With AT&T-BellSouth merger talks starting anew, the focus is now on the future of special access and whether the FCC will approach it by mandating baseball-style arbitration or a broader rulemaking. Sources said Thurs. it’s unclear how far talks advanced, if at all, since Comr. McDowell declined to participate in the review (CD Dec 20 p1). With key staff and commissioners off next week, scant progress is expected.
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
T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel, the major wireless carriers not affiliated with Bells, asked the FCC to rule that LECs can’t impose what they call unnecessary impediments to porting numbers. The carriers asked the FCC to declare that carriers may not demand “information from requesting providers beyond that required to validate the customer request and accomplish the port.” The FCC needn’t impose more rules, they said, but must make clear it will enforce current rules.
Talks continue on the AT&T-BellSouth merger, but chances are slim for a 2006 approval, with commissioners leaving for the holidays, Chmn. Martin said Wed. “I still think it could get done early next year,” Martin said, acknowledging he has no magic answers for concluding the talks successfully.
NPSTC generally backed a proposal to give public safety 30 MHz of 700-Mhz band spectrum for a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network. In a filing at the FCC, the group didn’t specifically endorse Cyren Call’s proposal, but that’s the only one calling for creation of a 30 MHz public safety broadband trust, a source said. “It is endorsing the public safety broadband concept that Cyren Call has proposed,” the source said: “You can’t talk about this without talking about Cyren Call’s proposal.” NPSTC (National Public Safety Telecom Council) decided at a recent N.Y. meeting to support reallocating the spectrum, joining other safety bodies backing an allocation of more 700-MHz spectrum after the DTV shift. “The nation has a unique opportunity to take advantage of the clearance of a nationwide block of 30 MHz of contiguous frequencies in the 700-MHz spectrum band that is adjacent to spectrum currently allocated to public safety and that would be ideal for the creation of a broadband nationwide network,” NPSTC said. In an unrelated matter, NPSTC backed alternate recommendations to the common interoperability radio channel naming scheme developed by the FCC, subject of a Feb. meeting in Fla. hosted by NPSTC. “Lack of a common naming standard and the lack of immediate communications capability is a significant impediment to public safety’s ability to respond to multi- agency incidents, and that a common nomenclature will make a tangible difference in public safety interoperability,” the group said.
The FCC voted Wed. to seek comment on bids to provide public safety with wireless broadband at 700 MHz, including a proposal to use 12 MHz of 24 MHz set aside for public safety after the DTV transition to launch a national safety broadband network and related issues.
The FCC should change its stance and declare that when TV “white spaces” are available, they will be offered for purely unlicensed use and not sold in a Commission spectrum auction, the Media Access Project, New America Foundation and allies said. The Champaign Urbana Wireless Network also joined a petition for reconsideration filed at the FCC.
CenturyTel said Mon. it agreed to acquire Madison River Communications in a deal valued at $830 million. Glen Post, CEO of CenturyTel, said on a conference call that regulatory issues, including uncertainty over USF and intercarrier compensation reform, figured in the company’s evaluation of the merger, but there’s little risk of Madison River’s revenue dropping because of rule changes. “Nothing major has changed in the regulatory arena,” Post said in response to an analyst’s question: “We still believe that we'll see progress in the next 18 months to eliminate some of the regulatory uncertainty.”
Comr. Copps said Fri. negotiations should continue on the AT&T-BellSouth merger with or without participation by Comr. McDowell, who’s deciding whether he can vote on the merger. “I have never said that the merger discussions were at an impasse,” Copps said as he left a Practising Law Institute event.
Motorola wants the 800 MHz reconfiguration process itself retuned so public safety radios can be fixed even before all network retuning decisions are made. That was the message from Bill Anaya, Motorola vp govt. relations, during a Thurs. wireless panel at the Practising Law Institute. Motorola has said rebanding will require replacement or retuning or 1.2 million public safety radios, a process not yet begun. Anaya called for a “parallel track” for addressing radios.
The Commerce Dept. Spectrum Advisory Committee is making its first priority a recommendation on the long-awaited spectrum testbed, part of the band to be put aside for testing spectrum sharing. The committee also is slated to study the Wireless Accelerated Responder Network (WARN) in D.C. and similar systems with a view toward a national system.