Monty Tayloe

Verizon and Sprint agreed to consent decrees requiring them to pay $158 million in penalties and redress for wireless cramming, said the FCC, FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and state attorneys general in a news conference Tuesday. Sprint will have to pay $68 million under the settlement, while Verizon will have to pay $90 million, said the consent decrees. Sprint and Verizon set up a third-party billing system that included consumers without their approval, allowed them to be billed for questionable services, and ignored “red flags” about the issue, Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell said Tuesday. Companies representing “98.5 percent of the wireless market” were charging consumers “for things they didn't buy,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Last year regulators reached consent decrees with AT&T and T-Mobile addressing alleged cramming.

CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- A new FCC website and an updated electronic comment filing system (ECFS) are in the works, said Gigi Sohn, Chairman Tom Wheeler's counselor, on a panel Saturday at the 2015 FCBA annual seminar. The beta version of the new fcc.gov is expected to launch this year. Sohn declined to offer a date for what she called “ECFS 2.0.”

An FCC order that would have let participants in the commission's AT&T/DirecTV transaction proceeding review confidential programming and retransmission consent contract data is “substantively and procedurally flawed,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel said in a unanimous opinion in CBS et al. v. FCC, vacating the order. The Comcast/Time Warner Cable proceeding had been part of the case, but that portion was rendered moot by the collapse of that deal. The court loss is seen as putting the FCC in a difficult position in its review of AT&T/DirecTV, industry officials connected with the court proceeding told us. Though the opinion leaves the door open for the FCC to issue a new protective order, doing so could further delay AT&T/DirecTV, while not doing so could expose an agency decision approving the deal to court challenge, said industry officials.

CHICAGO -- All four FCC commissioners believe Wi-Fi should be permitted in the 5 GHz band, said Mignon Clyburn, Mike O'Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel during a panel at INTX 2015 Wednesday. “I think this is something we all agree on,” said O'Rielly, saying such cohesion is rare among the commissioners. The FCC members, their aides and bureau chiefs participated in nearly back-to-back panels Wednesday.

CHICAGO -- Cable companies are now principally broadband companies, and the importance of their product means they have bigger obligations and responsibilities, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at INTX 2015 Wednesday. The industry deserves “straight talk” about the net neutrality order, Wheeler said. "I take you at your word to protect an open Internet, but what about those that follow you?” he said in defense of his Internet conduct rules, a focus of his talk. Wheeler's speech also included a brief mention of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction review and indications that the FCC might act to keep cable companies from suffering higher pole attachment rates.

CHICAGO -- The cable industry needs an image change that better reflects its importance to the era of Internet innovation, said NCTA CEO Michael Powell Tuesday at the kickoff general session of INTX 2015, the first year of NCTA's rebranded cable show. Powell said of the word "cable," "I hate the name." Innovations in online video and the IoT and nearly all new Internet technology depend on cable's infrastructure to exist, said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who demo'd new customer service, voice control and connected home technology at the INTX session as expected (see 1505040059).

Comcast is "disappointed" in the failure of the Time Warner Cable deal and is focusing on accelerating the rollout of its X1 DVR platform, said CEO Brian Roberts during the company's Q1 earnings call Monday. Comcast had a 7.2 percent increase in revenue for Q1 as compared to the same quarter last year, going from $17.4 billion to $17.8 billion, the company said in a news release. Roberts also said the company is planning some large announcements about its customer service operation for INTX 2015, which kicks off this week in Chicago (see 1504300078). Comcast had strong Q1 results but needs to "craft a new story" in the wake of its failed deal, said MoffetNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.

Rising programming costs, cable mergers and acquisitions and increased FCC regulation of their business are expected to be the focus of discussion for cable operators, attorneys and vendors at this week’s INTX (Internet and Television Expo) show hosted by NCTA in Chicago. The pressure of the FCC's Title II Communications Act regulation of broadband service, its push to classify online video services as multichannel video programming distributors, and increasing competition and programming costs highlighted by Verizon’s mini-bundle offering (see 1504220058) are combining to force cable operators to think hard about how to keep their business viable, said industry lawyers in interviews last week.

An FCC draft order that would let Pandora buy a South Dakota radio station won’t automatically lead to the streaming radio service being able to buy music rights at the same rate as terrestrial radio stations, said music rights and broadcast attorneys in interviews Thursday. FCC officials have said a draft order is on circulation that would let Pandora buy KXMZ (FM) Box Elder, South Dakota, as long as Pandora can show that it's less than 49 percent foreign-owned (see 1504280046). Pandora is expected to be able to satisfy the condition, said industry lawyers. Pandora has said it wants to buy the station to let it buy music at the lower price enjoyed by terrestrial radio stations.

An FCC draft order on reconsideration and accompanying Further NPRM on channel sharing could make the prospect of combining channel sharing with selling spectrum in the incentive auction slightly more attractive for broadcasters, said industry officials and an eighth-floor official. As promised by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a speech at the NAB Show (see 1504150037), the draft order will roll back portions of the incentive auction order that required permanent channel sharing agreements to be set up before the incentive auction, an industry official familiar with the proceedings and the eighth-floor official told us.