All in Broadband
The FCC has approved the transfer of control of ComSouth Corporation to Hargray Communications Group, Inc. The transaction involves high-cost universal service fund support provided under two different mechanisms – one fixed and one cost-based. Because the FCC found this situation raises cost shifting concerns that could unfairly increase USF support, it approved the transaction subject to a condition intended to prevent such a result.
The FCC is seeking comment on the applicability of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 to the FCC’s “national security” rulemaking. The FCC wants input on how Section 889 of the NDAA may impact the FCC’s proposal to prohibit the use of Universal Service Fund support to purchase equipment or services from suppliers that pose a national security threat.
On September 30, 2018, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 822, the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act of 2018. The provisions of California’s new law are roughly the same as the net neutrality rules repealed by the Federal Communications Commission early this year. Before the ink was even dry on Governor Brown’s signature, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California to overturn the law, claiming it “unlawfully imposes burdens on the Federal Government’s deregulatory approach to the Internet.”
There is a new development in the recording industry’s lawsuit against Texas ISP Grande Communications. A Magistrate Judge has denied UMG’s motion to file an amended complaint, calling the move an attempt to re-litigate issues already decided by the court.
One big CAF II auction winner is AMG Technology Investment Group LLC, receiving a total of $281.28 million over ten years, to serve 100,581 locations in six states. AMG does business as NextLink, a Texas-based fixed wireless Internet service provider. Will AMG be able to follow through on the promises it made to win CAF II funding? On paper seems like a long shot.
The Federal Communications Commission has announced the results of the recently-completed Connect America Fund Phase II auction. There were 103 winning bidders, receiving a total of $1.488 billion in support over a 10-year period.
For the past 18 months, Texas-based Internet service provider Grande Communications Networks, LLC has been defending itself against a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a group of record companies. The parties have conducted discovery, and Grande has moved for summary judgment.
In 2017, some of the largest record companies in the U.S. filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Grande Communications Networks, LLC, a Texas-based Internet service provider, alleging Grande broadband subscribers repeatedly infringed copyrighted works by reproducing and distributing them using BitTorrent. The record companies claim Grande is secondarily liable for these infringements because Grande does not follow its DMCA policy by terminating subscribers who are repeat infringers. The record companies have moved for summary judgment, seeking to strip Grande of its Section 512 DMCA safe harbor from secondary copyright infringement liability.
