FCC Moves November Meeting Date

The FCC has moved its public meeting date from
Thursday, Nov. 4, to Tuesday, Nov. 30.

An FCC source familiar with the decision said it
was a "scheduling issue." That would be as opposed to a policy issue
like, say, Title II reclassification. The move of the date would move the
"white copy" date for informing commissioners about upcoming items
until after the Nov. 2 election.

Speaking on background, an FCC official would not
rule out that either Title II or the FCC's proposed codification of network
neutrality principles could be on the agenda for that meeting, but said that
was a separate issue from the scheduling move. Instead, said the source, the
move was to give the bureaus more time to work on unrelated items being teed up
for that meeting.

With an Oct. 14 meeting date, the bureaus would
have essentially had to circulate the items for the Nov. 4 meeting the same day
they were responsible for presenting at the October meeting, as they had to do
at this week's Sept. 23 meeting for October. They wanted more time, said the
source.

The commission moved its September meeting back a
week due to scheduling conflicts, which created the confluence of meeting and
circulation date.

These days, those looking for the chairman to
schedule a vote on reclassifying broadband access service are watching any move
carefully.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.