The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.

FCC

          NDBEDP

The FCC has made permanent its program that provides communications equipment to low-income individuals who are deaf-blind.  The program, known as the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program (NDBEDP) or “iCanConnect,” was launched as a pilot program in 2012.  Since then, the program has provided up to $10 million annually to support programs that distribute communications equipment, helping Americans with hearing and vision loss to connect with family and friends and become more independent.  Among other things, the FCC: (1) extended the program to include residents of the U.S. territories of Guam, Northern Marianas, and American Samoa, in addition to the 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, for a total of 56 certified programs; (2) decided to allow reimbursement to state programs for train-the-trainer activities up to 2.5% of their funding allocations; and (3) maintained the program structure used in the NDBEDP pilot program to certify one entity per state or territory to receive support from the TRS Fund for the distribution of equipment and provision of related services.

           Video Competition

The FCC is seeking data, information, and comment on the state of competition in the delivery of video programming for the FCC’s Eighteenth Report.  It expects to continue to use the same framework as in its previous reports, to categorize entities that deliver video programming in one of three groups – multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), broadcast television stations, or online video distributors (OVDs).  It expects to describe the providers of delivered video programming in each group, summarize their business models and competitive strategies, and present selected operating and financial statistics.  The FCC requests data, information, and comment regarding the providers’ business models and competitive strategies and relevant operating and financial statistics in each of the three groups.  It also seeks comment regarding the interrelationships and competitive interactions between and among the three types of entities.  Comments are due September 21, 2016; reply comments are due October 24, 2016.

California

The US District Court Northern District of California issued an order to clarify its May 20, 2016, injunction in the California Public Utilities Commission proceeding to investigate the state of competition among telecommunications providers in California.  The Court clarified that injunction as follows:  “The CPUC must retrieve any of the data in Dr. Selwyn's possession immediately.  If the CPUC has provided the data to any other person or entity who is not a direct employee, it must get that data back immediately.”  In addition, the CPUC was ordered to instruct all employees involved in the investigation not to share the data with people who are not direct employees of the CPUC.”  The Court goes on to say it is “difficult to understand why the CPUC's lawyers, upon learning that Dr. Selwyn continued to possess the data, did not immediately take steps to correct the problem.  In the event of similar conduct going forward, the Court will consider holding the responsible parties in contempt, and will entertain any appropriate motion for sanctions.”

New York

Governor Cuomo announced that the New NY Broadband Program has made sweeping progress toward achieving New York’s nation-leading goal of broadband for all.  The Governor said that more than 434,000 homes in Western New York will have access to high-speed internet.  The Program’s round one awards will connect more than 30,000 unserved homes and businesses across upstate New York to high-speed internet for the first time.  More than $4 million in grants have been awarded to Western New York internet service providers as part of that effort.  In remarks at a State University of NY event in Potsdam, the Governor said that following its merger with Time Warner Cable, Charter has outlined its four-year rollout plan to service 145,000 currently unserved households in upstate New York.  Charter will make available internet speeds of 100 megabits per second for more than 2 million upstate homes and businesses by early 2017 in its upstate service area, including in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, and Albany.  Click here for more details from the full press release.