NOAA is waiting for guidance from Bush Administration before either finalizing or scrapping proposal to raise fees for fiber projects crossing national marine sanctuaries, agency staffer said. Agency’s National Ocean Service earlier this year sought comment on draft recommendation to sell 25-year cable permits in protected areas for an up-front $120,000 per mile of right-of-way (RoW) fee. It also sought comment on MIT White Paper that said proposed RoW fee assessment, which is supposed to be based on fair market value of land, “is more likely to be too low than too high.” NOAA never acted on petitions to extend Jan. 18 comment deadline and must delay action further since White House position on issue is “unclear,” aide said. Spokesman for TELROW Coalition, group of energy and telecom interests, said this and other govt. agency proposals (CD April 19 p4) to raise RoW fees for access to public lands would hinder efforts to deploy broadband fiber and other communications infrastructure.

FCC spelled out for first time at Commission level, in order on VoiceStream-Deutsche Telekom (DT) merger released Fri., relationship between Communications Act provision that bars foreign govt. ownership and section that allow indirect govt. investment. In granting license transfers in Powertel- VoiceStream-DT merger, order stipulated that indirect ownership by foreign govt. should be addressed only under Sec. 310(b)(4) of Act, not Sec. 310(a), which bars direct govt. ownership. Sec. 310(b) allows for foreign govt. to hold greater than 25% stake in corporate license “unless the Commission finds that the public interest will be served by refusal or revocation of the license,” order said. While text of final order contained no surprises, language has been closely watched for road map that it will provide for similar deals in future.

Despite 14 dissenting votes, House Telecom Subcommittee cleared bill to deregulate Bell provision of data services (HR- 1254) Thurs., but not before members made several changes and extracted promises from bill’s sponsors to incorporate several more at full Commerce Committee markup. Sponsors, Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) and ranking Democrat Dingell (Mich.) did manage to fend off amendments that would have gutted bill, and both sides left claiming 6-hour markup was victory for measure’s long-term chances.

FCC unanimously approved Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) merger with VoiceStream and Powertel, imposing no special conditions on $34 billion deal and provoking renewed commitment from Sen. Hollings (D-S.C.) to seek restrictions on foreign govt. ownership in U.S. telecom companies. FCC adopted order 4-0, with Comr. Furchtgott- Roth dissenting in part on separate deal on national security issues between federal agencies and companies. Order, approved Tues., is expected to be released as early as today (Thurs.) Commission said in news release it found DT would “have neither the incentive nor the ability to engage in unfair competition, specifically predatory pricing, in the U.S. domestic mobile telephony market.”

Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy told FCC in letter last week that Nov. order on Enhanced 911 didn’t comply with Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) because it didn’t adequately address impact on small business. It said conclusions weren’t based on issues raised in initial regulatory flexibility analysis (IRFA) and didn’t give small businesses chance to comment on new IRFA, SBA said. SBA told FCC Chmn. Powell that his agency should draft supplemental document to seek comment on impact on small businesses of decision to remove cost-recovery mechanism. Order itself was response to petitions for reconsideration of decision to remove precondition of cost recovery from states to accelerate introduction of E911 services. Originally, carriers were allowed to defer providing 911 operators with ability to automatically locate position of wireless callers. Before cost recovery had been removed as precondition, deferral was predicated on timing of state mechanism to reimburse carriers for costs. Order under scrutiny by SBA upheld FCC decision to require carriers to install automatic locator systems regardless of whether they were reimbursed by state govts. SBA told Powell that because small businesses didn’t have chance to comment on decision to do away with cost-recovery requirement, “the Commission’s rulemaking is grievously in violation of the RFA.” Technical regulatory concerns raised by SBA center on fact that FCC relied on regulatory analysis drafted in earlier order rather than creating separate one for comment on cost-recovery requirement change. Updated analysis should be disseminated “immediately to cure this deficiency,” SBA wrote.

LAS VEGAS Role of govt. in broadcast content regulation remained divisive among FCC officials at NAB convention here Mon. FCC Comr. Ness said content regulation generally shouldn’t be govt. responsibility, but broadcasters “have a responsibility” to “draw a distinction between what sells well and what serves the public well.” However, Jay Friedman, aide to FCC Comr. Tristani, said idea that First Amendment foreclosed regulation of TV violence was wrong.

FCC dismissed complaint filed Jan. 24 by Excel Communications and affiliated companies against Qwest alleging carrier had backbilled Excel for primary interexchange carrier charges in violation of Communications Act. Parties said issues raised in complaint had been resolved. (EB 01-MD-03)

In somewhat complex case, U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., Fri. remanded FCC decision requiring ILECs to share their DSL facilities with competitors. Qwest and WorldCom, for different reasons, had appealed FCC’s decision that ILECs’ DSL services qualified for competitive access under Sec. 251 of Telecom Act. Act requires ILECs to make their facilities available through unbundling and resale. After sorting out several other legal issues, court ruled that FCC couldn’t base its DSL decision on standard that since had been vacated in different court suit.

Taking another deregulatory step, FCC moved to ease its restrictions on dual-network ownership Thurs., amending rules to allow Big 4 TV networks to own, operate, maintain or control emerging networks UPN and WB. By 3-1 vote, Commission adopted report and order (R&O) eliminating section of dual-network rule that barred mergers between major network and emerging network. As result, Viacom, which already owned financially ailing UPN before buying CBS last May, will be able to keep both networks or sell UPN to any of other 3 major networks if it wants. By same token, AOL Time Warner now could sell WB to any of 4 major networks, although it hasn’t shown any desire to do so.

FCC voted 3-1 late Wed. to adopt long-awaited order reducing carrier-to-carrier payments for Internet-bound dial-up calls. Comr. Furchtgott-Roth dissented. Order ends long debate about high level of reciprocal compensation payments that flow from ILECs to CLECs. Reciprocal compensation is intended to pay one local carrier for terminating call from customer of another local carrier. Because many CLECs signed up ISPs as customers, traffic generally has flowed to CLECs from ILEC. Order caps payments for ISP-bound calls at level that generally is lower than what carriers pay for voice traffic under state-supervised reciprocal compensation agreements.