies will be able to get their version of the news to consumers faster." Sen Franken said it was time to rise up and save net neutrality so that it would not be taken away.

American Cable Association President Matt Polka says Viacom's denial of access to its websites by broadband Internet subscribers of Cable One and others is a violation of Internet openness that should raise warning flags in Washington.

Cable One dropped 15 cable networks April 1, and Viacom then decided that its programming would "no longer be available to Cable One customers in any form." Polka said that broadband Internet customers of both Cable One and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico are being denied access to Viacom websites, including customers who have cut the cord on traditional video.

“Viacom’s actions are a flagrant attack on Internet openness and a textbook replay of the vengeful action CBS took against Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks broadband customers during their well-documented retransmission consent dispute last August," said Polka. “All who care about ensuring access to content on the Internet should be outraged that Viacom is selectively blocking access to its public websites by broadband Internet subscribers served by smaller cable companies."