House Commerce Committee members are expected to file a trio of bills Tuesday in advance of a planned Friday House Communications Subcommittee hearing on supply chain and spectrum legislation (see 1909200058), communications sector lobbyists and officials told us. The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act is expected legislation (see 1909120003) being spearheaded by House Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J. It would provide funding to rural carriers to remove equipment originating from companies that may be a security risk, including Chinese equipment makers Huawei and ZTE, lobbyists said. The Studying How to Harness Airwave Resources Efficiently (Share) Act would direct the FCC and NTIA to come up with a plan for sharing the 7 GHz band between federal incumbents and commercial users, lobbyists and officials said. The bill envisions the two agencies creating a plan similar to that used for sharing the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band, officials said. The third bill focuses on promoting data sharing related to cybersecurity breaches of networks' security, officials said.
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The biggest industry question mark going into the Tuesday to Thursday 2019 Radio Show in Dallas is the future of the AM/FM subcaps, said broadcasters, media brokers and broadcast attorneys in interviews. An NAB spokesperson said the trade group doesn’t announce show attendance, but it’s generally 1,500-2000.
Crosscut Strategies hires Charlie Meisch, ex-SKDKnickerbocker and ex-FCC, as senior vice president; Simon Brown, from Small Business Majority, as director; and Caitlin Krutsick, Bipartisan Policy Center, as account specialist; promotes Courtney Lamie to chief operating officer ... In closing buy of Tribune (see 1909200048), Nexstar appoints from there as executive vice presidents Sean Compton, for WGN America and WGN Radio, also director-content acquisition; Dana Zimmer, also chief distribution and strategy officer; and Gary Weitman, chief communications officer.
Make sure small phone carriers with legitimate spikes in incoming calls don't get swept up in a coming FCC order redefining how phone companies are deemed access stimulators, said representatives of rural LECs and other small LECs in interviews last week and in docket 18-155. Chairman Ajit Pai's draft gets a vote Thursday (see 1909050043). The rules would shift financial responsibility for tariffed tandem switching and transport services away from interexchange carriers to the access-stimulating LEC for terminating traffic.
California’s review of T-Mobile/Sprint could extend into next year, but there’s no schedule yet, stakeholders said this week. A California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge reopened the record in dockets A.18-07-011 and A.18-07-012 Aug. 27 in light of the carriers’ settlement with DOJ and other changes to the original deal.
Signal Group promotes as managing directors Charles Cooper, also chair-advocacy, and Elizabeth Northrup and John Procter, also co-chairs-communications ... Stateside Associates advances Johnathan Lozier to vice president ... Patent Trial and Appeal Board litigation firm Lowenstein & Weatherwax adds partner Bridget Smith, ex-Knobbe Martens ... Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue swears in DJ LaVoy, ex-Real Estate Assessment Center, as rural development deputy undersecretary.
Addressing better emergency alert origination and possible security risks 5G networks might inherit from previous communications networks, the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will issue reports next year and into early 2021, said CSRIC working group chairmen Tuesday. The 2018 false emergency alert in Hawaii (see 1801160054) shows there's no good emergency alert system differentiation between tests and actual alerts, said Craig Fugate, former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator. Broadcasters voluntarily carry alerts, and without a strong working relationship between them and originators, there's a risk of fatigue, especially for amber and silver alerts, he said. Fugate said focus also is needed on cybersecurity and spoofing, to be sure alert originators are authenticated. He said the working group plans to produce recommendations by September 2020. Broadcasters increasingly use social media to communicate when they lose power to transmitters, newsrooms or towers due to disasters or major weather events, and social media will be a focus of reports on improving broadcast resiliency, said Florida Association of Broadcasters President Pat Roberts. It will look at updated best practices for prepping for natural disasters, he said. Its draft is due in January and final report in March, he said. Two working groups are looking at 5G security. Nsight Chief Technical Officer Lee Thibaudeau said network architectures sometimes incorporate security risks from other networks, and in 5G's case that could lead to confidentiality and network availability issues. He said the group looking at 5G vulnerabilities possibly carried forward from other wireless networks expects to have a report in June on those risks, followed by December 2020 recommendations on updates to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards. Qualcomm Director-Engineering Farrokh Khatibi said his group's related reports on risks potentially introduced by 3GPP standards will come in September 2020, and on ways of mitigating those in March 2021. The 911 move from legacy to IP networks carries potential security risks, especially when those networks are blended, said Mary Boyd, West Safety Services vice president-government and regulatory affairs. A working group report identifying the security risks in legacy, transition and next-generation 911 networks is expected in June, she said, followed by a December report measuring the risk magnitude and remediation costs. Verisign Chief Security Officer Danny McPherson said a report on session initiation protocol security vulnerabilities that could affect communication service provision is expected by March 2021.
Rep. Anna Eshoo of California and four other House Democrats urged the FCC to investigate whether WZHF (AM) Capitol Heights, Maryland, is providing sponsorship information that "sufficiently identifies the true identity of the sponsor of its broadcast programming.” Tuesday's push follows a May federal court ruling that RM Broadcasting, which owns WZHF's full airtime through 2020, must register as a foreign agent because it's broadcasting Radio Sputnik content from Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya (see 1905130035). RM argued it merely brokers the sale of airtime and had no part in content decisions. WZHF's “sponsorship identification of its programming is misleading and fails to identify that the Russian government funds all of the programming on its station,” which violates rules requiring announcement of sponsorship identification must “fully and fairly disclose the true identity” of the entity paying for the content's broadcast, Eshoo and the others wrote FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The station identifies Rossiya Segodnya and RM, but this “does not clearly convey that the true identity of the programming aired” on the station “is the government of the Russian Federation. A reasonable listener of AM radio cannot be expected to know that Rossiya Segodnya is a Russian government-funded propaganda outlet.” The lawmakers emphasized they're “not requesting any press censorship” but “asserting that the American people have a right to know when a foreign government -- especially an adversarial foreign government -- is behind programming aired on American airwaves.” The other signers were: Commerce Committee Vice Chair Yvette Clarke of New York, Jerry McNerney of California, Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., and Norma Torres of California. Eshoo repeatedly pressed the FCC on the broadcast of Russia-backed propaganda. Her Foreign Entities Reform Act (HR-3698) would require broadcasters, cable and satellite providers publish the same information on the source and funding of content originating from foreign agents as is required under Communications Act sponsorship ID rules (see 1907120050). The FCC didn't comment.
Spotify downplayed Amazon’s move into hi-resolution music, focusing on its fledgling podcast service and artist programs (see 1909120017). Amazon's offering a two-tier premium music service in CD-quality and 24-bit/192 kHz resolution, it said Tuesday. Spotify hasn't talked about "higher fidelity,” said Paul Vogel, head-financial planning and analysis, treasury and investor relations. “It’s not really something that has been a big differentiator,” he said, citing Tidal and its hi-res service. Important to Spotify and its subscribers are the user interface, algorithms, playlists and "discoverability,” Vogel told investors. Tidal didn't comment. Musicians are “excited” about the ability for fans to stream their music “as it was originally recorded,” said Steve Boom, vice president-Amazon Music. On the threat of big tech companies' leverage in the music streaming market with smartphones and smart speakers, Vogel deflected to Spotify’s growth trends. Citing his 3.5-year stint, Vogel said the service had 25 million subscribers and under 100 million users when he joined; now, Spotify boasts 232 million monthly average users and 108 million subscribers. “We fully recognize the fear” about the three largest tech companies as competitors, Vogel said. Despite competitors’ big pockets, Spotify is spending “as much, if not more, on innovation and R&D” in music and audio, he said. Vogel said Spotify's “ubiquity” is its strength -- being available “just about everywhere” except for “a couple of Apple products.” Qobuz welcomed Amazon to the hi-res music market. Qobuz USA Managing Director Dan Mackta said it “validates our business and underscores the growth in demand for higher-quality streaming."
The Vermont Public Utilities Commission is reviewing a Comcast settlement with the state and the Vermont Access Network, “and will act on it as soon as practicable,” a PUC spokesperson emailed Tuesday. The agreement would resolve a case on the legality of the PUC's requiring the company in a cable franchise agreement to build 550 miles of new cable and enhance support for public, educational and government channels (see 1811210035). Comcast’s Vermont PEG channels would be reassigned to a dedicated public access channel neighborhood, so access management organizations have program listings on all guides that Comcast makes available, with the same functionality as other channels, including voice remote location and programmability, said a joint petition dated Sept. 6 in docket 8301. The pact paves the way for a statewide high-definition PEG channel by 2021, alternative means of providing remote origination sites for PEG programming, and additional funding for public access channel reassignments and equipment for the HD channel. Comcast would build a minimum of 350 miles of additional lines of cable, maintain existing PEG remote origination sites and reasonably accommodate requests for new sites. Parties will ask to dismiss with prejudice all claims in the federal court case at U.S. District Court in Rutland.