Matt Daneman

By the end of Q1, Globalstar expects to have started regulatory proceedings in at least four countries with a combined population of 375 million as it looks for international regulatory approval of its terrestrial broadband plans (see 1701120035), the company said Monday. In meetings with New York analysts and in an interview with us, General Counsel Barbee Ponder said the company initiated applications in three countries, which he didn't name, in January and plans to make that at least four by March's end. He told us Globalstar plans to make similar filings in other, unnamed countries through this year. With a goal ultimately of worldwide authority for the spectrum, he said that "it will be ongoing for quite some time."

While an FCC staffer suing the agency for workplace retaliation (see 1609300016) obviously suffered "frustration with her employment and her chronic inability to work cooperatively with colleagues," she didn't suffer any violation of her rights, the DOJ Civil Division said in a motion (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington seeking summary judgment on Sharon Stewart's complaint. DOJ said that while the FCC doesn't condone its workers looking at nude or semi-nude images in their cubicles, that Stewart sometimes caught a glimpse doesn't create a hostile work environment -- especially when a co-worker doing such viewing tried to hide the images from her. Instead, the plaintiff is "cobbl[ing] together a hostile work environment claim" even though the viewing habits weren't directed at all at her. It said there's no evidence that no one took any action on Stewart's complaint because of her gender or other protected characteristic, as a hostile work environment claim requires. The agency also said that while Stewart has argued she was denied performance bonuses in 2012 and 2015 as a form of retaliation, she also was disciplined for misconduct in both of those years, so the FCC "had a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for its actions." Justice disputed that Stewart was retaliated against when she was relieved of her duties regarding Section 610 reports -- annual lists of 10-year-old agency reports -- since the reports were put on hold for years and no one at the FCC was doing them. Regardless, removal of such administrative responsibilities doesn't count as materially adverse since there is no proof they would have resulted in Stewart's being promoted, DOJ said. The motion also retells multiple past equal employment opportunity and other complaints Stewart filed against co-workers and supervisors when she worked at the Department of Health and Human Services and then at the FCC since starting there in 2001. Stewart's counsel, Noah Peters of Bailey & Ehrenberg, emailed us Monday, "We look forward to responding to the Agency’s motion and are confident we will prevail."

Video bundling is in the crosshairs of numerous small programmers and allies, with many of them urging the FCC to add it to its rulemaking on independent and diverse programming. An NPRM looking at only unconditional most-favored-nation (MFN) provisions and unreasonable alternative distribution method (ADM) provisions in carriage agreements "is like the Fire Department attempting to douse a four-alarm fire using Solo cups of water," said the American Cable Association and multiple indie programmers in joint comments posted Friday in docket 16-41.

A Verizon buy of Charter Communications might pass regulatory muster, said numerous deal watchers and experts. It's not clear if such a transaction -- which lead to a combined entity of more than 20 million pay-TV customers -- would face the same concerns about creating too big a competitor that scuttled the ill-fated Comcast/Time Warner Cable. Some Wall Street experts are pessimistic that the reported talk of such a deal will go any further. Verizon and Charter didn't comment Thursday.

Comcast's wireless offering will come as part of a multiproduct bundle and the company will be "measured" in its rollout, "learning and adapting along the way," CEO Brian Roberts said in a conference call Thursday as the company announced its Q4 results. Comcast said it plans to launch a wireless service by mid-2017 (see 1609200042).

Wireless interests are rallying behind, and satellite interests and allies opposing, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) petition for changes in satellite earth station licensing rules, as was expected (see 1612270034), with a series of filings posted Tuesday and Wednesday in RM-11778. Google Fiber said that since full-band, full-arc licensing results in inefficient use of the bands shared by fixed satellite service and fixed service, the FCC should start a rulemaking on the FWCC proposal and on broader rules changes to allow more use of the spectrum. It also brushed off Satellite Industry Association arguments, saying low rejection rates for FS coordination requests "may reflect nothing more than that those operators adjust their plans to avoid time-consuming and expensive coordination engagements." The National Spectrum Management Association said satellite operators should be licensed for as much spectrum as they need, but only the spectrum they actually need, letting other services access the rest. CBS, Disney, Scripps Network Interactive, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner and Viacom said in opposing the FWCC petition that they worried about negative effects on C-band satellite spectrum and its use in distributing to multichannel video programming distributors' headends and to over-the-top distributors. PBS said the FWCC proposal would mean, absent a waiver procedure, every earth station adjustment to a different transponder or satellite would require a license modification procedure that could take weeks or months. NAB said there's no evidence full-band, full-arc licensing is a problem, and plenty of evidence it has substantial public benefit. The association said the FWCC proposal is unrealistic because the waiver process "would be cumbersome and wholly ineffective to deal with situations that regularly occur with broadcasters' use of FSS earth stations and satellites." SES said the FWCC and its allies never acknowledge that the two extended Ku-band segments listed in the petition have FSS use limits aimed squarely at preserving FS spectrum access.

EchoStar and Inmarsat are pushing for reconsideration of some parts of the FCC spectrum frontiers decision. Representatives of the companies, in a meeting Monday with the International Bureau Satellite Division, said parts of spectrum frontiers "did not sufficiently consider the relative costs and benefits" and urged the FCC to revise the conditions for deployment of fixed satellite service (FSS) earth stations by axing the rule barring deployment near roads, event venues, railroads and other specific locations -- calling that rule "ambiguous at best" -- and replacing the 0.1 percent metric for earth station deployment with the coordination regime previously proposed by EchoStar and AT&T. The two satellite companies said that coordination regime would let the FCC delete the rule limiting FSS operators to three earth stations in a county or partial economic area. The satellite operators also urged the FCC to set up a means for letting FSS operators identify where upper microwave flexible use services are operating, such as a licensing database, to help with coordination, and to clarify the application of its rules to permit additional antennas at grandfathers 28 GHz earth station sites and to provide that most UMFUS service rules to FSS operators that acquire a UMFUS license for the purpose of protecting their earth stations. An EchoStar/Inmarsat filing Tuesday in docket 14-177 said the meeting included EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner, Inmarsat Regulatory Director Giselle Creeser and Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque. A separate ex parte filing in the docket Tuesday recapped a meeting between EchoStar and division personnel about means for ensuring FSS and UMFUS have adequate access to the 39, 47 and 50 GHz bands. That filing said EchoStar urged the FCC to preserve FSS' co-primary status in the 47 GHz and lower GHz bands and adopt the AT&T/EchoStar joint sharing proposal for those bands (see 1604070059). EchoStar also said the FCC needs to refrain from acting on the upper 50 GHz band since that could unduly influence the outcomes of ITU radiocommunication sector studies of the band, plus a Boeing petition for rulemaking regarding the band. The satellite firm said the FCC should allow FSS systems to operate in the 39 GHz band at ITU-approved power-flux density levels so as to overcome rain fade.

Cablevision is asking commissioners to listen to oral argument on its exceptions to the initial FCC administrative law judge decision in Game Show Network's programming discrimination complaint. In a filing Tuesday in docket 12-122, Cablevision laid out multiple areas where it says it and GSN disagree widely, such as direct evidence standards, the standard of review to which the cable operator is entitled and whether GSN was unreasonably restrained by Cablevision's retiering. It submitted a brief in further support of the exceptions it submitted earlier this month (see 1701050019) to the ALJ decision, arguing it isn't trying to relitigate but seeking a de novo review, and that GSN is misinterpreting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's Tennis Channel ruling on a similar discrimination complaint. Cablevision said the channel is wrong when it says Judge Richard Sippel correctly followed FCC guidance about deciding whether GSN was similarly situated to Cablevision-affiliated networks, and it was incorrect when it says the agency shouldn't consider the effect the ALJ's ordered relief would have. GSN outside counsel Stephen Weiswasser of Covington & Burling told us the latest filings break no new ground in what Cablevision has already submitted in the record, and it has no objection to oral argument, but such a step isn't necessary.

Odds of a Republican-controlled FCC making meaningful changes to retransmission consent or undertaking other new video rules seem scant, insiders agreed. The American TV Alliance agitated earlier this month for retrans reform (see 1701090039). Chairman Tom Wheeler last year opted not to take any action on an NPRM on proposed changes to the totality of circumstances test (see 1607140047). Incompas also urged retrans reform earlier this month.

The average monthly cost of basic cable service was $23.79 at the end of 2014, a 2.3 percent increase over the preceding 12 months, and the average monthly cost of expanded basic was $69.03, up 2.7 percent over the same time frame. Meanwhile, monthly video average revenue per unit for some of the biggest multichannel video programming distributors went up about 1 percent to 6.5 percent between 2014 and 2015. Those are among the findings in the FCC Media Bureau's 18th annual Video Competition Report posted Tuesday in docket 16-247.