FCC is expected to release within days notice of proposed rulemaking approved earlier this month that would open 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz to commercial uses for first time, said Michael Marcus, assoc. dir. of FCC Office of Engineering & Technology. Potential uses for spectrum include high-speed wireless local area networks, broadband access systems for Internet and point-to-point and point-to-multipoint solutions. NPRM explores various options for allowing first nongovt. use of that spectrum: (1) Traditional Part 101 point-to-point licensing. (2) Area licenses with band manager, which would be subject to auction. (3) Unlicensed approach under Part 15. Item as adopted by Commission is neutral about which of those items was best and it was seeking comment from industry on preferred plans. Part 101 licensing probably would involve annual FCC fee and coordinator fee, Marcus said. In that scenario, coordinator would make decisions on whether proposed use would cause interference with other existing users, he said. “The coordinator in doing that would have to do that in the context of specific technical criteria that are in the FCC rules,” he said. FCC will seek comment on whether situation in which operators must rely on rule changes to keep pace with new technology would work in environment in which technology is changing so rapidly, Marcus said. Several developers made clear Wed. that they would prefer to see service rules that didn’t involve auctions. John Lovberg, chief technology officer of Loea Communications, which petitioned FCC for rule change, raised concern that auctions could “encourage artificial spectrum scarcity.” He said point-to-point licensing under Part 101 was solution that had appeared most amenable to NTIA and Interagency Radio Advisory Council. -- MG
FCC late Wed. authorized Verizon to provide long distance service in Me., which is 14th state that agency has approved for long distance entry by a Bell company and 7th state where Verizon has gained Sec. 271 approval. Commission said competing carriers served 50,600 lines in Me., 38,800 of them through resale. Verizon filed Sec. 271 application for Me. March 21 and Justice Dept. recommended approval April 25, saying it appeared competitors were making progress in business market and there were no obstacles to residential entry. DoJ said CLECs served 19.5% of all business lines in Verizon’s Me. service area but less than 1% of residential lines. Justice said low level of CLEC penetration in residential markets might reflect higher unbundled network element (UNE) prices that were in effect before Verizon’s Sec. 271 filing. Me. PUC issued orders cutting some UNE rates within months of Verizon’s application.
SBC Ameritech filed service quality report with Ill. regulators showing carrier had achieved its best service performance since 1992, meeting standards for retail and wholesale services while reducing volume of quality complaints by 60%. Report to Ill. Commerce Commission for first quarter of 2002 showed Ameritech had 24-hour outage restoration rate of 96.5% of outages, compared with standard of 95%. Ameritech said it met timeliness standards for service installations 97% of time, compared with just 79% 12 months earlier; reduced average answering interval at its customer service centers to 22 sec. from 38 sec.; volume of justified service quality complaints declined 62%; volume for other types of complaints fell 40%. On wholesale side, Ameritech said it had met at least 90% of wholesale performance measures each month between June 2001 and March 2002. It said its wholesale performance demonstrated its local markets were open and provided environment in which rivals could compete. Ameritech quality has been under close regulatory scrutiny as company continues recovery from its service quality collapse in summer of 2000.
Comcast and AT&T Broadband defended their merger to FCC, saying combination of nation’s first- and 3rd-largest cable companies would be in public interest, wouldn’t violate Communications Act and would “have no anticompetitive effects in any relevant market.” In turnabout, American Cable Assn. (ACA) jumped on board in favor of merger, telling FCC that deal wouldn’t threaten livelihood of country’s more than 900 small and rural cable operators. Comcast and AT&T Broadband, in 328 pages of reply comments, said dozens of people and entities who filed opposing comments last month (CD April 30 p1) based their assertions on “unfounded fears, rank speculation and thinly disguised pursuit of private agendas.” Opponents, who included coalition of 38 national and state groups such as Consumer Federation of America, said proposed $72 billion merger would create corporate behemoth that would raise prices, offer fewer choices in programming, preclude competition on Internet and among Internet service providers (ISPs), dictate technology standards, put customer service needs last. But companies rejected those arguments and said they already had proved otherwise.
WorldCom announced late Tues. it would eliminate MCI and WorldCom tracking stocks effective July 12, saving it $284 million year in dividend payments, CEO John Sidgmore said. Move was first major action by Sidgmore, who took over from WorldCom founder-CEO Bernard Ebbers when latter was ousted last month. By eliminating MCI tracking stock company will “build our cash position and simplify our corporate structure,” Sidgmore said. Effective July 12, each share of MCI Group will be converted into 1.3594 shares of WorldCom common. MCI Group shareholders also will receive final dividend payment of 60 cents per share. Conversion ratio and dividend payment equaled 23% premium over MCI Group’s closing stock price Tues., analysts said. MCI rose 38% on news Wed. to close at $2.82, up 77 cents. WorldCom common will continue to trade under symbol WCOM, company said. Analysts had viewed MCI tracking stock, created last year to isolate shrinking consumer long distance business from core WorldCom unit, as failure for some time and said MCI business was declining so rapidly it soon would be unable to pay dividend without help from parent company. WorldCom shares -- which currently reflect Internet and data operations, international and business long distance -- have fared worse, falling more than 97% from high of $64 in 1999 to all-time low of $1.08 last week. Company has been plagued by bankruptcy fears from problems that include $30 billion debt, downturn in core business that slashed $1 billion revenue from 2002 forecast, SEC investigation of finances and controversial loans to Ebbers. Separately, WorldCom continued talks on $5 billion in new financing and said it expected to have $1.5 billion accounts receivable pact in place by today (Thurs.), CFO Scott Sullivan said in a conference call Wed. WorldCom shares rose 16% to close Wed. at $1.65, up 23 cents.
HERSHEY, PA. -- Roy Stewart, chief of FCC Office of Bcst. License Policy, didn’t once mention EEO during his presentation here Mon. at Pa. Assn. of Bcstrs. (PAB) -- but that was subject of every question but one he received in spirited session. In its 3rd attempt to adopt employment rules for TV and cable that will withstand court scrutiny (2 early rules were ruled unconstitutional), he said Commission was trying to “strike a balance” to assure that all prospective employees would hear about industry job openings.
Sirius Satellite Radio signed up only 421 subscribers in 4 introductory markets from Feb. 14 launch through March 31, CEO Joseph Clayton told financial analysts in conference call about first-quarter results. It was first reporting period in which Sirius posted actual operating revenue -- $34,000 from advertising, $4,000 from subscriptions.
Trinity Bcstg. Network announced multiyear agreement with Hispanic TV to provide uplink and transponder space for revamped Spanish channel TBN Enlace. For last 5 years, Enlace has been broadcasting over Central America, S. America and Spain, but network hasn’t been able to reach 38 million Hispanics in U.S. New agreement will give network access to U.S.
Scientific-Atlanta (S-A) said it shipped more than 38,000 Explorer 3100HD digital interactive set-tops to 6 N. American cable operators in first quarter in effort to meet expected consumer demand for HDTV. S-A also announced its backing of NCTA’s pledge to support voluntary industry actions to speed digital TV transition, including producing HDTV-capable, single set-top boxes. Explorer 3100HD digital interactive set-top was designed to deliver HDTV and interactive (iTV) services, company said. S-A is one of 3 companies that were working with cable industry’s R&D consortium CableLabs and that had signed onto controversial Point of Deployment-Host Interface License Agreement (PHILA).
Coalition of 38 national and state groups, including Consumers Union, Cal. Public Interest Research Group, Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Mass. Consumer Coalition, Empire State Consumer Assn., Tex. Watch and Va. Citizens Consumer Assn., came out against proposed merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast. Comments on $72 billion deal were due on at FCC Mon., replies May 14. Merger would combine first and 3rd largest cable companies in U.S. “A combined AT&T Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, would have the power to continue raising prices, limit choice in programming, dictate technology standards and network architecture, and ignore customer service issues,” said Mark Cooper, dir. of research for Consumer Federation of America. Organizations argued that cable industry and FCC in past had believed erroneously that alternative technologies such as satellite and DSL would discipline cable’s market power. Groups said cable “still dominates” video and high-speed Internet service and has charged low price for digital video and high prices for cable modem, although each service costs “substantially the same.” They said efficiencies claimed by Comcast Pres. Brian Roberts in recent Senate hearing (CD April 24 p3) were “not likely to be passed on to consumers because of a lack of competition,” that open set-top box standard wouldn’t be advanced by merger and that open communications networks would suffer setback as result of deal. Merger would increase level of concentration in regional and national markets by 5 times DoJ threshold, they said.