Sprint said its consolidated net operating revenue rose 2.1% to $6.7 billion in the 4th quarter from a year earlier as it continued to cut costs and reduce debt trying to offset weak long distance sales and net income dipped 2.6% to $38 million. The company also announced a new product bundling strategy.
Neither EchoStar nor Cablevision has provided insight into separate decisions to participate in the multichannel video distribution & data service (MVDDS) auction at the FCC. The auction, which closed round 46 at our deadline, is winding down, with only 2 new bids in the last round for more than $136 million in gross revenue to the FCC. EchoStar’s move involves its 49% stake in Denver-based South.com, which has placed bids totaling more than $39 million for licenses in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Detroit and Washington. EchoStar officials weren’t available for comment Mon., but the company has long expressed a desire to deliver a broadband service. It made earlier failed investments in Starband, which recently emerged from bankruptcy protection, and WildBlue, which is expected to introduce a Ka-band service this year. EchoStar continues to maintain a small investment in WildBlue, which also has NRTC backing. EchoStar CEO Charles Ergen said at CES earlier this month that EchoStar had been conducting broadband tests since Aug. from a satellite at 121 degrees W. Meanwhile, a Cablevision spokeswoman declined comment on when Voom might introduce an MVDDS service. Cablevision’s Voom HDTV service emerged as the top bidder for MVDDS licenses through its 49% ownership of DTV Norwich. DTV Norwich is the leading bidder in 48 major media markets, including Chicago, L.A., N.Y.C., Philadelphia and San Francisco. It has placed bids of more than $89 million, and a Cablevision spokeswoman said Voom would “continue to explore additional services.” Voom, which began its service last fall with sales of hardware through Sears, is expected to expand to 38 HD channels by late Feb.
About 56% of NTCA’s members offer wireless service to their customers, 46% of them providing voice, 32% broadband, 31% data and 29% paging, according to a survey released Thurs. The average investment in wireless facilities, excluding spectrum, is $4.1 million, the survey said. The average investment in spectrum added $1.6 million, NTCA said. Other results of the survey: (1) 75% of respondents characterized the process of obtaining funding for wireless projects as ranging between “somewhat difficult” and “virtually impossible.” (2) 38% were using unlicensed spectrum to provide wireless services but given the choice 71% would prefer having additional licensed spectrum. (3) The average subscriber used 378 min. per month, paying an average monthly bill of $43. (4) 38% of the telcos providing wireless service used TDMA, 31% CDMA, 24% GSM and 7% AMPS. (5) 28% served as a local presence for a national carrier or marketed a national brand.
Nearly 50 million Americans are using broadband connections at home, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, a 27% increase between May 2003 and Nov. 2003. More than 10 million broadband users were added during that period, the company said, with 38% of all home Internet users using broadband. Dial-up users remained flat at 69.6 million.
DirecTV said it had reached a carriage agreement with Viacom to continue their existing deal. The agreement covers MTV Networks’ program services, BET and CBS broadcasts -- including analog, and HDTV in owned and operated markets and for the broadcast of Super Bowl 38, DirecTV said. The operator also will continue to carry UPN.
The Rainbow-Push Coalition renewed its fight against Sinclair Bcstg. and its effort to create duopolies in several markets. Rainbow-Push filed a petition asking the FCC to deny Sinclair subsidiaries’ applications to transfer licenses from 5 stations currently owned by Cunningham Bcstg. on the ground that the purchases were illegal under current FCC rules. It also asked the Commission to revoke all of the licenses Sinclair or Sinclair subsidiaries already held, alleging the company had engaged in a pattern of ownership fraud.
Dobson Communications plans to buy the GSM assets of NPI-Omnipoint Wireless in northern Mich. for $28 million. Dobson said NPI’s subscribership is 38,000 in Mich., where it has a network with 327 cell sites, including 100 that are company-owned. Dobson said it expected the deal to close in the 2nd quarter of 2004, contingent on regulatory and other approvals. Dobson now serves rural service areas (RSAs) in the state and is acquiring another RSA from Cingular Wireless. The NPI deal will broaden its coverage in Northern Mich. by an additional 650,000 pops, Dobson said. When the purchase closes, Dobson said it planned to increase capital spending $12 million to upgrade network capacity, provide General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and expand coverage in Northern Mich. The company plans to overlay its TDMA networks in the U.S. with GSM/GPRS technology by March 31.
AT&T urged the FCC to not grant a BellSouth (BS) request to let ILECs recover certain wireless local number portability (LNP) costs until it had shown a more direct link between the costs and the new LNP requirements. BS asked the Commission to let ILECs assess a federal user charge on end users to recover wireless LNP costs and to waive recovery limits for end-user charges, which have been in effect for wireline LNP since 1999. Verizon Wireless said it generally backed BellSouth’s request, but only if the FCC spelled out that carriers couldn’t recover those costs from other operators.
Sprint told the FCC it backed a petition by BellSouth that asked the Commission to allow ILECs to recover the costs to implement wireless local number portability (WLNP) through a federal charge on end users (CD Nov 18 p1). In a filing, Sprint urged the agency to find “that all ILECs are entitled to a reasonable opportunity to recover the costs of implementing WLNP through charges imposed on end-users, except for Lifeline customers, and should waive, for all ILECs, the maximum 5-year-period” to recover such costs. BellSouth asked for a waiver of the recovery limits for end- user LNP charges, in effect for wireline LNP since 1999. It sought to modify its end-user LNP charge by extending the recovery period beyond the 5-year cap or modifying its current rate. In Feb. 1999, the Commission allowed ILECs to recover the costs of providing number portability through a federally tariffed charge on end users, which had a maximum period of 5 years. BellSouth pointed out that while cost recovery for ILECs was FCC-regulated, other telecom carriers could recover long-term LNP costs in any “lawful” manner. BellSouth estimated spending $38 million to enable wireless porting. Sprint told the FCC BellSouth had shown ILECs were incurring costs related to WLNP that met the FCC’s LNP rules and weren’t being recovered in current LNP recovery charges by LECs. Sprint said its ILECs’ initial LNP recovery filing covered the part of wireless LNP costs that were known at that time. However, it said it had been advised by FCC staff to remove $10.23 million of WLNP operational support system costs from its filing, “deeming WLNP costs as speculative.” Sprint said it complied and removed the WLNP costs, even though it and the FCC knew that when wireless LNP was deployed, there would be additional costs to recover. Wireless LNP took effect for the top 100 markets on Nov. 24. Sprint said BellSouth also demonstrated that in light of the delays involved in WLNP implementation, wireless LNP coincided with the period in which the 5-year cap was about to expire. “Multiple extensions of the commencement date for WLNP delayed both the ability of carriers to identify WLNP costs and deferred the actual expenditure of such costs,” Sprint said. It said there also were questions remaining on intermodal porting from outside a rate center and the appropriate provisioning interval for intermodal ports. “The resolution of these issues could impose further costs on the ILEC industry that cannot be ascertained today,” it said. Sprint said ILECs should be able to propose, through tariff filings, the recovery period they believed most appropriate for WLNP costs.
E.W. Scripps Co. agreed to buy Summit American TV’s 30% stake in the Shop At Home Network and its 5 Shop At Home TV stations for $235 million in 2 types of Summit stock and a forgiven loan. Scripps had bought the other 70% of the shopping network from Summit in Oct. 2002. The TV stations are KCNS (Ch. 38) San Francisco, WMFP (Ch. 62) Lawrence, Mass., WOAC (Ch. 67) Canton, O., WSAH (Ch. 43) Bridgeport, and WRAY-TV (Ch. 30) Wilson, N.C.