The FBI has asked the FCC to deal with CALEA concerns before acting on pending broadband proceedings, which could delay the VoIP proposal circulating among commissioners on the agency’s 8th floor, we're told. In a letter sent Jan. 28, the FBI, Dept. of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration said they planned to file a joint petition within a few weeks asking the FCC to determine “what broadband services and service providers should be subject to CALEA,” as well as the procedures needed to bring them into compliance. They asked the FCC to complete the current CALEA rulemaking before acting on other broadband proceedings. The FBI had indicated concerns about the difficulty of imposing CALEA’s wiretapping requirements on broadband services such as VoIP.

A program agreement that would streamline wireless and broadcast tower siting reviews ran into trouble last week when the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) raised concerns about how certain types of sites would be excluded, sources said. FCC and some industry officials said they remained bullish that differences could be worked out relatively quickly. But they said a key unresolved issue was one that had drawn recent Capitol Hill attention: Treatment of sites “potentially” eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Senate Commerce Committee is following the House’s lead in scheduling a hearing on indecency in broadcasting (CD Jan 29 p4). However, the Senate apparently will take its own path toward legislation. The Committee scheduled a hearing Feb. 11, 9:30 a.m., Rm. 253, Russell Bldg., titled: “Protecting Children from Violent and Indecent Programming.” The hearing will highlight a bill by from Senate Commerce ranking Democrat Hollings (S.C.), S-161, that would ban broadcasting violent content that couldn’t be blocked by electronic means, such as the V-chip. The White House said Wed. it supported HR-3717 by House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.), which would make FCC fines for indecent broadcast 10 times the current ones. Upton said the bill was gaining co-sponsors and was on the “fast track.” However, a Senate Commerce Committee spokeswoman said the panel already had passed a bill that would give the FCC tougher fines -- the FCC Reauthorization Act (S-1264). That bill, introduced by Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.), also would also make fines 10 times as great for broadcasters and multichannel video providers. However, that bill also would raise fines for common carriers and for other instances. S-161 would require the FCC to study the V-chip for its effectiveness. If the Commission found it to be ineffective, it would be authorized to prohibit showing violent content during hours when children were likely to be watching.

Consumers Union said the FCC’s video competition report (CD Jan 29 p7) demonstrated that consumers had been “short- changed and ripped off” since Congress began deregulating the cable industry under the 1996 Telecom Act. “As the FCC admits, much of the hoped-for competition -- from telephone companies and cable ‘overbuilders’ -- has not materialized, and the explosion of satellite video has done virtually nothing to prevent cable from raising rates nearly 3 times faster than inflation,” CU said. It said the report recognized that in the few communities where 2 cable companies competed head to head, prices were lower. If head- to-head cable competition existed nationwide, consumers could save more than $4 billion per year in cable charges, CU said. CU also said the FCC had failed to note that revenue generated by add-on services, such as high-speed Internet and pay-per-view, would cover all investment in technology and generate a reasonable profit with no need for basic rate increases. “Once again the Commission fails to note the harms caused to consumers by cable’s unrestrained monopolistic practices,” CU said: “It is time for Congress to step back in.”

Public safety groups called on President Bush Thurs. to push the FCC to finish the 800 MHz proceeding. They backed a proposal, supported by Nextel, for reducing interference to their systems in that band. Harlin McEwen, retired chief of police of Ithaca, N.Y., and chmn. of the communications & technology committee of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, said pending proposals were stalled at the FCC and the issue had become mired in a “corporate battle.”

American TV-watchers have more choices among service providers, more programming and more services than at any time in history, the FCC said in a new report that examined competition in the video marketplace over the last year and the last decade. Chmn. Powell credited the cable industry’s $75 billion investment to upgrade its facilities with spurring innovations in 2-way video, broadband Internet, cable telephony and high-definition TV. He also hailed the emergence of DBS as sparking the intense competition that continued to benefit TV users. “The United States has the most competitive and diverse media marketplace the world has ever seen and we must continue to bring the benefits of that competition and diversity to our citizenry,” Powell said.

American TV-watchers have more choices among service providers, more programming and more services than at any time in history, the FCC said in a new report that examined competition in the video marketplace over the last year and the last decade. Chmn. Powell credited the cable industry’s $75 billion investment to upgrade its facilities with spurring innovations in 2-way video, broadband Internet, cable telephony and high-definition TV. He also hailed the emergence of DBS as sparking an intense competition that continued to benefit TV users. “The United States has the most competitive and diverse media marketplace the world has ever seen and we must continue to bring the benefits of that competition and diversity to our citizenry,” Powell said.

The CompTel/Ascent Alliance added Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela and New Zealand to its list of countries that hadn’t honored World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. It said difficulties with Guatemala and El Salvador were “particularly disturbing” because they called into question whether those countries will live up to higher obligations under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) concluded recently. In its “additional” comments filed in the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR’s) annual review (CD Jan 8 p2) of all U.S. trade agreements on telecom products and services, the Alliance said Guatemala had violated obligations under the Reference Paper due to: (1) Lack of procompetitive regulation and competitive safeguards. It raised concerns the Guatemalan govt. and its telecom regulator (SIT) hadn’t taken steps to prevent the anticompetitive behavior of incumbent fixed network operator Telgua and its subsidiary mobile PCS network operator Sercom, which it said had been taking advantage of their dominant market position to the detriment of new entrants. (2) Failure to ensure interconnection. The Alliance said Guatemala had failed to ensure Telgua provided “timely” and “sufficiently unbundled” interconnection on “nondiscriminatory terms.” (3) Lack of an independent regulator. The Alliance criticized SIT for failure to prevent anticompetitive behavior by Telgua and for being “slow to respond, if at all, to requests from competitive carriers to act against Telgua.” (3) A fixed-to-mobile price squeeze involving mobile virtual private network offerings. The Alliance accused Guatemala of violating the GATS Annex on Telecom by failing to ensure Telgua provided access to public telecom networks and services on reasonable and non- discriminatory terms and conditions. The Alliance expressed concern that the situation in El Salvador -- which had been active in promoting a competitive environment for new entrants -- was “changing dramatically for the worse.” It said that country had violated the Reference Paper by failing to ensure competitive safeguards were in place to prevent its incumbent fixed line carrier CTE Telecom from renegotiating interconnection agreements with competitors to “make the terms more favorable to CTE Telecom.” The Alliance accused El Salvador and Venezuela of violating the GATS Telecom Annex by failing to require the incumbent to provide nondiscriminatory access to the public switched network and cost-oriented interconnection. It said that failure also could be viewed as a violation of the countries’ obligations to prevent anticompetitive conduct, as required by the Reference Paper. It said Venezuela had failed to live up to obligations to allow market access for transmission of packet-switched data, such as Internet service. In New Zealand, the Alliance cited 2 major barriers to competition: (1) High mobile termination rates. It urged the country’s Commerce Commission (ComCom) to take formal action to reduce the charges, which it said were among the highest in the Asia Pacific region at about $0.23 and more than 14 times higher than the rates paid to terminate calls on fixed networks in New Zealand. (2) Discriminatory pricing for local access leased lines. The Alliance urged the USTR to encourage New Zealand’s govt. to reject recommendations issued late last year by the ComCom that declined to require these cost- oriented practices: unbundling of the local loop, bitstream access to the incumbent’s DSL services, and pricing and nondiscriminatory access to local leased circuits. CompTel also raised concerns about a “troubling development” in France where the National Assembly earlier this month approved measures, with full govt. support, that limited the power and independence of the French telecom regulator (ART) by “severely circumscribing” its authority to regulate France Telecom’s prices. The Alliance urged the USTR to closely monitor that situation and take any necessary actions to ensure France’s compliance with its WTO commitments.

The U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., was surprisingly forthcoming Wed. in indicating it was considering vacating or remanding part of the FCC’s Triennial Review Order (TRO) that set rules for Bell company sharing of UNEs with competitors. The court appeared particularly concerned about the section that delegated responsibility to state regulators to determine whether particular UNEs such as mass market switching remained necessary to keep competitors from being “impaired.” The Telecom Act said CLECs must gain access to UNEs if they are impaired without them.

It’s time for the 1996 Telecom Act to be reviewed, Hill and FCC panelists said at a Comnet conference in Washington Wed., noting, however, that it could take “some time” before that would be done. House Commerce Committee staffer Greg Rothschild said as VoIP was emerging as one of the critical issues to be addressed by the Commission and Congress, “there is very little in the Act on how to regulate [broadband], and on whether or not it should be regulated… The ‘96 Act has very little application to the questions we are dealing with now.” Citing her previous experience with the 1996 Act, FCC Comr. Adelstein’s aide Lisa Zaina said that when writing a new act it was important to consider how it would be implemented.