Infinity Bcstg. told the FCC it didn’t intend to pay a $357,500 fine imposed by the agency for airing a an alleged live sex act in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in N.Y. Infinity, which has another indecency fine pending against it and has settled past indecency charges related to the Howard Stern Show broadcasts to the tune of $1.7 million, said the portions of Aug. 15, 2002, Opie and Anthony Show that the FCC singled out in its Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) didn’t violate Commission indecency rules, and pursuing the fine signaled a broader effort to impose stricter indecency standards on broadcasters without formally changing its rules.
The U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., turned down a request by rural carriers for a stay on wireless-to-wireless local number portability (LNP) rules in a decision late Fri., but set a briefing schedule for an 11th-hour challenge by USTA on a wireline-to-wireless LNP order. Wireless LNP is to take effect today (Mon.) in the top 100 markets. USTA and CenturyTel had filed an emergency motion for a stay at the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., Fri., seeking to forestall the FCC’s wireline-to-wireless LNP rules. CTIA warned that if the request were honored, millions of wireline customers wouldn’t be able to transfer numbers to mobile phones.
The Appropriations rider on media ownership agreed to by House and Senate negotiators, if signed into law, would have little practical effect on the companies involved in the near future, industry and govt. officials said. That’s because the rider would stop the FCC for only one year from implementing its new 45% ownership cap by blocking any federal money from being used for that purpose. The rider, which is part of an omnibus Appropriations package, would be void after Oct. 1, 2004.
In what probably won’t be the last telecom antitrust hearing this Congress, House Judiciary Committee Chmn. Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) didn’t appear satisfied with the Justice Dept.’s actions in the Trinko v. Verizon case. At the same time, ranking Democrat Conyers (Mich.) wasn’t happy with Verizon’s or the DoJ’s response to his concerns about a recent meeting of Bells and equipment manufacturers that Conyers said could warrant a DoJ investigation.
Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.) and FCC Chmn. Powell, touting wireless local number portability (LNP), cast doubts Wed. on the prospects that any last-min. challenges would derail the Mon. deadline. USTA and CenturyTel petitioned the FCC late Tues. to stay new wireline-to-wireless LNP rules, saying if it didn’t act on the request by Nov. 20, they would seek relief in the courts. Separately, telemarketers were raising new concerns at the FCC on how to implement marketing restrictions for some ported wireless numbers.
Cingular, in an FCC filing, balked at criticism by Nextel and others of a waiver request by Cingular and NextWave on their proposed license transfer. Cingular is buying 34 PCS licenses from NextWave in a $1.4 billion deal that was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court, White Plains, N.Y. The proposed transfer of licenses filed at the FCC included a request that the Commission waive parts of its rules on designated entity restrictions. Nextel said in that under the FCC’s unjust enrichment rules, Cingular couldn’t be assigned the licenses until the agency was paid in full, including unpaid principal and all unpaid accrued interest. Nextel said that would raise the total of what the Commission would receive to $884 million, compared with the court- approved deal which gives the agency $714 million. Cingular told the FCC it should dismiss comments by Nextel and a petition to deny filed by Eldorado Communications. It said Nextel hadn’t backed up its charges with an affidavit, including character allegations about how Cingular handled public safety interference problems in Anne Arundel County, Md. Nextel’s challenge to Cingular’s character qualifications to hold the licenses doesn’t involve “misrepresentation or lack of candor with intent to mislead the FCC,” Cingular said. It also doesn’t meet the required elements of a character qualification case of establishing a pattern of willful violations of the Communications Act or FCC rules, Cingular said.
ATLANTA -- FCC Comr. Adelstein told an audience of state consumer advocates Tues. that, with the Bell 271 long distance entry question now out of the way, “the next big public interest issue facing the FCC and the states is universal service.” Adelstein, addressing members of the National Assn. of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NARUC) at their meeting during its annual convention here, said the rise of competition in telecom had changed the roles of regulators and consumer advocates, but not their duty to act in the public interest. “The public interest is a real and meaningful standard in telecom. It’s our job to figure out what the public interest is” in universal service and other matters.
ATLANTA -- NARUC’s Telecom Committee adopted policy resolutions addressing the cost basis for UNEs, convergence of information services and telecom, and use of the 811 dialing code as the national number for underground facility locator services. But another resolution at the NARUC annual meeting here Mon. on directory assistance competition failed to pass.
The FCC Thurs. expanded the scope of some Enhanced 911 requirements, including a mandate that certain mobile satellite service (MSS) providers create call centers for routing emergency calls. In an order and further notice adopted unanimously at its agenda meeting, the Commission also concluded that, for now, state and local govts. were better positioned to set rules for E911 deployment by multiline telephone systems (MLTS). It expanded E911 mandates to certain telematics services and resellers of mobile wireless services, including prepaid calling cards.
The emergence of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services may force regulators to find new ways to handle social obligations such as universal service, E911 and CALEA, experts said in an audio conference Thurs. sponsored by Warren Communications News. Rather than limiting debate to 2 alternatives -- subjecting VoIP providers to traditional telephony regulations vs. seeing social programs such as those decline because funding was required in those regulations -- there’s a 3rd alternative: Looking for new ways to fund such programs, panelists said.