Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., is moving ahead with legislation to update the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and require independent agencies, such as the FCC, to review past regulations, the House Commerce Oversight Subcommittee chairman said after a hearing Thursday. The FCC is one agency that’s not doing enough to reduce regulation, Stearns and other subcommittee Republicans said. FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, testifying alongside commissioners from the FTC and other independent agencies, agreed that the FCC should be more deregulatory.
Notable CROSS rulings
Mobile operators’ failure to end “roaming rip-offs” calls for a “fundamentally new” regulatory approach, said European Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes Wednesday. The European Commission proposed measures to let customers sign roaming agreements separate from their contracts with their national services and keep the same cellphone numbers, and to give alternative providers the right to use others’ networks in other EU countries at regulated wholesale prices. The move brought cautious cheers from the head of the European Parliament’s industry committee. The GSM Association Europe said the changes need “assessing in detail."
"It’s about time” the FCC fully junked the fairness doctrine, as Chairman Julius Genachowski said this week it will do (CD June 9 p14), the National Religious Broadcasters group said. “The failure to have removed it by now appears to have been be an anomaly, but it continued to fuel justified suspicions that the free-speech-strangling rule was not really dead after all,” NRB General Counsel Craig Parshall said Wednesday. “We look forward to the Chairman launching an immediate Commission action to make his intent official.” An FCC report on media’s future, released at Thursday’s meeting, recommended the rule be deleted, noted Steve Waldman, who wrote the study. “You've already taken care of that one, I can cross that one off,” he said about the report’s recommendations.
Europe made progress on its digital agenda over the last year, but results in some areas are still “disappointing,” the European Commission said Tuesday. The first digital agenda scorecard, which measured how well countries performed in meeting 13 agreed targets from May 2010-May 2011, showed that 65 percent of the population now uses the Internet yet rollout of superfast broadband lags, the EC said. Of the 13 targets, it said regular Internet use, online shopping and e-government services are all on the rise. There’s still “considerable room for development” of on-demand services and online music subscriptions, which now have significant markets only in the largest European countries, it said. There was mixed progress in broadband availability and take-up, with very high-speed broadband concentrated in a few, mostly urban, areas, it said. Adoption of fixed broadband is increasing, but the growth rate in 2010 was the lowest since 2002, the EC said. It said the slowdown is troubling because nearly 40 percent of homes still have no broadband connection. Coverage of 3G mobile networks reached 90 percent in 2010. Europe’s goal is for universal coverage at 30 Mbps, already available in nearly 30 percent of households, the EC said. Only 5 percent of all fixed lines deliver speeds of 30 Mbps and above, it said. Cross-border e-commerce and use of the Internet by small and mid-sized enterprises remains sluggish, it said. Roaming prices are down, but are still more than three times as expensive as domestic calls, it said. Another weak area is public spending on research and development, the EC said. The 10 million homes not served by broadband must be reached by a combination of technologies, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said at a high-level broadband conference in Brussels. She said she favors a mix of infrastructure -- wired networks as well as terrestrial or satellite wireless -- because while wireless technology doesn’t perform as well as advanced wired networks, it’s “good and getting better.” Satellites already contribute to the goal of broadband for all, but Europe’s clear mandate on basic broadband should spur the sector to continue long-term investment, she said. Another reason for a mix of technologies is that it promotes competition among platforms, she said. “We don’t want to pick winners,” Kroes said. She said she wants to “send a clear signal” to the market and public investors that “we cannot afford to rule out viable solutions” in the race to deliver broadband for all by 2013. The scorecard confirms the decline in revenue and investment by telecom operators for the second year in a row, despite the boom in data traffic and consumer broadband take-up, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association. The disconnect between traffic increases and revenue growth calls for a “broader reflection on the economy of the sector and its impact on the future of the Internet,” said ETNO Executive Board Chairman Luigi Gambardella. ETNO urged the EC to allow new business models to emerge from the market, such as differentiated offers and commercial agreements on traffic delivery. It also wants the EC to encourage national regulators to use a more targeted approach to next-generation access networks, and to speed consumer adoption of fast and ultra-fast networks by updating copyright and licensing laws to enable more legitimate online offers. Alternative operators said they're worried about Europe falling behind on broadband speeds. The main problem is that “most of Europe’s historic telcos are continuing to sweat old copper networks” while other regions in the world have moved to high-speed fiber, said European Competitive Telecommunications Association Director Ilsa Godlovitch. The EC must ensure there’s a link, as with other utility industries, between investments companies make to upgrade their infrastructure and what they're allowed to charge for their networks, she said. In most countries, incumbents are paid for renewing their networks regardless of whether they invest in new ones, she said. Satellite operators applauded Kroes for recognizing what they called their sector’s crucial role in delivering 100 percent broadband coverage. Despite a clear political objective, rising user needs and the availability of funding, Europe’s digital divide remains, said European Satellite Operators’ Association Secretary General Aarti Holla. She said ESOA wants local authorities to “move away from a one size fits all approach,” think pragmatically and be creative in finding solutions for unconnected areas.
EU governments mostly agree with the European Commission’s proposed five-year spectrum policy plan but the “particularly difficult” subject area means more work is needed to reconcile differences among countries and between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, Hungarian Information and Communication Minister Zsolt Nyitrai said at a Friday Telecom Council meeting. Hungary, which currently holds the EU Presidency, has made every effort to accommodate the concerns raised by governments, but several issues will be left to the incoming Polish Presidency to try to resolve, he said. One of the chief questions is whether all, or most, EU members will be able to free up the 800 MHz “digital dividend” band by 2013, which the EC badly wants.
Many Tennis Channel advertisers also buy spots on Comcast’s sports networks, the administrative law judge overseeing the network’s case against the cable operator was told Tuesday. There’s a large overlap between top advertisers on the channel and those who also buy ads on Comcast’s Golf Channel and Versus, Tennis Channel Senior Vice President Gary Herman testified. He said the independent channel’s growth in ad dollars and subscribers has been curtailed by Comcast’s refusal to move it to a more widely purchased tier of cable service (CD April 26 p6). A lawyer for Comcast asked Herman about a dozen questions on other channels not owned by the cable operator that have even more advertiser overlap.
A Belgian court order forcing ISPs to use filtering or blocking to prevent unauthorized downloads violates in principle fundamental rights, European Court of Justice Advocate General (AG) Pedro Cruz Villalon said Thursday in an advisory opinion. Restrictions on Internet users’ rights are permissible only under laws that are accessible, clear and predictable, he said. The opinion isn’t binding, but the ECJ usually follows its advisors’ recommendations. Meanwhile, a French parliamentary panel recommended that the government avoid blocking as much as possible because of its negative side effects.
The European Commission and U.S. government agreed on 10 information and communication technology services trade principles, the EC said Monday. The pact requires them to promote the principles globally to open up ICT networks and services and allow service providers to vie for contracts with local incumbents on an equal footing, it said. The principles are: (1) Transparent rules for trade in ICT and ICT services. (2) Open networks for consumers to use for distributing information, applications and services of their choice. (3) Cross-border information flow. (4) No requirement to use local infrastructure for ICT services. (5) Encouraging governments to allow full foreign participation in their ICT services sector. (6) Efficient spectrum use. (7) Independent regulators overseeing ICT services. (8) Simple authorization of competition telecom services. (9) ICT suppliers to have the right to interconnect with other service providers to access publicly available networks and services. (10) International cooperation to try to increase digital literacy in third-world countries to reduce the digital divide. The trade agreement won’t affect EU or U.S. rights to retain their respective policy approaches to intellectual property protection, privacy and personal data and the enhancement of cultural diversity, the EC said. They also don’t change the parties’ rights and obligations under the World Trade Organization or General Agreement on Trade in Services, it said. The agreement was made under the aegis of the Transatlantic Economic Council, it said.
The FCC delayed for three more months and for the 15th time a deadline for changes to existing requests to be exempted from cross-ownership media rules or to seek permanent waivers. The Media Bureau approved a request from Bonneville International, Calvary Inc., Cox Enterprises, Morris Communications and Scranton Times for delay, said an order issued late Thursday and signed by Bureau Chief Bill Lake. The new filing deadline is July 5, he wrote.
The House Communications Subcommittee approved a bill to overturn the FCC net neutrality rule from December, over protests by Democrats. Dividing by party Wednesday afternoon, the committee voted 15-8 in favor of a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act authored by Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. Democrats held up the vote by flooding the markup with seven amendments. Walden rejected them because he said resolutions under the CRA statute are not subject to amendment. In a new development, GOP-sought witness RapidDSL admitted to slowing Netflix on its network. A Netflix spokesman said, “Consumers should be able to receive what they want over the Internet."