A federal appeals court will hear Thursday oral argument on whether the FCC “abused its discretion and acted arbitrarily and capriciously and contrary to law,” as argued by MetroPCS, in declining to decide what was “reasonable compensation” to a CLEC for terminating telecom traffic originating on MetroPCS’s network. The FCC had determined that the California Public Utilities Commission was “a more appropriate forum to determine a reasonable compensation rate.” The case involves a dispute between MetroPCS and CLEC North County but has wider implications, MetroPCS said.
A new GAO report found that broadband availability is similar across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, including the U.S., but adoption varies more and is influenced by cost, income, computer ownership and other demographic factors. Increasing adoption in the U.S. won’t be easy, but recommendations in the FCC National Broadband Plan are consistent with the approach adopted in a number of other OECD countries, GAO found. The report was prepared at the direction of the leaders of the House Commerce Committee.
AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, ZipDX and Level 3 signed a USTelecom letter urging the FCC to use the top 1 percent of minutes per line monthly as an indicator of so-called traffic pumping. At 2009 rates, the benchmark number would be 406 minutes per line per month limit, wrote USTelecom Vice President Glenn Reynolds, ZipDX CEO David Frankel, Verizon Vice President Donna Epps, AT&T Director Brian Benison, Qwest Vice President Melissa Newman and Level 3 Assistant Chief Legal Officer John Ryan. That would be three times the median minutes a line as established by the National Exchange Carriers Association Band 8 LECs, they said.
A dozen broadcasters sought to jump start an auction of translators they hope can be used for service on either radio band, without waiting for new requests for low-power FM (LPFM) stations that could use the same spectrum. A counterproposal to one made last month from an LPFM group and a broadcaster among those with the most applications pending in the 2003 filing window for Auction 83 was filed by small commercial broadcasters frustrated at the pace of FCC action. The earlier proposal by the Prometheus Radio Project, representing LPFM stations, and Educational Media Foundation, with several hundred translator supplications, has been getting consideration from career FCC staffers and commissioners’ offices aware that many industry stakeholders hadn’t signed onto that plan (CD Oct 4 p8). Prometheus officials said they welcomed debate about their proposal.
Ex-Republican FCC Chairmen Michael Powell and Kevin Martin called on current Chairman Julius Genachowski to stake out clear positions on net neutrality as the debate continues at the commission and on Capitol Hill. Their comments came on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators that was scheduled to air over the weekend. The third former chairman on the program, Reed Hundt, a Democrat and Genachowski’s old boss, came to Genachowski’s defense. The chairman has already changed the debate on key issues before the FCC, Hundt said.
Broad use of Internet technology by young people requires industry and government efforts to establish online trust by parents and kids, privacy advocates from inside and outside the government said Friday. The FCC and the FTC unveiled tools to educate families about online safety, and the FTC plans to release a review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) next month.
TOKYO -- With Japanese government approval almost certain, NTT DoCoMo will begin its next-generation digital mobile broadcasting service in 2011 starting in Tokyo and Osaka, spokeswoman Naoko Minobe told us Friday during a tour of the company’s showroom.
NTIA could be faced with no money for oversight of its broadband stimulus program unless Congress acts in the lame-duck session starting in November. The agency, which administers the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), wants Congress to sort out the issue in the lame duck, an NTIA official said. One option under consideration is an appropriations process called “reprogramming,” wherein NTIA would repurpose existing funding from other programs that it runs, the official said.
Cbeyond, Integra Telecom and Socket Telecom have urged the FCC to impose conditions on CenturyLink’s planned purchase of Qwest to require the combined company to guarantee wholesale service quality, provide CLECs with conditioned copper loops and prevent the company from increasing special access rates or canceling special access agreements. The comments filed Thursday replied to a Sept. 29 letter from CenturyLink saying that a settlement with Sprint, Paetec, Mediacom, Cox and 360Networks in Iowa provides a model for relations with CLECs.
The military and commercial satellite operators need to improve communications and planning to make sure Defense Department satellite requirements don’t “outstrip” the available capacity, said Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, president of Inmarsat Government Services. Reactive leasing by the government leaves industry and military needs out of sync, she said at the Washington Space Business Roundtable Thursday. There has been an “awakening” in recent months in the defense environment that things need to change and discussion has increased in recent months on how to break down the “impediments” to effective satellite communications policy, Cowen-Hirsch said.