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The Telecom Digest for December 30, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 257 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Free Facebook Finally Comes to American Mobile Phones (Monty Solomon)
Re: D.C. Circuit Rejects Challenge to Sunsetting of Viewability Rule (Neal McLain)

====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2013 01:20:09 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Free Facebook Finally Comes to American Mobile Phones 
Message-ID: <p0624080fcee56f7ca009@[10.0.1.11]>

Free Facebook, [which is common in global markets, is] Finally Coming
to American Mobile Phones

By VINDU GOEL
DECEMBER 24, 2013

For years, Facebook has been cutting deals with telecom carriers in 
developing countries like India and the Philippines to offer free 
Facebook access to cellphone customers using simple phones with no 
data plans.

Now, for the first time, Americans will be able to get free Facebook, 
too, even if they don't have a mobile data plan. (Isn't that what 
everyone wanted for Christmas this year?)

In January, GoSmart Mobile, a little-known low-cost prepaid service 
from T-Mobile US, will begin bundling free access to Facebook's 
social network and instant-messaging service with all of its mobile 
plans, including a basic $25-a-month unlimited voice plan. The 
service is primarily aimed at smartphones that run Apple's iOS or 
Google's Android software, but it will also work on the cheaper, more 
basic devices known as feature phones.

For GoSmart, which is sold primarily through independent shops in 
urban areas, free Facebook is a way to differentiate itself from 
other prepaid cellular brands - including the more upscale offerings 
that T-Mobile sells under its own brand and through its MetroPCS unit.

...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/free-facebook-common-globally-finally-comes-to-american-mobile-phones/




Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2013 20:01:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: D.C. Circuit Rejects Challenge to Sunsetting of Viewability  Rule 
Message-ID: <498ec15d-55be-440b-b022-a91f49204cd8@googlegroups.com>

I wrote:

>> "...suggesting that the entire cable must-carry regime is on
>> extremely shaky constitutional footing."  I wonder if "must-carry
>> regime" also includes retrans consent.  That would be a real
>> Christmas gift to the cable TV industry!

Garrett Wollman responded:

> I doubt it.  Retrans consent has a very different legal footing.
> If the current must-carry regime were nullified (by either
> Congress or the Courts), then retrans consent would continue
> unimpeded...

I agree that "retrans consent has a very different legal footing" vis-a-vis
must-carry in the sense that each was created by a different section of the
1992 Cable Act.  Both rights were created by that act; neither was created by
copyright law.

Of course Congress could eliminate either right without disturbing the other,
or a court could strike down either right without disturbing the other.  But
any such action would affect only the Cable Act, not the Copyright Act.

> ...unless Congress chose to eliminate it (thereby creating
> a new carve-out from copyright law...

Eliminating must-carry without eliminating retrans consent (or vice versa)
would constitute a change to the 1992 Cable Act, but it would not change the
Copyright Act.

> ...whereas the copyright industry has been very
> successful in pushing Congress in the opposite direction,
> making copyright law more and more draconian at every turn).

Well, yes.  But "making copyright law more and more draconian" doesn't change
the 1992 Cable Act.  Of course Congress could change both laws as part of the
same Act (and I'm sure copyright lawyers would push it to do so), but changing
copyright law by itself does not change communications law.

I continued:

>> This decision isn't final of course.  Broadcasters will surely appeal
>> the District Court's decision and the case may end up at the Supreme
>> Court.

Garrett responded:

> It was not a district court decision; the decision came from the
> United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  The losers
> can petition for an "en banc" rehearing (by the entire D.C.
> Circuit), or they can petition the Supreme Court to hear their
> appeal.  If they get an "en banc", the losing party at that stage
> can then petition SCOTUS.

You are correct.  My error.

Neal McLain






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