Recently in FCC Category

I stumbled on this photo taken by Mobile Diner's Chris Parandian...




Patrolling for Fleeting Expletives is especially dangerous, I assume.

This has been old news for a while, but Congress is finally starting to ask questions, as CNN Money reports:

In a letter sent to the companies Tuesday, Dingell noted that the five-member FCC could be forced to operate with just four commissioners - two Republicans and two Democrats - as early as November, and they could split votes on controversial decisions.

Currently, the commission consists of three Republicans and two Democrats, but Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate's term ends when Congress ends its current session. A new commissioner likely won't be appointed until after a new administration and Congress begins next year.

I've written about this before, and the folks at Communications Daily were on it over a month ago. But many FCC-watchers are neglecting to mention the fact that Tate was supposed to have been gone last week, the 26th having been the date that the House was to adjourn sine die (ending the 110th Congress). The Senate, on the other hand, will be holding pro forma sessions to prevent President Bush from replacing Tate with a recess appointment.

Another thing -- if Sen. Obama wins the election, there is a good possibility that Chairman Martin (K-Mart) may resign, leaving room for Obama to elevate either Michael Copps or Jonathan Adelstein to the Chairmanship, or bring in his own man in addition to replacing Tate's GOP-held seat (the FCC cannot have more than 3 of the same party).

But this may not happen until March, so the FCC will be operating 2-2. And currently, forbearance petitions (requests for the FCC to waive rules) are deemed granted if the Commission doesn't act, or there is a tie vote (say the Telcos). Dingell wants to know why a regulation should be automatically waived in the case of a tie (or no vote), as opposed to requiring an affirmative vote before granting forbearance.

Good question. .

Good question.

Another filing deadline, another blast of press releases about the Comcast "network management" debacle.

To quote the great philosopher Rodney King, "can't we all just get along?"

No, really. This topic gets people in an uproar, whether it's the good and well-meaning people at Free Press and Public Knowledge, who brought the complaint, or the folks at Comcast and their NCTA brethren, who have made a valiant effort at reaching out to the Internet community and explaining themselves. They have a great blog. Seriously.

At first, I think there was some justified anger out there. I know there was some major ranting on this blog about what was, in hindsight was a poor P.R. response on the part of Comcast.

See, Network Neutrality was originally this fear that the owners of the big pipes were going to charge Google and others premiums to have their content carried, despite the fact that GOOG and their ilk already pay. This came out of some rather inartful comments by the CEO of what was then AT&T, who ranted about Internet companies making money using "his" infrastructure.

This whole "network management" issue is totally different, but the Network Neutrality debate shifted from the long-haul to the last mile. And Comcast, bless them, didn't react well. First they said there was nothing going on, then admitted it. Then back in March they announced an agreement to try and work out the technical issues that make Cable so difficult a platform to deliver consistant bandwidth on when P2P applications come into play.

Skip ahead to today. Free Press blasted out a release saying it's time for Comcast to "come clean" on their practices, when we know what they are doing, and have known for months.

"Last month, the FCC found Comcast guilty of violating users' online rights," Free Press said. But let's be honest here. Guilty? Last time I looked, not only was the FCC not a criminal court, but there is even dispute over whether or not the FCC can regulate broadband.

But a Free Press spokesperson said that guilty, which has a specific meaning in criminal law, was appropriate as a term of art, "given the amount of deception involved."

Ben Scott, FP's Policy Director even suggested that Comcast might go "AWOL," and not file. But a spokesperson for Comcast was quite adamant in assuring me that the "highly technical" filings would be in the commission's hands "by close of business." Comcast will also make them available at http://www.comcast.net/networkmanagement after filing them with the commission.

Let's cool off until we see what everyone's cards are, shall we?

It's K-Mart!!!

Comcast responded to the FCC's order to revise and explain their network management practice.

It's simple, really. They're just going to cut you off at 250GB.

Now think about this. The original premise behind this issue was that Comcast was throttling BitTorrent traffic, and potentially cutting off a rival provider of video downloads. Now it's being turned into the more general issue of what is a fair amount of bandwidth.

But here are two points to consider when evaluating Comcast's announcement:

1. Comcast doesn't believe the FCC has the authority to tell them what to do on this. They may be right. The guys over at Technology Liberation Front have some good rationale behind it, and even Bill Kennard, former FCC chairman says that the Commission's K-Mart led majority (since when does Martin agree with Adelstein and Copps?) is probably overreaching.

2. Comcast doesn't care about downloads. They care about uploads. The big idea is that if you can create content, they are no longer the gatekeeper. Already discussion on FriendFeed is saying this. I'm not so sure it's true. Sure, Comcast has an interest in getting you to pay them for cable, etc, but how do they benefit from screwing their customers? Free Press says the real issue is one of monopoly. This might be true where Verizon and ATT haven't been able to roll out Fiber To The Home and where you can't get DBS or DSL, but Comcast doesn't have a monopoly on Internet access.

I would be more interested in discussing #1 than making emotional arguments about #2.

Ok, so yesterday I posted the witness list for today's Net Neutrality/Broadband hearing. I could have woken up at 5am to beat the line standers and get a seat with the lobbyists who pay people to stand in line for them in the halls of the Rayburn building, but I didn't. I could be listening on the Audio Webcast. I tuned in for about 10 minutes, and haven't been impressed yet. I've got other projects, other things to work on, so I'm listening but my attention has not been caught. Why? Have you ever turned on your favorite TV show expecting a new episode and instead getting a rerun, or worse yet, a 3 hour extended version of American Idol? You know what you'll be seeing and hearing. No surprises, nothing to discuss with your friends. Just the same, this hearing, despite a few new faces, was a rerun in a series over the past year or so, including a few at the FCC. 

As if FCC Chairman Kevin Martin troubles weren't enough as is, yesterday they Chairmen of both the full Energy and Commerce Committee and the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet sent a letter inquiring as to the status of the XM-Sirius merger.

Read it and weep.

How about those June hearings?

I'm not sure why this hasn't gotten more play, but former FCC engineer Michael Marcus pointed out this shocking article in RCR Wireless News which calls attention to a staff report prepared for House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) which strongly suggests that the Committee hold hearings on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's management practices, citing an investigation that began last year and strongly suggests that Martin's management style has hurt the Commission

"We have conducted more than 30 interviews with current and former [FCC] employees as well as industry representatives and private citizens. The bottom line is that the [FCC] process appears broken and most of the blame appears to rest with Chairman Martin," stated an April 28 staff memo to Dingell and oversight and investigations subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

Between the DTV transition, the recent spectrum auctions and the White Spaces controversy, along with his strange fascination with prioritizing indecency fines, network management, and the Commission's turtle-slow merger review process which is still delaying XM-Sirius, what could happen next?

It's the jocks versus the geeks, only this time the playing field is the FCC, not the high school cafeteria. 

We are deeply troubled by the very serious disruption and harm that portable device 

interference will cause to sport broadcast programming, whether pre-recorded or live, and the 

conduct of  the games themselves.  Sports programming relies extensively on wireless microphones and related audio equipment in its production and distribution. 

...The ESPN Monday Night Football ("MNF") broadcast alone requires 145 wireless frequencies for microphones, talkback and communications.  Under current conditions, one TV channel is simply not enough bandwidth to sustain the MNF broadcaster's needs. ..

The good people at the NYT have given me more reason to get excited about next month's NCTA Cable Show in New Orleans: Watching the speculation, rumour and intrigue behind who might try and take over Time Warner's cable systems, which are about to become sort of "up for grabs" as they get spun off.

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner Inc., continued to trim what has for years been the world's largest media company by announcing Wednesday that it would completely spin off its cable company.

The news -- which was not unexpected and follows an earlier transaction in which a portion of the cable unit was spun off into a separate public company -- came as Time Warner reported quarterly earnings that were largely in line with Wall Street's expectations.

This is going to be fun to watch for a number of reasons. Last time there was a major group of systems up for sale was when AT&T sold off their Cable systems, leading to a "friendly" competition between Cox Communications, and the eventual winner Comcast. That victory gave Comcast a huge market advantage in the number of subscribers, but Comcast, which has a reputation for fighting like Rocky, the unofficial mascot of its' home city of Philadelpha, may not be able to benefit from going after TIme Warner without helping Cox, their old Atlanta-based foes.