Matt Daneman

Exploding demand for satellite communications mobility services -- driven by high-throughput satellites (HTS) and growing use of very small aperture terminals (VSAT) -- comes in the nick of time for a challenged satcom industry, Euroconsult Principal Adviser Susan Irwin said Thursday at a Global VSAT Forum conference. "Mobility is really a lifesaver." Mobile satcom growth also is leading to increased interference, an issue the industry is "trying to get its arms around," David Hartshorn, Global VSAT Forum (GVF) secretary general, told us.

Former LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja's legal challenge to the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization will be considered at the Supreme Court's conference Friday, after the petition's distribution Sept. 28, according to the court's docket. But odds of the court granting it review are long, said American University Professor of Practice in Constitutional Law Stephen Wermiel, with the court receiving upwards of 7,000 petitions for writ of certiorari each session and accepting a low single-digit percentage of them.

Comcast will pay a $2.3 million fine to resolve an FCC investigation into allegations of negative option billing practices. The fine is the largest civil penalty against a cable company in agency history, the Enforcement Bureau said. Comcast also will put in place a five-year compliance plan that will include procedures designed to get customers' affirmative informed consent before charging them for new services and equipment, said Tuesday's order.

Despite the end of the cable industry's premier trade show, NCTA's INTX, and CTIA folding its conference into GSMA Mobile World Congress (see 1606220030), telco and trade show industry experts and insiders see those as outliers in an otherwise healthy trade show ecosystem. American Cable Association President Matt Polka -- himself a longtime INTX attendee -- said it's too early to say whether new shows will spring up to replace INTX, or whether existing shows -- such as those ACA helps organize and sponsor -- will expand. ACA planning for its 2017 events is going ahead "as is," Polka told us.

FCC lifting of sunshine restrictions on Chairman Tom Wheeler's set-top box proposal seemed due at least in part to the sizable lawmaker and industry criticism leveled about lack of transparency in the proceeding (see 1610050051, 1609290076, 1609300062 and 1609270048), but it isn't mollifying critics, stakeholders told us. "If the item itself isn't released so people can see what [the FCC] is actually proposing, this is just cosmetics," said cable consultant Steve Effros Friday. A democratic congressional critic likewise wasn't mollified.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rulemaking notice on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) systems could be issued "soonish," said Toyota North America Director-Technology and Innovation Policy Hilary Cain Wednesday evening at an FCBA spectrum sharing CLE seminar. "We are hopeful and optimistic it will make its appearance in the next couple weeks." An NHTSA spokesman told us Thursday the NPRM "is coming soon." Some have criticized White House review of that NPRM as holding up FCC development of the 5.9 GHz band (see 1609010077).

Any CBS/Viacom reunion might not face particularly big regulatory hurdles to clear, experts tell us. For the companies and Wall Street, such a potential deal carries numerous upsides, said Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus, University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation Lab. "The only potential derailing" is if CBS CEO "Les Moonves says, 'Viacom is so broken, I don't want to take it on,'" Taplin said. But, he added, Moonves "is an ambitious guy; he is smart enough to fix a broken thing."

Though the FCC is fighting a workplace retaliation complaint lawsuit by a worker (see 1609300016), other metrics point to the agency's workforce being not nearly as troubled as some agencies. The complaint is part of growing overall numbers of retaliation suits nationwide, partly because the bar is higher to prove workplace discrimination than retaliation, said Noah Peters, an employment lawyer with Bailey & Ehrenberg representing the plaintiff in that suit before U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Employees who bring Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints also face more retaliation, Peters said.

Charter Communications' buys of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks were cited repeatedly Thursday as rationale for and a warning against FCC 3-2 approval of an NPRM that would limit pay-TV providers from including "unconditional" most-favored-nation and "unreasonable" alternative distribution method terms in carriage contracts with independent programmers. Pointing to ADM and MFN conditions in the Charter approval, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said such contractual terms "are what independent programmers face each and every day," and such terms unduly limit their businesses. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly both said they objected to the Charter conditions because the transaction approval was a first step to those conditions becoming industrywide rules.

A series of votes at Thursday's FCC meeting on personnel matters became protest votes for the two GOP commissioners, who voted no on the six items. The personnel actions themselves weren't made public, but one FCC source told us the "no" votes had to do with personnel issues traditionally being handled differently and not on a meeting agenda. The other three commissioners voted "yes" on the six. At a Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing earlier this month (see 1609150045), Commissioner Mike O'Rielly complained about FCC process reform, referring to a reform instituted days earlier by Chairman Tom Wheeler on disposal of personnel matters. "The Chairman contemplated, decided and declared a new procedure for addressing personnel changes that he believes are taking too long," O'Rielly said, in testimony made available online. "The Commission will now vote on these items at its monthly Open Meetings, without discussion or comment."