The FCC should adopt only rule changes that are “necessary to permit broadcasters to move forward with deployment” in its proceeding on ATSC 3.0, said NAB, CTA, America's Public TV Stations and the AWARN Alliance in joint comments in docket 16-142 Tuesday. “Rather than imposing mandates, the Commission should allow the consumer electronics industry to respond to market conditions and introduce Next Gen-compatible equipment as consumers demand it,” said the entities that introduced the original ATSC 3.0 petition. “The Commission should allow the market, not regulatory dictates, to determine whether or not Next Gen is successful.” Broadcasters shouldn't "obtain MVPD carriage of ATSC 3.0 signals (in which viewers may have little interest) by threatening existing television service (in which viewers have a great deal of interest),” commented the American Television Alliance. ATVA warned the broadcast transition shouldn’t be a burden to others, an issue the American Cable Association focused on. Since smaller cable companies face more capacity constraints and are less able to absorb unexpected costs, the broadcast transition “presents particular challenges and requires particularized solutions,” ACA said. Comments from private citizens dominated much of the docket earlier Tuesday, before trade groups and companies were expected to have weighed in later on deadline day. "There should be minimum tuner standards” mandated as part of the migration to next-gen broadcasting, commented Ronald Brey, of Rockford, Illinois. Minimum ATSC 3.0 tuner standards would “prevent overload by non-TV services and linearity requirements to reduce intermodulation distortion,” said the frequent commenter in past FCC radio and TV proceedings. “The tighter geographic packing of TV stations should require a specified minimum of adjacent channel rejection.”

Fight for the Future, a group that supports the 2015 net neutrality rules, is questioning whether distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDos) against the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System took place after HBO comedian John Oliver urged the public to weigh in on net neutrality (see 1705080042). Oliver directed viewers to “gofccyourself.com,” which redirects to the comment filing site. A former senior FCC official told us the problem is the FCC never really fixed ECFS after the last time it crashed in 2014 under similar circumstances, and three years ago, the agency made similar claims of a cyberattack. “Fight for the Future is extremely skeptical of the FCC's claim that they experienced a DDoS attack at the exact same time that large numbers of people would have been commenting on their site in support of Title II net neutrality protections following John Oliver's viral segment on Sunday,” the group said in a statement Tuesday. “We have now read that the FCC is claiming this also happened in 2014 during the last John Oliver segment about the issue, and we are even more skeptical.” The FCC should release its logs “to an independent security researcher or major media outlet who can verify their claims and inform the public about what really happened here,” the group said. “The agency has a responsibility to maintain a functioning website to receive large numbers of comments and feedback from the public.” Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, are probing the FCC statement. They sent a letter to the commission Tuesday asking several questions and urging the FCC to set up an alternate way to comment if need be, such as a dedicated email address. Schatz first made that suggestion in a Monday tweet. “Any potentially hostile cyber activities that prevent Americans from being able to participate in a fair and transparent process must be treated as a serious issue,” they wrote. They want answers by June 8: “Has the FCC sought assistance from other federal agencies in investigating and responding to these attacks? … Did the DDoS attacks prevent the public from being able to submit comments through the FCC’s website? If so, do you have an estimate of how many individuals were unable to access the FCC website or submit comments during the attacks? … Does the FCC have all of the resources and expertise it needs in order to combat attacks like those that occurred on May 8?” The FCC received and is reviewing the letter, a commission spokesman said. Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press, said his group has similar questions. "We share the skepticism, and at minimum hope the FCC will demonstrate that it's not characterizing a flood of comments as an attack,” Wood told us. Scott Cleland, chairman of NetCompetition, slammed the Oliver segment in an opinion article in The Hill. Cleland said Oliver is likely to have little impact given the makeup of the current FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai. “Is net neutrality policy the joke here?” Cleland asked. “Or is the joke really that net neutrality activists think late night comedy is the most effective way for them to influence the FCC on public policy?” Public interest group Popular Resistance said it launched a new campaign, Protect Our Internet. The group urged net neutrality supporters to engage in a campaign of “Ajit-ation.”

The FCC Wireline Bureau and other staff greenlighted the $1.5 billion FairPoint sale to Consolidated Communications, in a Monday order. The bureau, with the International and Wireless bureaus, said the deal serves the public interest, convenience and necessity, and the benefits overweigh potential harms. “Applicants have no overlapping service areas and we find that the transaction will result in some cost savings, improved service quality, and enhanced broadband services.” Staff granted a waiver of the price cap “all-or-nothing” rule: “Applicants have presented good cause to waive the rule as we do not believe the public interest would be served by requiring the Applicants to undertake the financial and administrative costs of converting the acquired rate-of-return exchanges to price cap regulation at this time.” The deal previously won shareholder and antitrust clearance, but still needs some state regulatory OKs, including from the three New England states where FairPoint is dominant. Consumer advocates and workers’ unions in those states seek conditions (see 1704250024).

Verizon has been featured in numerous transaction rumors, but none of them may prove correct, CEO Lowell McAdam said Monday in a presentation to investors. “There is an awful lot more hype in the marketplace then there is in the business community right now,” McAdam said. “There is a daily rumor about what we will or won’t do. There have been various announcements even over the last 24 hours.” McAdam said he's open to offers and will take phone calls, but observers shouldn’t read too much into that. “I like to consider myself a polite and hospitable person,” he said. “We don’t feel the urgency that seems to be out there in the analyst community, the banking community and the media.” Verizon pushed the envelope on 5G and that made a difference for the entire wireless industry, McAdam said. Two years ago, 5G was seen as something that would hit in 2022, he said. “I think we’ve seen when we put our effort behind a technology and you see the promise of a technology the entire industry seems to shift,” he said. The key to the IoT is battery life and industry needs to build batteries that last 10 years, he said. “When you look at connecting remote devices the game has changed completely,” he said. “You literally will consider embedding these chips into the paint on a highway or a parking lot so that you cannot only see how traffic is flowing but predict traffic flows and parking management and things like that.” Wireless and wireline networks are already converging, he said. “The largest fiber network in the country will probably be a wireless network,” he said. “We see the architecture … changing dramatically as a result of 5G.”

Satellite operators and WTA suggested a variety of changes to rules the FCC adopted between 2001 and 2004, in filings (see here, here and here) posted Friday in docket 16-251. The comments deadline in the Regulatory Flexibility Act rules review is May 15. Intelsat recommended eliminating Section 25.170's requirement for satellite operators to annually report satellites and spectrum unavailable for service, contact information for interference resolution and construction process and expected launch dates of authorized replacement satellites. It said the Section 25 requirement is largely redundant given other filings and notices, and requires something of satellite operators that terrestrial operators don't need to do. It also recommended modification of Section 25.119 rules requiring prior approval of pro forma transfers of control of non-common carrier satellite and earth station licenses, calling it "illogical" non-common carrier licenses holders "must undergo the labor- and time-intensive process of submitting an application for FCC approval" even though the agency recognizes pro forma transfer applications don't raise public interest issues. It recommended discontinuation of Form Schedule S, which contains technical information regarding proposed space station operations -- information that could be provided in spreadsheets and narratives "without having to use the burdensome Schedule S software." EchoStar and its Hughes Network Systems listed six Part 25 rules and two Part 2 rules they said should be eliminated or revised as "duplicative, unduly burdensome and no longer in the public interest." They include 25.111(e), requiring submission of a paper copy of an application to the International Bureau; 25.112 (a)(3), (b), not allowing applications for satellite use of spectrum prior to international allocations for such use; and 25.114, requiring separate space and earth station applications operating in the same network. WTA suggested eliminating or revising several Section 54 reporting requirements. One regulation it singled out for deleting was the Section 54.305 rule that provides high-cost support to a carrier acquiring exchanges from an unaffiliated carrier, with WTA saying it has created "orphan" exchanges that require separate accounting and come with high costs while getting little USF support. WTA also said Form 477 filing requirements should be annually, calling the current, twice-a-year requirement "very time consuming and expensive" for RLECs.

USTelecom asked the FCC to ensure "greater efficiencies" in the video relay service program for the deaf and hard of hearing, and to shore up "the overall sustainability" of the broader telecom relay service fund. In replies on a Further NPRM (see 1703230055), it lauded commission efforts to encourage VRS efficiencies and innovation to address cost issues, but said the agency recognized structural changes were "slow to arrive." Even with FCC 2013-2017 reductions in VRS provider compensation rates, overall TRS funding continues to increase as a "shrinking group of rate-payers" shoulder the costs, leading to a recent TRS administrator proposal to increase the industry contribution rate by 12 percent (see 1705030034), said the group Thursday in docket No. 10-51. Parties filed initial comments last month (see 1704250057). USTelecom said the FCC should reject Sorenson Communication's proposal that VRS become a "mandatory" service for common carriers. ASL Service Holdings (GlobalVRS) said it wasn't surprising Sorenson opposed rivals' VRS compensation proposal to achieve "provider diversity" and TRS stability. (The proposal would raise most rates while cutting further the traffic tier rate affecting Sorenson.) "The dominant provider seeks to solidify its virtual monopolization of the Program," replied ASL Service. "The dominant provider can trace its 'success' not to innovation, superior service, or efficiency, but rather to years of over compensation." Sorensen has concerns on the FNPRM, it replied and told Office of General Counsel officials including acting General Counsel Brendan Carr. In the meeting, it sought "equal treatment to VRS providers that provide more than 500,000 minutes per month." The path in the FNPRM would set Tier III "rates below costs," it replied, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. "If the Commission does not adopt one of Sorenson’s proposals for market-determined rates, the only rate in the record that meets ADA requirements is a $4.19 unitary per minute rate. Even if the Commission intends to push all costs of end user devices onto deaf consumers in violation of the ADA, the only justifiable rate in the record for VRS, without necessary equipment, is $3.73 per minute."

The FCC should stop states from writing broadband privacy rules or regulating VoIP and IP services, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Friday in remarks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Republican commissioner said he has discussed both with Chairman Ajit Pai. More than 10 states are mulling ISP privacy bills responding to President Donald Trump and Congress for using the Congressional Review Act to kill FCC privacy rules (see 1705050042). “It is both impractical and very harmful for each state to enact differing and conflicting privacy burdens on broadband providers, many of which serve multiple states, if not the entire country," said Pai. "If necessary, the Commission should be willing to issue the requisite decision to clarify the jurisdictional aspects of this issue.” O’Rielly slammed the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, which is battling with Charter over VoIP classification in U.S. District Court in St. Paul (see 1704040043): “Such inappropriate jurisdictional overreaches by states should be nipped in the bud.” O’Rielly, the federal chair of the Joint Board on Separations, acknowledged the FCC hasn’t made a clear statement about VoIP jurisdiction. “The commission should have just declared VoIP to be an interstate information service,” he said. “Arguably, VoIP is just an application not even subject to FCC jurisdiction much less that of individual states.” O’Rielly railed against what he sees as a “progressive agenda” to “vanquish capitalism and economic liberty.” He compared the FCC to ALEC, a conservative group that progressive groups criticized for allegedly writing bills on behalf of big firms: “Like ALEC, the new commission is facing its share of unwarranted and inappropriate criticism.” In revisiting net neutrality with an NPRM to be considered at the commissioners' May 18 meeting, the FCC aims to return to “its previous approach to broadband that enabled staggering innovation, creativity, competition, disruption and consumer benefit,” the commissioner said. The 2015 net neutrality rules weren’t necessary, he said. “All of the propaganda in the world cannot paper over the fact that these new burdens were not in response to actual marketplace events but hypothetical concerns dreamt up by radical activists.” O’Rielly cheered ALEC’s opposition to municipal broadband. “It would be easy, as some have done, to blindly support any means necessary to get more and faster broadband to people they represent,” he said. He said he’s “very aware that many homes in America do not have acceptable broadband today” -- that’s why he wants to modernize USF: “This, I believe is a defensible program and one that we seek to inject with as many market driven aspects as possible, including operating reverse auctions to minimize and narrow the amount of subsidy provided.”

ISPs invested about $5.6 billion, or 3.6 percent, less in 2015 and 16 than they likely would have without Title II Communications Act net neutrality rules, spending about $149 billion total, a Free State Foundation research associate blogged Friday. Michael Horney based the estimate on capital expenditure data on 16 of the largest ISPs for 2014-16, and also cited USTelecom data on broadband capital expenditures (see 1612140074). Free Press, which unlike FSF supports the 2015 FCC rules, disagreed with the analysis, while USTelecom said spending appears to be affected, and Oracle meanwhile seeks a return to pre-2015 rules. "This is not a regression analysis, so I cannot say by how much the regulatory uncertainty and costs imposed in the Open Internet Order negatively impacted broadband investment," wrote FSF's Horney. "If the FCC was right about broadband capital investment not being suppressed by the Open Internet Order, we should have expected the market to continue along or above its trend of investment growth." These "empty claims" are belied by publicly traded ISPs showing a 5.3 percent increase in investments in the two-year period, responded Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. USTelecom estimates were "flawed and vague numbers," and "Horney descends even further," Wood said. USTelecom’s "initial analysis strongly suggests that investment in 2016 continued to trend downward," the group blogged Friday following FSF. ISPs, usually comprising 90-95 percent of annual industry capital expenditures, spent $71 billion in 2016, down from $73 billion in 2015, wrote USTelecom Vice President-Industry Analysis Patrick Brogan. "Claims by some interest groups that broadband provider capex actually may have increased in 2015 and 2016 depend on figures that ignore accounting adjustments for certain non-material items like leased cellphones and acquisitions, such as AT&T’s merger with DirecTV and a Mexican wireless operation." FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been doing media interviews and making speeches about his plan to propose to change net neutrality rules (see 1705050025). Oracle meanwhile, backing a proposed return to Title I Communications Act net neutrality rules, sees debate having "inexplicably evolved into a highly political hyperbolic battle, substantially removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality," it wrote Pai Friday in docket 17-108 after previously backing this move. "The stifling open internet regulations and broadband classification that the FCC put in place in 2015," the year of the past net neutrality order, "threw out" the "technological consensus" and "certainty," the software maker said. "Reclassifying broadband internet access as an information service will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs. ... It will restore the FTC as the impartial cop on the broadband beat with authority to reach all of the participants." The company was part of a meeting with Pai last month, before he unveiled a draft NPRM to undo Title II common-carrier net neutrality rules (see 1704260002 and 1705050025).

Among media, wireless and wireline industries, cable distribution is likely the best positioned due to strength of its broadband product, S&P Global Ratings reported Thursday. S&P said wireline's fiber-to-the-home (FTHH) service is better than cable broadband, but it's offered only in select markets, and cable ISPs have been adding broadband subscribers while wireline loses DSL and FTHH customers. It said the risk of more government regulation of the cable industry has declined under the Trump administration and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, but cord-cutting and, longer term, 5G are threats. S&P said the current cord-cutting rate of less than 2 percent a month "is manageable." S&P said the media industry -- despite declining TV and film audiences -- remains strong "because content ... is still the key component underlying the overall media, telecommunications, and cable ecosystem." S&P said it views wireless less favorably due to the competitive dynamics, even though it will benefit from increased mobile video and data demand and from IoT devices and services. It said wireline is weakest because of industry pressures and a weak competitive position. S&P ranked Comcast highest of the 12 cable, telco and media companies, followed by Disney, AT&T, Charter Communications, Verizon and, at the end, Discovery and Viacom. S&P raised its long-term corporate credit rating and debt ratings on Disney to "A+'" from "A" on strong business performance, particularly at its movie and TV studio division and cable networks.

Globalstar has identified more than 100 countries where it's interested in pursuing approval for terrestrial use of its 2483.5-2500 MHz band spectrum and has been looking into the feasibility of each, CEO James Monroe said in an analyst call Thursday. He said the company hired multiple legal, engineering and consulting firms to pursue regulatory approvals in various countries, and it applied in an unspecified number of countries covering 375 million people. He said Globalstar also expects to file additional applications with other countries' regulatory bodies this year. The FCC approved the company's terrestrial low-power service plans in December (see 1612230060). Globalstar reported sales rose 13 percent in Q1 to $24.7 million, while its net loss -- at $20.2 million -- was down from the $26.9 million loss in Q1 2016. Monroe said new one-way and two-way products were running behind schedule. He said the company was in talks with senior lenders about raising $150 million in refinancing to "provide runway beyond 2017." He said the apparent AT&T/Verizon bidding war over Straight Path (see 1705030056) shows "licensed spectrum matters." He said spectrum closely situated to Globalstar's was found in the AWS-3 auction "and not a scrap of that was unpurchased." Added Monroe, "It's not to say unlicensed spectrum doesn't get used -- we all live on Wi-Fi. But you can't run a service you want to charge a reasonable amount of money for on unlicensed."