CTIA won another round of its fight against San Francisco’s cellphone labeling law. A panel of three federal appeals judges sided with the association in ruling on the cross appeals of a lower court’s injunction against the ordinance (http://xrl.us/bno8ej). The appeals stemmed from a city ordinance that would require cellphone retailers to provide information about phones’ RF emissions and information about how to limit exposure to such emissions. A lower court had approved a revised version of a fact-sheet the city could require to be distributed where cellphones are sold, but the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed Monday. The 9th Circuit’s jurists signaled they wouldn’t rule for the city, at oral argument last month (CD Aug 10 p1). A CTIA spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokesman for the San Francisco Mayor’s Office referred our query to the City Attorney’s Office, which did not immediately respond.
Notable CROSS rulings
In his first trip home as FCC commissioner, Ajit Pai criticized what he called an unstable and unpredictable universal service model that discourages long-term investments in rural broadband networks. “Our rules of the road can’t change every year or two, and Washington’s funding formulas for carriers shouldn’t redistribute money annually in an arbitrary or haphazard manner,” he told a rural broadband roundtable in Oswego, Kan., according to a copy of his prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/bnooja). Pai called for a “transparent system for distributing funds, one that companies can understand to plan their investments and that government watchdogs can follow to guard against waste, fraud, and abuse.” Pai, who grew up in a rural part of southeastern Kansas, spoke of his experience dealing with a rural communications landscape very different from the one in cities. “When rural issues cross my desk at the Commission, they aren’t just abstractions to me,” the text said.
Tribune fired back at critics of its newspaper-broadcast cross ownership waivers in the process of the company’s exit from bankruptcy protection. Those critics have renewed their objections to the waivers recently (CD Aug 28 p3). “Tribune has more than amply demonstrated that it is entitled to waivers of the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule,” it said (http://xrl.us/bnoivv). “Moreover, Petitioners also seek to relitigate their pending petition for reconsideration of the 2007 FCC decision approving the transfer of control of Tribune and the grant of several” Tribune station license renewals, it said. “All of these challenges ... are without merit and should promptly be rejected as nothing more than a last-minute effort to delay FCC approval now that the bankruptcy court has confirmed the plan for Tribune’s emergence from bankruptcy."
Attorneys for Cox, Bonneville, The Scranton Times, Calvary and Morris Communications met with officials in the FCC chairman’s office and Office of General Counsel to discuss their pending waiver request from the FCC’s ban on newspaper broadcast cross ownership (NBCO). The commission had recently dismissed as moot their joint motion for an extension of time for submitting information about how changes to the rules affect their waiver applications. During the meeting on Aug. 29, “counsel for the Media Parties expressed their concerns that changes to the NBCO Rule and to applicable standards for evaluation of requests for waiver of that rule are still under consideration by the Commission on remand from the Third Circuit and in the pending 2010 Quadrennial Regulatory Review proceeding,” the notice said (http://xrl.us/bnnwcv). Should the commission adopt some of the provisions in its 2010 quadrennial review rulemaking notice, some of the parties wouldn’t need the waivers or at least the standards for granting them could change, the notice said. “Accordingly Media Parties requested that the commission consider deferring the deadline for filing supplemental waiver showings pending the Commission’s decision in the 2010” proceeding, the notice said.
CenturyLink shouldn’t avoid New Mexico regulations, said multiple speakers on behalf of the New Mexico attorney general and the U.S. Department of Defense. They submitted extensive testimony released this week on CenturyLink’s September 2011 petition before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. “The Commission should no longer handicap CenturyLink QC as a competitor in the marketplace,” company Regulatory Operations Director Robert Brigham said in May (http://xrl.us/bnnihz). The petition argues that CenturyLink faces effective competition and should be deregulated.
The Federal Aviation Administration will take another look at whether to allow the use of portable electronic devices during flight including during takeoff and landing. The FAA sought comment Monday (http://xrl.us/bnnhmj). “We're looking for information to help air carriers and operators decide if they can allow more widespread use of electronic devices in today’s aircraft,” said Acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “We also want solid safety data to make sure tomorrow’s aircraft designs are protected from interference.” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said: “With so many different types of devices available, we recognize that this is an issue of consumer interest.” “It’s about time,” said CTIA Vice President Jot Carpenter. “It strikes me as silly that I can read a book at take-off, but if the book has been downloaded to an e-reader or tablet, then I have to wait until we've reached 10,000 feet or some arbitrary cut-off determined by the government or the airlines. Reading is reading and it shouldn’t make a difference whether I bought a book or newspaper at Hudson News or downloaded the same content while waiting to board my flight. And since most hardback books are heavier than an e-reader, please don’t tell me that this is a ’safety issue.'” Carpenter said research shows that electronic devices don’t pose an interference threat to the electronic systems in commercial aircraft. “The bottom line is that this has always struck me as an antiquated rule that no one could explain, especially since there are several airlines that offer tablets for their pilots,” he said. In December, the White House’s “We the People” website gave users an opportunity to sign a petition on allowing airline passengers to use the Amazon Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android phones and other devices in “airline mode” during takeoffs and landings (http://xrl.us/bmj76n). “Access” to that petition “has expired, because it failed to meet the signature threshold,” according to the petition’s page. Under terms last revised Oct. 3, 2011, petitions must reach 150 signatures within 30 days to “cross the first threshold and be searchable within WhiteHouse.gov,” and 25,000 within 30 days to “cross the second threshold and require a response” from the White House (http://1.usa.gov/Rj5jXA).
Days before the Tribune Company expects to clear a major hurdle in its long exit from bankruptcy, consumer advocate groups renewed their objections to requests from the company that would let its broadcast-newspaper cross ownership (NBCO) ban waivers survive a change in control of Tribune’s broadcast licenses. Free Press, Media Alliance, the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET/CWA), the United Church of Christ and the Benton Foundation said in a letter Friday (http://xrl.us/bnnd46) that Tribune’s requests for waivers of the ban must be evaluated under the standard adopted with the rule in 1975 because a federal appeals court has remanded the commission’s most recent attempts to change it. Meanwhile, Tribune’s bankruptcy proceeding may finally be approaching an end. Creditors opposing the reorganization plan recently approved by a bankruptcy court have until Wednesday to post a $1.5 billion bond in order to stay it, court filings show.
Cable operators would be able to buy CLECs in the same geographic area without getting both FCC permission and approval of the deals by sometimes multiple local franchise authorities, under a draft commission order, agency and industry officials said. They said the order would forbear from subjecting cable/CLEC combinations to the waiver process under Section 652(b) of the 1996 Telecom Act. The draft grants NCTA’s petition for forbearance, and if not approved by the middle of next month forbearance would automatically take effect because it would be considered to have been deemed granted (CD June 1 p19), commission and industry officials said.
The Justice Department and FCC Thursday laid out terms for allowing Verizon Wireless to buy AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox, along with the marketing and other business agreements announced at the same time as the spectrum sales. As expected, DOJ’s focus was almost exclusively on the commercial agreements. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski concurrently circulated a draft order approving the Verizon/cable transactions as well as Verizon’s proposed spectrum swaps with T-Mobile and Leap Wireless. He said the T-Mobile deal removes many of the concerns about the spectrum sale. Opponents of the transactions were quick to say the conditions don’t go far enough. Jobs will be lost, the Communications Workers of America warned.
The FCC’s review of the Verizon Wireless/cable deals has reached its final stage, agency officials said Friday. An order approving the deals could circulate as early as this week, agency officials said Friday. Meanwhile, Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Brian Higgins, both New York Democrats, urged federal regulators to give Verizon Wireless’s proposed buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox extra-close scrutiny. That’s especially so given accompany marketing and other agreements, they said during a call with reporters Friday sponsored by the Communications Workers of America. A Verizon Wireless spokesman questioned CWA’s motives in turning up the heat on the deal as an order nears.