roundtable: Telecom Post #14
roundtable: Telecom Post #14
Telecom Post #14
CWHITCOM@bentley.edu
Thu, 07 Sep 1995 23:28:08 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 1995 23:28:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: CWHITCOM@bentley.edu
Subject: Telecom Post #14
To: tpr-ne@mitvma.mit.edu, tpr-annc@mitvma.mit.edu, roundtable@cni.org,
Message-Id: <01HV0GI1YC8Y8Y5SP8@bentley.edu>
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Free Speech Media, LLC
September 7, 1995
Number 14
7 pages
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Compiled, written, and edited by Coralee Whitcomb
Please direct comments and inquiries to cwhitcom@bentley.edu
====================================================
The Telecom Post is posted to several distribution lists and is also
available from the CPSR listserv. To subscribe, send to LISTSERV@CPSR.ORG
with the message SUBSCRIBE TELECOM-POST YOUR NAME.
The Telecom Post will be published weekly while the U.S. Congress works
on a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S information delivery systems.
======================================================
TOPICS
Schedule for the Conference Committee
Comparison of the Issues
Freedom of Speech
Interoperability
Possible loss of EEO
Back to Spectrum
Communication Workers of American
EDGAR is Freed
Copyright and Freelancing
The table in Telecom Post #13 reporting the computer and modem
penetration in American households is confusing. To clarify - for example,
a table entry looking like 4.5/23.6 would mean that 4.5% of all
households in that income bracket have computers. Of those
households, 23.6% also have a modem. Hope that helps clear
things up.
The Department of Commerce report is available from the
Department of Commerce. It is available electronically, but not
in ASCII format. I'm sorry I don't have the address to give
you, but my copy was sent with a simple phone call to Commerce.
The Telecommunications Policy Roundtable is an informal umbrella
organization of public interest groups, largely from inside the
Beltway, who meet each month and share the latest in telecom
policy news and support. This report is taken largely from the
meeting held September 5, 1995.
Schedule for the Conference Committee
Since Congress must get the appropriations bills onto the
President's desk by October 1 in order to keep the government
running, and the budget must be reconciled before October, no
one expects to see telecommunications, non-profit gag rules, or
our other legislative darlings on the floor in early or middle
September. We should, however, get the list of conferees who
will try and reconcile the House and Senate bills soon,. No one
at the meeting knew who would be chosen, put sure bets are the
main players, Pressler, Hollings, Bliley, Fields. Markey was
on the list but someone reported a rumor that he might be
blocked from the committee. Committee rules allow conferees to
change any language in the final bill that does not appear the
same in both House and Senate bills. Therefore, the final bill
could wind up looking entirely different than what we've been
working with.
Comparison of the Issues
First up to speak was Andrew Blau of the Benton Foundation. He
listed four non-speech related issues key to both public
interest and Administration concerns:
1. Universal Service provisions - Both House and Senate bills
provide for a Federal - State Joint Board which is charged with
defining the terms of universal service and determining how
those terms are to be met. This board will submit its
recommendations to the FCC within 270 days of enactment of the
bill and the FCC then has one year to complete proceedings
acting upon those recommendations.
The House bill provides for a state-appointed utility consumer
advocate and gives the board only 5 years of existence. The
Senate bill maintains the board indefinitely to perform
oversight and review functions. The Senate bill is also much
clearer on including "advanced telecommunication and information
services" meaning more than POTS, and explicitly recognizes the
public interest in access for health care, education, economic
development". The Senate gives rural health care facilities,
most schools, and libraries special rates for access. The
universal service language included in the Senate bill was a
hard fought battle and is, by far, the better of the two bills,
although Rep. Bliley is reported to be sympathetic to universal
service language and would support its preservation in the final
bill.
2. Media Concentration - This issue seems to have caught fire
since HR1555 passed. I, personally, have seen several news
features on concentrated ownership. Again, the House bill
loses. This bill allows a single broadcast owner to reach 35%
(same in Senate bill) of the American audience with either two
networks or one network and any combination of other mediums.
Broadcast licenses would be renewed every 7 years (House) or 10
(Senate) and that renewal process would make it much easier to
retain and more difficult to challenge current licenses. Looks
like it'll be more of the same in TV fare for the foreseeable
future.
3. Establishment of a Video Platform - Definitions first - a
video platform or video dialtone, means the common carriage,
two-way ability to send and receive video, just as we now enjoy
voice. The House bill originally required that all requests
for carriage had to be met in any geographical area providing
that service. This provision was amended making the development
of a video platform optional, and therefore, the establishment
of a common carriage, video platform highly unlikely. Andrew
felt that we are likely to see only cable-like services appear
as the video arm of the telephone companies. The Senate bill
has provisions that guard against a common carrier favoring its
own programs, but both bills allow for excuses for not meeting
the demand for capacity.
PEG access is provided for in both bills as a requirement of
video platform providers. (This is the "capacity, services,
facilities, and equipment for public, educational, and
governmental use" provided by cable franchises). The Senate
bill requires fees at an incremental, cost-based, rate but
limits access to existing PEG stations. The House bill does not
mention fees but does not limit entry.
Redlining provisions are weak in both bills. The Senate bill
prohibits a telephone company from denying any service to an
area based on the rural or high-cost location or income of the
residents. The House bill only applies this stipulation to
video programming.
4. Spectrum - I find this issue difficult to understand, so
I'll just try my best. Currently broadcasters use one channel
of 6 MHz, analog, NTSC spectrum. In anticipation of HDTV,
Congress gave these broadcasters a second 6 MHz of spectrum with
which to make the transition from analog to digital. Given
current technology, digital programming can be compressed to
push 6 channels through that same 6 MHz. These channels can be
used for all kinds of services, including subscriber-based
services such as paging. As it stands now, all this spectrum
will remain in the hands of the broadcasters that now hold it
and they are free to do with it as they wish. Though the promise
of HDTV looks like a non-starter, this spectrum will not be made
available to new programmers - thereby preempting crazy notions
like "diversity" to exist. Alternatives to this scheme are to
make the broadcasters pay for the use of this spectrum, and use
the funds to support non-commercial programming. Or, some of
the 6 MHz might be allocated for public use (the public commons
concept). The House bill simply gives the spectrum to incumbent
broadcasters. The Senate bill will allow others to vie for a
license.
Jill Lesser of People for the American Way led a discussion on
the prospects of a presidential veto. It was generally agreed
that there was no way to tell what will happen. Vigdor
Schreibman of FINS made the point that this president is so
disliked, some, who would otherwise agree with a veto of the
legislation, might oppose simply to be contrary to the
President. Andy Schwartzman of the Media Access Project pointed
out that it is conceivable in the next couple of months we will
all be called on to answer a May Day call to action - either to
support a veto or to muck up the conference committee beyond
repair. He suggested that we prepare ourselves now for such an
event.
Jamie Love of the Center for Responsive Law suggested a great
idea. Each group should put up, on our respective Web sites,
our own TOP 10 REASONS WE OPPOSE THE BILL. It would help if
different groups had different lists, then reporters and such
could shop around for their stories or pick groups that fit
their sense of expertise.
Freedom of Speech
This is probably the most crucial issue in terms of public
support of this bill. We have a lot of public relations work
ahead of us to make people understand the pitfalls. This is
what we've got now.
1. The Communications Decency Act, Exon amendment, ...... Senate
Trouble is in store for anyone who "makes, creates, or solicits,
and initiates the transmission of any comment, request,
suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is
obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent, with intent to
annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person." Penalties
are up to 2 years imprisonment and/or a $100k fine.
2. Section 403 in the Manager's Amendment House
This sneaky little tidbit found it's way into the last minute
rewrite of HR1555 that so drastically changed the bill. "Section
1465 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at
the end the following: "Whoever intentionally communicates by
computer, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, to any
person the communicator believes has not attained the age of 18
years, any material that, in context, depicts or describes, in
terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community
standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs, or attempts
to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than five years, or both".
3. Cox-Wyden House
The House has enjoyed a good deal of positive feedback for
having passed this amendment. It prohibits the FCC from any
regulation of content or anything else. Problem is - this
prohibits any kind of economic regulation meant to enforce
universal service provisions or other pricing regulation. It
also relieves from liability any move a provider might make to
censor material. This provision essentially overturns the
Prodigy decision in New York. This decision held that Prodigy
acted as a publisher since it did perform censoring and,
therefore, was liable for the content on its network. Cox-Wyden
does nothing to prevent state-level "Exons" from cropping up all
over the place, as, indeed, they are. There is no standard,
like a Bill of Rights, against which these state statutes can be
measured, thereby creating a real patchwork of first amendment
realities for a technology which recognizes no borders.
In the spirit of the intent of Cox/Wyden, pressure should be
placed on the conferees to beef up the Cox/Wyden thinking so
that it truly earns the good press it's received and to get rid
of the Manager's Amendment "Title 18" and CDA entirely.
INTEROPERABILITY
An issue that seems to have become lost in the HR 1555 hoopla is
that of interoperability. Last year's S1822, which failed in the
last days of the 103 Congress, had very good provisions calling
for an open architecture approach to the hardware and software
components of the National Information Infrastructure. This
would have opened the market to as many producers of parts as it
could handle. Absent these requirements, we will see the
vertical integration of more and more of the basic components of
the communications structure. It is only a matter of time
before the titans clean the field of the little guys. Jamie
Love of the Center for Responsible Law invites all interested
groups to submit papers arguing for the re-introduction of the
concept of interoperability into the legislation. He can be
reached at love@essential.org.
Possible Loss of EEO
Selena Kahn of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
pointed out that with the coming restructuring of the FCC,
several branches are in danger of being eliminated, including
the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) branch. Her
organization will be holding a press conference around September
20 to coincide with the Congressional Black Caucus and they
need examples of success stories from those who were helped by
the EEO programs. She can be reached at 202-332-0500.
Back to Spectrum
Gigi Sohn of the Media Access Project, leader of the fight on
this issue, has organized the Group Against Government Giveaways
(GAGG), to develop a strategy for the best possible outcome of
this spare spectrum situation. The central dilemma is concern
for the public interest as spectrum, a public good, seems to be
handed over freely to the incumbent broadcasters.
The Commerce committees in both chambers have been charged with
generating $14 bill at budget reconciliation time. It will come
up September 22 or 29. One of the obvious means for generating
that kind of revenue is auctioning the spectrum. Senator
Lieberman would like to auction the currently used, analog, NTSC
spectrum. This would be a "futures" kind of auction as that
spectrum will not be freed up from current use for at least 5-7
years. The Senator advocates using the money for support of
public broadcasting and intends to hold broadcasters' feet to
the fire on their public interest obligations. Senator Pressler
would like to auction the digital spectrum (spectrum currently
in line for takeover by the broadcasters). His public interest
tendencies are not nearly as apparent. On the House side,
Telecomm Subcommittee Chair Jack Fields does not want to auction
the digital spectrum. Gigi has been repeatedly contacted by the
broadcast industry trying to convince her that auctions are a
bad idea.
Various strategies might be taken. This is one of those small
cracks in the ever darker edifice that we might use for a public
interest wedge by asking that any buyer of spectrum be obligated
to some formula of public interest use. There will be more
forthcoming shortly from GAGG as the window of opportunity is
only about two weeks long. For more information contact Gigi
Sohn at the Media Access Project, 202-232-4300 or Jill Lesser at
People for the American Way, 202-467-2308.
COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS OF AMERICA
Debbi Goldman reported from CWA. Last spring the CWA was about
to go into contract negotiations with the telcos and there was
much apprehension about the direction those negotiations would
take. She happily reported that of the 7 Bell companies, 6
seemed to have negotiated with an attitude that workers and
service quality was important and need to be supported in the
years to come. This would stand in stark contrast to the poor
treatment of workers and service quality of cable and other
communication companies. The one renegade Bell company,
unhappily, was her own, Bell Atlantic. She passed out a very
depressing memo on the diminishing ability of Bell Atlantic
employees to do a good job due to no support in materials or
management despite record high profit margins. It will be
interesting to see who's long term strategy is best.
EDGAR is Freed
Jamie Love of the Center for Responsive Law is on a roll with
his quest to get government information into the hands of the
public without their having to pay twice. For the last two
years the Security and Exchange Commission has had their EDGAR
database online and available to the public for free due to an
NSF grant. That grant was due to expire on October 1 and the
SEC was going revert to its high priced, "only big guys can
play" ways of before. With Jamie sounding the cry for public
access and media support, the SEC seems to have completely
reversed itself. It will continue the program of free access
indefinitely at www.sec.gov.
This is very good news whether you are a user of EDGAR or not.
The first programs to get cut are usually those that disseminate
information to the public. This move bodes well for the
depository library programs as well as many others.
Copyright and Freelancing
A representative of the National Writers Union spoke about the
erosion of copyright and the need for freelance writers to be
compensated for their work. Specifically, he reported on the
move of the New York Times to force their freelance writers to
relinquish all rights to their work once it is used by the
Times. He interpreted this as a move to allow the NYT to be
prepared for whatever comes down the pike in the form of digital
media but it forecloses on the writer's ability to benefit from
future use of his/her work. The move was done in the same
totally brazen fashion that seems to be all the rage these days
when stomping on the little guy.
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