Promoting infrastructure investment and broadband deployment has been a top priority for Chairman Ajit Pai’s FCC. On July 12, 2018, the Chairman took a significant stride in advancing his agenda by releasing a draft report and order that would enact, among other things, a “one-touch make-ready” (OTMR) process for most third-party communications-provider attachments to utility poles.
Continue Reading FCC Seeks “Large Step” Toward Advancing Broadband Infrastructure Goals With Draft One-Touch Make-Ready Order
Back To The Future: FCC Returns To Light Touch Regulation Of The Internet
This week, the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC’s”) Restoring Internet Freedom Order took effect, rolling back the public-utility style regulation of Internet service providers (“ISPs”) pursuant to title II of the Communications Act, imposed during the prior administration by the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order (“2015 Order”). The agency’s return to a light touch regulatory approach has sparked public debate since FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed it more than a year ago. And while the FCC’s action is already the subject of several judicial challenges consolidated in the D.C. Circuit, a number of states have also sought to impose their own state-specific net neutrality legislation. But it remains to be seen whether individual states can impose net neutrality obligations on ISPs, particularly in light of the FCC’s invocation of its preemption authority in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.
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FCC Vows It’s Never Gonna Give Up On Bridging Digital Divide: Opens Rulemakings To Promote Access To Broadband Infrastructure
At the end of March, new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai branded April “Infrastructure Month.” He paired this declaration with the announcement of a comprehensive agenda aimed at tackling a host of infrastructure-related challenges seen as critical to the deployment of high-speed broadband Internet access and bridging the digital divide. The FCC implemented the first steps of the Chairman’s infrastructure agenda yesterday, adopting proposed rulemakings intended to decrease regulatory barriers confronted by wireline and wireless providers seeking to deploy and operate broadband networks.
Continue Reading FCC Vows It’s Never Gonna Give Up On Bridging Digital Divide: Opens Rulemakings To Promote Access To Broadband Infrastructure
FCC Issues New Privacy Rules for Internet Service Providers: Safeguarding Consumers or Lulling Them Into A False Sense of Privacy?
Last Thursday, in a vote split along party lines, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) approved a new regulatory regime staking its claim to privacy regulation of both fixed and mobile Internet service providers (“ISPs”) like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. The FCC’s rules follow its decision in the Open Internet Order, released last year and analyzed here, to classify broadband Internet access service as a common-carrier telecommunications service. The FCC’s new rules are intended to give consumers control over the ways in which ISPs use and share their customers’ private information. While the FCC has yet to release its Report and Order, the FCC’s Fact Sheet and statements by the commissioners indicate that the new privacy rules in many respects track the proposed rules the FCC put forward earlier this year, which seek to make the FCC the “toughest” privacy regulator in the Internet ecosystem by imposing on ISPs significantly more onerous and restrictive requirements for use and collection of consumer data than the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) imposes on its non-ISP competitors.
Continue Reading FCC Issues New Privacy Rules for Internet Service Providers: Safeguarding Consumers or Lulling Them Into A False Sense of Privacy?
Ninth Circuit Removes FTC From The Beat: Agency Lacks Authority To Police Common Carriers Engaged In Non-Common Carrier Activities
The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) asserted broad regulatory authority over the Internet and broadband Internet service providers when it reclassified Internet access service as a “common carrier” service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 in its 2015 Net Neutrality Order (discussed in detail here). One of the many important questions left unanswered by the FCC’s reclassification decision was whether and to what extent the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) retained authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to prohibit deceptive or unfair acts and practices by Internet service providers, in light of Section 5’s exemption of “common carriers” subject to the Communications Act.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Removes FTC From The Beat: Agency Lacks Authority To Police Common Carriers Engaged In Non-Common Carrier Activities
Sixth Circuit Rejects FCC’s Effort To Preempt State Regulation Of Municipal Broadband Providers
The FCC’s February 2015 meeting yielded two significant and controversial orders premised on the agency’s authority under Section 706 of the Communications Act: its much-publicized Open Internet Order (discussed here), and its less-publicized order preempting state statutes setting limits on municipal broadband providers, including by restricting their geographic extension of service (“Municipal Broadband Order”). In June 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave the FCC a boost when it upheld the FCC’s net neutrality rules as a valid exercise of its authority under Title II of the Communications Act as well as Section 706. Yesterday, in State of Tennessee v. FCC, Nos. 15-3291/3555, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the FCC’s assertion of sweeping preemption authority under Section 706 and remanded its Municipal Broadband Order.
Continue Reading Sixth Circuit Rejects FCC’s Effort To Preempt State Regulation Of Municipal Broadband Providers
They Can Be Heroes: The FCC Proposes Expansive and Detailed Privacy & Cybersecurity Regulations for Broadband ISPs
On April 1, 2016, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) that would impose new regulatory burdens on broadband Internet service providers’ use of customer data. The wide-ranging NPRM also proposes rules covering providers’ protection of customer information and their actions in the event of a data security breach.
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Patient Zero – Public Knowledge Seeks FCC Review of A New “Zero Rated” Service
Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge recently filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) challenging a multi-system operator’s (“MSO”) online video service as violative of conditions imposed as part of a 2011 merger and the agency’s Open Internet rules. The service allows the MSO’s customers to stream its licensed video content to computers, tablets, and mobile devices without incurring additional data usage charges. The MSO maintains the content of this service does not touch the public Internet – and thus is not subject to the Open Internet rules – because it is delivered on the same private, managed network as its cable services.
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FCC Slams Door on Higher Pole Attachment Rates
After kicking open a door to potential annual pole attachment rental increases in the hundreds of millions of dollars when it adopted its February 2015 Net Neutrality order, the Federal Communications Commission yesterday released an order unanimously granting a four-year-old petition for reconsideration. A number of cable, broadband, and telecommunications industry players filed the petition to eliminate pole-attachment rate disparities and complexities between “rural” and “urban” areas and between and among various defined classes of electronic communication providers. Yesterday’s ruling eliminates remaining loopholes that could have dramatically raised cable operator pole rentals and electric-utility windfalls resulting from the FCC’s February 2015 Net Neutrality order (which we analyzed here) that defined “Broadband Internet Access Service” as a “telecommunications service.”
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If They Could Be All You Wanted: The FCC Gets Serious About Small Cells
Say what you will about inside-the-Beltway leadership vacuums, political gridlock and the indecipherable output from the grey, grinding gears of our government agencies, but once in a while Washington actually gets it right. Or mostly right.Continue Reading If They Could Be All You Wanted: The FCC Gets Serious About Small Cells
Of Buckeyes and Batons Rouges: Ohio and Louisiana Adopt Comprehensive Pole Access and Attachment Rules
In recent separate actions, the Public Utility Commission of Ohio (“PUCO”) and the Louisiana Public Service Commission (“LPSC”) adopted comprehensive pole attachment regulatory regimes intended to facilitate the deployment of broadband communications infrastructure, and level the competitive playing field for broadband providers. Each stressed the need for reasonable and non-discriminatory access, clear access processes and timelines, a single unified pole attachment rate and efficient dispute resolution procedures. And each made clear that its rules apply to “wireless” attachments as well as traditional wire-based attachments.
Continue Reading Of Buckeyes and Batons Rouges: Ohio and Louisiana Adopt Comprehensive Pole Access and Attachment Rules