Consent Agenda

March 22, 2005 |Miscellaneous

Sprint agreed to pay $4 million to the U.S. Treasury to resolve an FCC investigation into whether Sprint engaged in slamming. Voting as part of its omnibus “consent agenda” at the Thurs. open meeting, the Commission entered into a consent decree in which the telecom company also agreed to ensure future compliance. Slamming is the unauthorized change of a consumer’s preferred telecom provider.

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The FCC affirmed the Enforcement Bureau’s March 2004 order denying Nextel’s requests for license revocation proceedings against four 800 MHz licensees.

The Commission approved the procedure to transition 40 Private Land Mobile Radio (PLMR) channels, located in bands primarily allocated for federal use, to narrower, more efficient channels in a process known as narrowbanding. The rules conform with a narrowbanding schedule adopted by NTIA for federal users in these bands.

The Commission voted as part of the consent agenda to change rules in response to allocation decisions adopted at the 2003 World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva. The rules implement changes to the high frequency broadcast service, amateur radio service among others.

The FCC voted to solicit data to update the compensation rate for dial-around calls from payphones. The data will help the Commission determine the monthly average of “compensable” dial-around calls per payphone, used to set the monthly per-payphone rate. The FCC said the proceeding will affect dial-around rates for only about 5% of the nation’s payphones, which lack automated systems that let long distance companies identify payphone-originated calls for the purpose of providing compensation.

The Commission denied a request by the Mescalero Apache School to review a Wireline Bureau E-rate decision. The FCC confirmed the bureau’s decision that Mescalero didn’t justify a waiver of the program’s deadlines for filing an appeal.

The FCC denied 2 Bell companies’ applications for review of a 1992 Wireline Bureau order clarifying price cap methodology, the structure used to regulate the Bells. Bell Atlantic, now part of Verizon, and Pacific Bell, part of SBC, sought review of an order clarifying how ILECs allocate refund and sharing amounts among price cap baskets. The FCC ruled that the companies couldn’t increase price cap indices for other baskets to account for previous misallocation of sharing obligations among baskets.

The FCC granted an application for review by Chisholm Trail Bcstg. to set aside staff action reallocating Ch. 259C3 from Tishomingo to Tuttle, Okla., and modifying the Station KTSH(FM) license to specify Tuttle as the community of license. The commission said it made the decision because Ralph Tyler, former licensee of KTSH(FM), surrendered his license and withdrew any interest in pursuing reallotment of Ch. 259C3 to Tuttle.

Affirming an earlier opinion, the FCC adopted an order on reconsideration denying a Birach Bcstg. petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s Jan. 31, 2003 denial of Birach’s application for review. Previously, the FCC had concluded Birach isn’t entitled to more time to build an AM broadcast station in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The Commission rejected Birach’s arguments that court and FCC proceedings post-dating the broadcaster’s application justified reconsideration.

The FCC adopted an order directing KEGG Communications to show cause why it shouldn’t revoke the license for FM translator station K216EQ, Daingerfield, Tex., and why it shouldn’t deny the station’s application for a new noncommercial educational FM station in Daingerfield. The Commission said KEGG’s “vague, incomplete, and inconsistent representations concerning the primary station rebroadcast over K216EQ raise a substantial and material question of fact as to whether KEGG misrepresented or lacked candor in providing information to the Commission concerning K216EQ’s primary station and the related matter of whether KEGG originated programming on station K216EQ in violation of the Commission’s FM translator rules.”

The FCC adopted an order granting 6-month extensions for 39 commercial TV stations to finish building DTV facilities based on demonstrated inability to meet the construction deadline. Of the stations granted extensions, the FCC says 39 made “reasonable and diligent” efforts, but encountered circumstances unforeseeable or beyond their control. The order admonishes one station for not making a solid case for extending of its DTV construction permit, but still granted the station 6 months to finish its DTV facilities.

The FCC adopted an order granting 6-month extensions for 43 noncommercial TV stations to finishing building DTV facilities based on demonstrated inability to meet the deadline. The FCC said the stations made “reasonable and diligent” efforts, but were flummoxed by circumstances unforeseeable or beyond their control. Two other stations didn’t satisfy requirements for extensions, but after an admonishment the FCC granted them 6 months to finish their DTV facilities.