The FCC will take up a rulemaking notice examining 700...
The FCC will take up a rulemaking notice examining 700 MHz interoperability issues on March 21, where media and satellite spectrum items also will get a vote, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday. Small carrier officials earlier asked for a vote…
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on the notice of proposed rulemaking at that meeting, to keep a commitment made in the AT&T/Qualcomm order in December that the agency would release a rulemaking in Q1 (CD Feb 6 p2). The meeting is the last of the quarter. “Interoperability is one of the most important issues for competitive carriers, as an interoperability requirement will finally allow competitive carriers to build out their 4G LTE mobile networks and compete with the ever-growing duopoly of AT&T and Verizon Wireless,” said Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry. The FCC will also consider a rulemaking and notice of inquiry on making mobile satellite service spectrum available for terrestrial service, the agency said. Among the three media items set for a March 21 vote are two that had been circulating for more than a month on radio and a new rulemaking notice on whether to sunset a ban on cable channels that are affiliated with operators withholding content from pay-TV rivals. The program access rulemaking notice asks whether to keep, sunset or “relax” the ban on withholding “and whether to revise the program access rules to better address alleged violations,” the commission said. The rulemaking circulated Wednesday for a vote, an FCC official said. Program access rules now sunset Oct. 5, and the agency had planned to issue a rulemaking on whether to keep them (CD Jan 9 p5). Both radio items tentatively set for a vote at the meeting affect low-power FM stations, with an order limiting the number of translators that can be awarded when the stations would use up channels that LPFMs could occupy. The order is on a “market-specific FM translator processing scheme,” with “application caps to prevent trafficking” and on changing “policies to expand opportunities to rebroadcast AM stations on FM translators,” the FCC said. An LPFM rulemaking notice asks as expected (CD Feb 9 p6) about implementing the Local Community Radio Act so low-power stations can be closer on the dial to full-powers. The item asks about “second adjacent channel waiver procedures, interference remediation requirements, and modification of eligibility, ownership, and selection standards,” the commission said.