Without the $72 million in FCC Connect America Fund money, 100,000 homes in Frontier’s territory wouldn’t get broadband connectivity, CEO Maggie Wilderotter told us Monday. “We absolutely would not be able to reach these specific households” otherwise, she said, pointing to low population density that makes wiring the locations economically prohibitive otherwise. As Frontier praised the FCC for making this funding available, other would-be recipients said it wasn’t enough. Alaska Communications Systems, which accepted over $4 million to wire its unserved areas, said that even with the funding, ACS still couldn’t make the numbers work.
Boxee faulted a proposal contained in a letter last week from the six largest cable operators for dealing with third-party Clear QAM-reliant devices if the operators are allowed to encrypt their basic service tiers. Boxee’s lobbying efforts have slowed adoption of an order that would let cable operators that are all-digital encrypt that service tier, industry officials and staffers at the FCC, which got Boxee’s letter last week, have said. The company sells a device that integrates Clear QAM cable basic cable signals with other online video. Any long-term solution for delivering basic-tier service to such devices should be hardware free, Boxee said. The commitments laid out in the letter (CD July 26 p13) wouldn’t apply to smaller operators, it told officials in office of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Office of General Counsel and Media Bureau, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bniqke). An NCTA spokeswoman declined to comment.
FCC Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai are raising concerns about a draft order circulated by Chairman Julius Genachowski that would terminate all 20 current 700-MHz band waivers to build out public safety systems ahead of a nation network in the 700 MHz band (CD July 13 p1). A major sticking point, agency officials said, is language in the order which they said would make it extremely difficult to get approval for a new grant of special temporary authority (STA) to build a system under a waiver. Discussions are ongoing and Genachowski offered some changes aimed at a compromise late Friday, agency officials said.
Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel raised strong objections to Seareka’s application for a waiver for its maritime survivor locating device. MSLDs are transceivers attached to life vests or other survival equipment, designed to help locate survivors of incidents at sea. The problem is the system operates in the 869.4-869.65 MHz band, used by U.S. carriers for cellular communications. Seareka told the FCC the frequency is widely used for maritime rescue across the world. The Wireless Bureau sought comment on the Seareka application last month (http://xrl.us/bnc4p9).
The federal agency having the biggest regulatory impact on cloud computing and data centers is an unlikely sounding source, said a consultant who bills himself as the only government-relations specialist for the industry: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “The CFTC regulates corn, not technology,” said the consultant, CEO Peter Kavounas of Cloud Strategix. He told us that what he called the cluelessness reflected in rules the commission has imposed and proposed shows why providers including telcos need to keep aware and start approaching regulators to explain how their businesses work and what they need. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has pushed back against several of the CFTC proposals.
Halo Wireless must “cease and desist” in 30 days in Wisconsin unless it receives necessary certification and “AT&T may take actions to remedy” the violation of an interconnection agreement, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission ruled Friday in an order concluding an investigation of the company’s practices. The Texas-based company still faces many opponents in legal battles across the country regarding its failure to pay access charges. The company’s bankruptcy filing last year won’t save it from the pursuit of state public utility commissions, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in late June.
After being accused of ignoring removal requests by the Public Safety Assistance Foundation (PSAF) last week (WID July 27 p10), Whitepages.com CEO Alex Algard told us the personal information search engine is “very diligent in response to user request for removal.” Since 2009, he said, the site has had a removal request process. “We've been looked at as the leader in providing tools … that let people take control of their information.” PSAF helps law enforcement and public officials remove themselves and their families from public databases.
The second “derecho” of the summer hit the East Coast Thursday night, rolling across hundreds of miles throughout New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, among other states, although the impact appears to be far less than the June 29 derecho that devastated the Mid-Atlantic region and caused millions to lose power, as well as some in Northern Virginia and elsewhere to lose 911 service (CD July 3 p1). The Thursday storm, although less extreme than June’s, caused many of those same problems in limited locations.
The Rural Cellular Association asked the FCC to extend the buildout deadlines for lower 700 MHz A-block licenses for at least two years, in a petition released Friday. The extension is needed, RCA said, because at this point small carriers are having difficulty buying handsets without an interoperability mandate. RCA said the buildout deadlines should be extended for at least two years after the FCC wraps up a rulemaking on whether to impose an interoperability mandate. Without an extension, carriers face a June 13, 2013, buildout deadline for the licenses, which were sold in a 2008 FCC auction.
With more than $1 billion of TV station asset deals announced recently (CD July 20 p8), one question was top of mind for stock analysts who cover the publicly-traded broadcasters reporting earnings last week: Why didn’t their companies buy any of the stations? Answers varied a bit. Executives in general said the outlets sold by Newport TV were packaged in batches of stations that didn’t fit with their portfolios or were more attractive to other buyers. Newport, backed by Providence Equity Partners, bought Clear Channel’s TV station group in 2008, and it’s now selling those properties.