Weighing in on a fight between rural carriers in Ia. and the Bells over alleged call blocking, CTIA said the ever nastier fight (CD April 20 p4) shows why broad intercarrier compensation reform is needed. In that rumpus, small carriers claim big carriers wrongly blocked calls to their subscribers. Big carriers allege rural local carriers are allying with service providers to stimulate high incoming traffic volume and increase terminating access revenue. The Ia. carriers want the FCC to take up the fight as a stand-alone item not tied to the broader intercarrier compensation fight.
Howard Buskirk
Howard Buskirk, Executive Senior Editor, joined Warren Communications News in 2004, after covering Capitol Hill for Telecommunications Reports. He has covered Washington since 1993 and was formerly executive editor at Energy Business Watch, editor at Gas Daily and managing editor at Natural Gas Week. Previous to that, he was a staff reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Greenville News. Follow Buskirk on Twitter: @hbuskirk
The FCC pulled from the agenda for Wed’s. (today’s) meeting an order addressing 3 petitions for reconsideration of service-specific and technology-specific numbering overlay requirements. The petitions, by j2 Global Communications, Cingular and WebLink Wireless, have been pending for years. Cingular filed in 2001; j2 and WebLink, in 2002. The FCC has approved an order on circulation addressing the petitions though it hasn’t been released.
Talks continue between industry and environmental groups on towers and bird deaths, but comments filed by both camps at the FCC this week show broad disagreement. Industry groups told the FCC no evidence exists that should lead the agency to impose more requirements on tower operators. Environmental organizations countered with a letter urging the FCC to act immediately to make towers safer for birds.
Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he will introduce a broadband development bill aimed at improving federal and state collection of information on high-speed access, and an advanced information and communications technology bill to promote basic research. Inouye said during a hearing Tues. on broadband deployment that he hopes for bipartisan support, especially after OECD data showing that the U.S. has slipped to 15th in the world from 12th in broadband adoption rates (CD April 24 p1).
The Media Access Project claims to have found widespread evidence of gaming and signaling in 2006’s advanced wireless services (AWS) auction. FCC rules required disclosure of bidders’ identities as the auction progressed. The data MAP cites suggest gaming doomed chances for DBS operators to buy spectrum they sought early in the auction, which would have let them offer wireless broadband to complement their video offerings. Neither the FCC nor other bidders immediately commented. MAP released its data as the FCC readies rules for the coming 700 MHz auction. MAP wants all FCC auctions from now on to be closed. Harold Feld, MAP senior Vp, told us Mon.: “There are just too many opportunities in an open environment to identify new entrants like DBS Wireless, to have those interested in throttling new entrants swarm after them.” MAP cited studies by Gregory Rose of Economic Research Services. Rose analyzed the 2006 auction results using the same methodology with which he claimed to have found evidence of tacit collusion in the PCS D, E and F-Block auction in 1996-97. Rose determined that 0.19% of bids in the 2006 AWS-1 auction were placed to “retaliate” against other bidders and to thwart competition. That’s up from 0.16% of all bids in the PCS auction from 10 years ago.
Cooperation among first responders, with officials at all levels connected, and police and firefighters linked, is key to better emergency communications, speakers said Fri. at the FCC First Responders Summit. Speakers repeatedly invoked the mass murders at Va. Tech to stress the need to improve crisis communications.
A group of Ia. LECs and CLECs this week was on Capitol Hill and at the FCC to meet with staffers for all commissioners on their complaints of call blocking by major carriers. The small carriers want the FCC to take emergency action, as in the Madison River case, in which the FCC acted to stop Madison River Communications from blocking ports used for VoIP (CD April 6 p3). AT&T and Verizon, meanwhile, denied the claims, saying the telcos were artificially inflating access fees.
Chmn. Martin circulated but subsequently withdrew an order that would scuttle M2Z’s proposal to build a free, nationwide wireless broadband network in the 2.1 GHz band, in favor of auctioning the spectrum, sources said. The order denied M2Z’s petition for forbearance and launched a proceeding on service rules and procedures for an auction. Several other companies, including Speedus Corp.-backed NetFree, have also contended for the spectrum.
The House Committee on Oversight approved Wed. legislation that would open the D.C. Metro transit system to the major wireless carriers, requiring the Metro authority to allow them to install equipment throughout the system (CD April 2 p4). Currently, only Verizon Wireless subscribers can make and receive calls inside Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) tunnels. Sprint Nextel customers can roam. T-Mobile and AT&T subscribers have no access.
The failure of XM and Sirius to offer radios that can be used with both services is being pointed to by consumer groups and other merger opponents as a reason the satellite radio operators can’t be trusted to keep commitments to consumers that they make to secure merger approval. The issue got some play at a Senate hearing Tues. (CD April 18 p6). Sources said Wed. they expect the lack of commercially available interoperable radios to emerge as a bigger issue as regulators look more closely at whether to give their blessing to the merger.