And Of Course, FCC Sides With Verizon In Argument With Cable Cos.

from the no-surprise-there dept

Last month we pointed out that the cable companies had filed a complaint with the FCC accusing Verizon of some shady practices in trying to get customers to stay, even after they'd already agreed to switch to cable. Since most customers want to keep their home phone number, the cable companies needed to contact Verizon to make the switch. At that point, Verizon would immediately contact those customers to prevent them from switching. As the cable companies pointed out, this gave the telcos an unfair advantage. They were using information they learned from elsewhere (the group in charge of managing number portability) to steal customers back from the cable companies. Of course, given how today's FCC tends to think that telcos are always right and cable co's are always wrong, it will surprise probably none of you, that the FCC has no problem with Verizon's practices. Perhaps the cable companies should have waited until a new FCC commish was sworn in before making this complaint.

Filed Under: cable, fcc, number portability, telcos
Companies: comcast, fcc, time warner, verizon

Justice Department Sues Fox Over Failure To Pay Indecency Fines

from the the-definition-of-indecency dept

Remember how Fox was simply refusing to pay an indecency fine issued by the FCC? Well, it appears that the FCC isn't too happy about that and has had the Justice Department file some lawsuits against the various Fox affiliates refusing to pay (it turns out a few affiliates did pay). Before filing the lawsuits, the FCC rejected Fox's appeal without comment, but merely by saying that Fox's appeal to the FCC was 14 pages too long and the company hadn't asked permission to exceed the limit. Fox called this response "offensive," apparently resisting the more hilarious option of calling it "indecent." In the meantime, it looks like Fox will have yet another indecency case to fight in court to go along with the Supreme Court case on indecency that also involves Fox.

Filed Under: fcc, fines, indecency
Companies: fcc, fox, news corp

What A Concept: The President Should Appoint People Who Understand Technology

from the well,-duh dept

We've complained plenty about elected officials who don't understand technology but have no problem regulating it -- but the problem extends way beyond elected officials. Tim Wu has a bunch of recommendations on how the next President can fix tech policy in the US and it pretty much all boils down to one thing: appoint people who actually understand technology. That means not appointing lobbyists and lawyers to the FCC and getting a real infrastructure expert to be a "broadband czar." These aren't bad ideas, but it's positively frightening that it even needs to be brought up at all. Have we really reached the point that almost everyone in charge of crafting tech-related policy doesn't have even the slightest tech background?

Filed Under: appointments, broadband czar, fcc, policy, tech policy

Kevin Martin's Latest Gift To Telcos: Dismissing Skype Petition

from the we-don't-need-no-discussion-at-all.. dept

A little over a year ago, Skype filed a petition with the FCC asking to extend the Carterfone decision to mobile networks. The Carterfone ruling was what allowed people the opportunity to connect non-AT&T telephones to the phone network, and kicked off an awful lot of innovation in the telephone arena (getting everyone past the black rotary phones). The Skype petition was a bit misguided, because the situation in the mobile world was quite different than the AT&T telephone monopoly of the 1960s. In fact, there is a lot more competition and openness in the mobile world -- and that competition has pushed many of the players to continue to open up at a greater rate, knowing they need to in order to compete.

So, it probably doesn't come as much surprise to find out that telco buddy Kevin Martin is dismissing the Skype petition outright. He announced this at the CTIA conference, where it was greeted by applause -- suggesting that it was mostly employees from mobile operators in the room. Martin pointed out that there was a lot of competition in the mobile space and also noted Verizon Wireless' move towards openness. Of course, it may be a bit early to declare Verizon Wireless truly open, and it seems a bit odd to dismiss the Skype petition out of hand without any public discussion. While it's probably true that the Skype petition was asking for unnecessary regulations, you would think that at least a discussion could have been held around questions of openness on mobile networks before the petition was totally dismissed.

Filed Under: carterfone, fcc, open networks, wireless
Companies: fcc, skype

Fox Simply Refuses To Pay Indecency Fine

from the or-there's-that-option... dept

With the Supreme Court already agreeing to review how the FCC determines indecency in a case involving Fox, it appears that Fox has taken a rather aggressive stance concerning a different case where it was fined: it's simply refusing to pay the fine. The FCC originally fined Fox $1.2 million for an episode of "Married by America" that apparently included clips of a stripper with the "naughty bits" pixelated out. After Fox appealed, the fine was reduced to $91,000, covering just the affiliates where complaints were lodged (which seems pretty weak, since reports have shown that indecency complaints are usually sent in by those who didn't even see the show in question, but were alerted to it by lobbying groups that are pushing for more regulation of TV content). Either way, Fox has simply decided not to pay the $91,000, while also asking the FCC to rethink the fine. Somehow, given Kevin Martin's focus on indecency issues, one doubts he'll play along with this. Perhaps Fox is just hoping that it can stall long enough for a new FCC commish to come into power.

Filed Under: fcc, fines, indecency
Companies: fcc, fox

Cable Companies Accuse Verizon Of Shady Practices To Prevent Customers From Leaving

from the so-we-hear-you're-leaving... dept

Comcast and Time Warner have complained to the FCC that Verizon is taking unfair advantage in preventing customers from dropping their phone service. The basic story is that the cable companies have been offering deals on various "bundles" of TV, internet and phone service, all over cable. When customers agree to switch, most want to keep their existing home phone number (which is allowed under number portability rules). The cable companies take care of that part, informing the phone company of the switch -- at which point (the cable companies say) Verizon calls up those customers and offers them cash discounts to stick around. While it's quite common for telcos (or other firms for that matter) to offer customers who cancel deals to stay, this is somewhat different. The customer hasn't called to cancel in this case. It's just because Verizon owns the telephone network that it finds out about the switch and then proactively contacts the customers. Given the FCC's extra friendly terms with the telcos rather than cable co's, anyone think this has a chance of getting anywhere?

Filed Under: cable companies, fcc, number portability, telcos
Companies: comcast, time warner, verizon

DOJ Finally Approves XM-Sirius Merger

from the took-'em-long-enough dept

It only took over a year of ridiculous protests from traditional radio stations, but the Justice Department has finally decided that XM and Sirius can merge without creating a monopoly. It will be interesting to see if the NAB's own lobbying efforts helped disprove its point. The NAB, representing terrestrial radio stations argued vehemently that if XM and Sirius merged, it would create a "monopoly." The only problem with that statement is that if that were the case, it would mean that terrestrial radio wasn't competing in the same market. And, if that were true, why would the NAB care? So, by arguing so vehemently against the merger, it effectively showed what we all knew: terrestrial radio and satellite radio compete in the same market. Of course, the merger isn't a done deal yet, as the FCC still needs to weigh in. But given the amount of time it has already taken for the DoJ to make its decision, you would hope that the FCC was at least close to being done with its review as well. Update: No surprise here, the NAB is "astonished" by the decision.

Filed Under: fcc, justice department, mergers, nab, radio, satellite radio, terrestrial radio
Companies: sirius, xm

Lessons From The 700 MHz Auction? More Of The Same

from the no-surprises-here dept

So the winners of the 700 MHz spectrum auction have been announced and to say that there were no surprises would be an understatement. It played out almost exactly as most observers predicted it would. Verizon Wireless ended up with the C-block (with Google only bidding right up to the cut-off amount to force Verizon to play by "open" rules) and AT&T added some spectrum as well, which it can add to the 700 MHz spectrum it picked up separately last year. The end result? Nothing too exciting for consumers. Whether or not Verizon Wireless's required "openness" makes a difference remains to be seen. What didn't happen was someone new entering the scene -- meaning that we're not going to see anything really new come out of all this spectrum.

In fact, perhaps the most bizarre bid of all was EchoStar spending $700 million on spectrum that can only be used for one-way communication. One-way communication is less and less useful these days. EchoStar has been making some interesting moves of late, but using this spectrum to build a mobile TV broadcast solution (which is what many expect) makes little sense. It will cost the company billions, and then they'll be limited to a one-way communication system just as people are recognizing that the real value is in multi-directional communications. It may give the company another option rather than relying on satellites (which are costly and troublesome at times), but the expense is way too high considering the limitations. So, even with EchoStar, we're talking about "more of the same." That's too bad, as there was a quiet hope that someone different would step in and do something really new and interesting with this valuable spectrum.

Filed Under: 700 mhz auction, fcc, spectrum, wireless
Companies: at&t, echostar, verizon wireless

Comcast Says FCC Has No Authority To Stop Traffic Shaping

from the lawsuit-already-shaping-up dept

This probably won't come as much of a surprise, but Comcast is now suggesting that the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate its traffic shaping activities. This comes in response to Kevin Martin suggesting that the FCC would rule against Comcast for traffic shaping (which seemed odd enough, considering that Martin was perfectly fine with AT&T traffic shaping). Comcast is already suing the FCC over its telco favoritism, so this might just be one more thing to toss on the pile.

It's tough to know who to favor in this situation -- but Comcast may be technically correct that this extends beyond the FCC's authority. Still, it might not be good policy for the company to say so, considering the efforts being made to put in place net neutrality legislation. If supporters of this legislation notice what Comcast is saying, it might just explicitly add language to the bill to give the FCC the authority that Comcast now says it doesn't have. So, even if Comcast is right, saying so out loud may not have been the wisest move at this juncture.

Filed Under: authority, fcc, net neutrality, traffic shaping
Companies: comcast, fcc

FCC Finally Admits Its Broadband Penetration Numbers Are 'Stunningly Meaningless'

from the after-releasing-its-latest-report dept

For years, the FCC has been publishing numbers about broadband penetration in the US that were clearly bogus. They considered anything above 200kbps as broadband and did zip-code level comparisons. Thus, if one house in a zip code had access to broadband from a certain provider, the FCC assumed that every house in that zip code had access to broadband. As someone who lives in the heart of Silicon Valley and could not get DSL above 128k until a few months ago, I can point out how inaccurate that claim is. DSL is such a local technology that judging it on a zip-code-wide system is bound to be woefully inaccurate, even in heavily populated areas. Despite having the government condemn these bogus stats over and over again, the FCC kept releasing them... and it's done so again (pdf).

However, the good news is that it's finally admitting that its own numbers are bogus and changing the way it calculates broadband penetration. Why they're doing so right after releasing the latest report makes little sense -- but the FCC isn't known as being the most logically run organizations. In fact, it's so ridiculous to release bogus numbers after admitting that they're bogus, that two of the FCC's commissioners voted against releasing the report at all, with one calling it "stunningly meaningless."

The new methodology will consider 768kbps the cutoff for considering a connection as "broadband." It will also look at both up and downstream speeds, rather than just downstream. Finally, and most importantly, it will stop using the zip code system for determining penetration, but will require ISPs to report subscribers at the census-block level, which is much more fine-grained. This would present a much more accurate picture, so expect to hear ISPs complaining about the new methodology in 3... 2... 1....

Filed Under: broadband, broadband penetration, fcc
Companies: fcc