Monty Tayloe

Carriers, state regulatory commissions and public interest groups united in FCC docket 11-42 to again oppose an FCC proposal to raise the Lifeline wireless broadband minimum service standard. Three NARUC Telecom Committee members emphasized they want no change to the MSS, in a virtual news conference Tuesday. Raising the MSS was condemned by every filing in the docket responding to the National Lifeline Association (NaLA) petition.

An item on circulation listed by the FCC as involving rules on FM translator interference would deny all petitions for reconsideration on revamped interference dispute procedures (see 1908160056), an official told us Tuesday. Low-power FM entities, including the LPFM Coalition, pushed for rollback of the rule changes, specifically the limits on interference complaints and the 45 dBu contour. The recon petitions weren’t expected to get much traction (see 1908270061).

The FCC will provide paid internships and invest additional resources in recruiting students from educational institutions serving minorities starting in January, said a news release Thursday. It's a joint effort by Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. For the past several years, the FCC only offered voluntary, unpaid internships, the release said. “Establishing a paid internship program will help students who would otherwise have to forego an internship due to financial constraints,” Pai said. “My goal for this initiative is for our communications sector to better reflect the diversity of people across the country,” Starks said. “We can’t produce effective communication policies if we don’t accurately account for the diversity of issues Americans face.” CTA Vice President-Policy and Regulatory Affairs Jamie Susskind, a former aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr, praised the initiative. “As someone who was a former FCC intern, as well as someone who used to hire FCC interns, it would have been great to have paid internships,” she tweeted. The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council hopes this "will encourage those the FCC regulates -- and others in the industry --- to do their part to achieve a diverse pipeline in terms of talent, ownership, and in the supply chain," said Chair Ronald Johnson.

The record industry has started to climb out of the valley it fell into during the initial rise of digital music and file sharing but has further to go, said panelists Thursday at an event held by George Mason University’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property. Industry revenue declined 50% after 1999 and has started to climb back up, said RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier. Music streaming jump-started that growth, said Garrett Levin, CEO of the Digital Media Association, which represents Pandora, Amazon and other streamers. Streaming led to increased music consumption, said Larry Miller, director of New York University's music business program. Levin said over a third of internet users pay for a premium streaming service. That changed the way the sector works, said Miller: “Music has become a consumption business, with no peak, only a hill surrounded by plateaus.” Emerging players such as TikTok should pursue partnerships and licensing agreements with the music industry instead of shifting liability to users, Glazier said.

A draft order on the Lifeline minimum service standard is based partly on two petitions for reconsideration filed by entities that uniformly oppose the current draft (see 2008240024), said FCC and industry officials in recent interviews. The text of the draft order and the MSS formula it uses haven’t been released. Officials confirmed it partially grants petitions filed in docket 11-42 by CTIA and many wireless eligible telecom carriers that sought changes to the way the MSS is calculated.

Broadcasters and their attorneys don’t expect substantive action on the 2018 quadrennial review this year, they said in interviews. The Supreme Court isn’t expected to announce a decision on the FCC’s cert petition appealing the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Prometheus decision until early October, and then the presidential election will be imminent. In past election years, that meant an FCC was unlikely to take up controversial or complicated topics. Chairman Ajit Pai is also believed to be eyeing an exit no matter the election results, numerous industry officials said. “Given the timing, with the court considering cert and the pending election, there’s not likely to be action before the end of the year,” said Lerman Senter's Sally Buckman.

Calls to use ancillary service fees generated by ATSC 3.0 datacasting to fund consumer purchases of compatible equipment are a “red-herring,” said One Media in replies in docket 20-145 for Monday’s midnight deadline for responses to a June NPRM (see 2008180060). Statute requires the fees be deposited into the DTV Transition and Public Safety Fund, One Media said. Instead, the FCC would be “well-within its authority” to delay imposing fees on 3.0 datacasting for five years, said the company. NAB called the idea from Public Knowledge and the Open Technology Institute “legally questionable.” NAB urged the FCC “to move expeditiously to conclude this proceeding without adding regulatory hurdles for broadcasters.” Don’t nullify broadcaster obligations to pay such fees, said PK and OTI. “Revisit its ancillary and supplementary services rules as applied to Broadcast Internet services to ensure its fees and other regulations provide regulatory parity and reflect broadcasters’ evolving business ambitions,” asked CTIA. The public interest groups and NCTA again said the FCC should upgrade requirements for broadcasters to mandate an HD stream. “In considering whether the provision of such services unlawfully derogates broadcast television services, the Commission should be guided by the current state of technology and consumer expectations,” the cable association said. That the agency should “mechanically define ‘advanced’ with reference to a certain pixel count specified in a 1996 technical standard is obvious folly,” said ATSC 3.0 consortium BitPath. The FCC should “take measures that add protections for LPTV stations during the nation’s progression toward the offering of robust Next Gen TV services,” said the National Religious Broadcasters.

The FCC won’t freeze radio regulatory fees or change the way it calculates them, and will continue phasing in fees for satellite providers, said an order and Further NPRM on FY 2020 regulatory assessments released Monday. Direct full-time equivalent employee allocations “best reflect the benefits provided to the payor,” the order said. The item, unanimously approved by the full FCC, includes measures intended to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic but doesn’t go as far as some broadcast commenters had requested. The agency can’t waive 2020 fees or late payments, or suspend fee increases over the current lack of advertising, the order said. Instead, the order streamlines the process of seeking hardship reductions or waivers, lowers the interest rate for installment payments of regulatory fees, and allows “red light” licensees to seek such relief. The agency will issue public notices with greater detail. The order adopts the population-based fees for TV broadcasters proposed in an earlier NPRM. “The population-based metric better conforms with the actual service authorized here -- broadcasting television to the American people,” the order said. “We disagree with the radio broadcasters that we should ignore our long-standing methodology in order to freeze regulatory fees for (and thus benefit) radio broadcasters at the expense of other regulatees,” said the order. “Because the Commission is statutorily obligated to recover the amount of its appropriation through regulatory fees, these fees are a zero-sum situation.” The agency also collect regulatory fees from most non-U.S. licensed space stations that have U.S. market access, the order said. Assessing the same regulatory amount on those stations as on U.S. licensed space stations “will better reflect the benefits received by these operators through the Commission’s adjudicatory, enforcement, regulatory, and international coordination activities,” the order said. The FNPRM seeks comment on methods for calculating fees for non-geostationary orbit satellites.

Lifeline providers are looking to FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly as a potential avenue for shifting a draft order circulated last month (see 2007300064) that would change the formula setting the minimum service standard to produce an MSS of 4.5 GB per month, said an industry attorney and an FCC official. That’s lower than the 11.75 GB the MSS will require starting in December without FCC action but higher than the freeze at the current 3 GB requested by virtually all Lifeline docket commenters. “We want them to do something, but we want it to be something that won’t harm Lifeline subscribers," said Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Jenna Leventoff. “Vulnerable low-income Americans shouldn’t be left behind during this COVID-19 pandemic,” said attorney Judson Hill, who represents Lifeline provider TruConnect.

ATSC 3.0-focused entities BitPath, OneMedia and Pearl TV want the FCC to delay or ameliorate congressionally required ancillary services fees on broadcaster datacasting, while public interest groups believe those fees should be used to cover costs to consumers from purported disruptions in the 3.0 transition, said comments posted at the FCC in docket 20-145 (see 2006090055). Noncommercial educational broadcasters want to be exempt from the fees, and low-power TV groups seek more flexibility to benefit from 3.0.