On April 13, 2017, the Texas Public Utilities Commission will hear oral arguments on the issue whether companies with certificates of public convenience and necessity from the Commission may place their facilities in local rights-of-way and provide wireline backhaul and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) service without additional local authority or the obligation to pay fees. DAS providers say “yes” while local governments contend that such companies must negotiate separate license agreements and fees with individual cities to access their rights of way. The Commission will be considering the recommendation of two Texas administrative law judges to side with the companies.
Continue Reading ExteNet v City of Houston: Who pays for access to Texas rights-of-way?
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?
What’s That? What’s That? Fourth Circuit Upholds FCC Collocation Regulations Against 10th Amendment Challenge
No reason to be paranoid, but chances are the (electronic) voices you hear, and the words you are reading, come from a device (Android, iPhone or other) that relies on broadband technology. Depending on where you are, and when (and who else is using the network when you are), your broadband access might be spotty because capacity and connections in some communities far outpace those in others.
Continue Reading What’s That? What’s That? Fourth Circuit Upholds FCC Collocation Regulations Against 10th Amendment Challenge