Monty Tayloe

The FCC is moving forward with a rulemaking process based on the work of the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC) even as pay-TV, content and consumer electronics companies announced (see 1601270023) the formation of a group opposing such a plan. The proposals are contained in an NPRM that FCC officials said will be circulated to eighth-floor offices Thursday and voted on at the FCC's Feb. 18 meeting. Communications Daily had first reported that the NPRM was coming (see 1512150072). Proponents framed it as injecting much-needed competition into the pay-TV device market, while cable and other incumbents criticized it.

The FCC has been summoning for meetings industry entities associated with set-top boxes and the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee, said industry officials and a series of ex parte filings. Groups pushing for a rulemaking to come out of the DSTAC's report are pushing to get an item on the agenda of an FCC meeting, while multichannel video programming distributors and others opposed to the FCC's acting on the report are trying to keep the rulemaking process from proceeding, an attorney following the DSTAC process told us.

Broadcaster participation in the Form 177 window for the reverse auction has “encouraged” the FCC, said Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein in a statement Wednesday. The deadline for such applications was 6 p.m. Tuesday. Though numerous broadcaster and industry officials told us their sense was that participation was robust, they also said participation in the Form 177 window doesn’t necessarily equate to a high amount of spectrum going in the auction.

The FCC's analog tuner requirement for TVs will sunset Aug. 31, 2017, under an order that the commission unanimously approved Thursday that's designed to mitigate the incentive auction’s impact on low-power TV stations and translators. The CE industry has said that devices that can receive analog will still be available by August 2017 and that it will take years after that date for devices without such tuners to completely supplant those that have them.

Industry expectations of an upcoming FCC rulemaking stemming from the final report of its Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee are behind a recent flurry of filings in the DSTAC docket from EchoStar, NCTA and TiVo, industry officials told us. The report contained opposing recommendations from a group of pay-TV carriers and the TiVo- and Public Knowledge-backed Consumer Video Choice Coalition. The multichannel video programming distributors have taken the stance that the FCC should take no action toward creating a downloadable security solution -- so an FCC item would be seen as a blow to the MVPDs.

A T-Mobile reconsideration petition asking the FCC to restrict Dish Network’s bidding in the broadcast incentive auction because of Dish’s use of the designated entity rules in the AWS-3 auction isn't considered likely to get much traction, with agency leadership focused on maximum auction participation, lawyers and analysts told us Monday. The credibility of the incentive auction should also be important to the commission, T-Mobile Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Kathleen Ham said. “The auction needs to be fair. What happened in the last auction wasn’t fair.” Dish and the FCC didn't comment.

A draft order at the FCC on the incentive auction’s impact on low-power TV and translators would contain rules allowing LPTV stations to channel share with translators, delaying the deadline for LPTV to transition to digital, and allowing displaced LPTV stations to take advantage of FCC auction software to find new channels, agency officials told us. The item would also eliminate the analog tuner requirement for TVs and set up a new digital-to-digital translator service, an FCC official told us.

The definition of a cable system isn’t technology-neutral, said Rosemary Collyer, U.S. District judge for the District of Columbia, in an opinion saying streaming TV service FilmOn X isn't eligible for a compulsory license.

Moving to the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard would provide enhanced emergency communications to the public and first responders, the need for which was underscored by the recent terrorist attacks on Paris, said numerous speakers at the NAB-sponsored Smart Spectrum Summit Wednesday. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., and FirstNet CEO Michael Poth -- both former police officers -- said first responders need dependable, fast communications that include data and video.

Kicking off the TV incentive auction on its appointed March 29 start date is among FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's top-most priorities, said Gigi Sohn, his counselor, at a Practising Law Institute event Thursday. The idea that the current FCC is more divisive than previous ones is “a bunch of nonsense,” Sohn said, referring to a recent story (see 1510280062). “In the past, there were interparty battles,” Sohn said, saying past FCCs have been similarly contentious. For that Oct. 29 story, the agency was provided a chance to comment and declined.