New Internet bill in Cal. Assembly (AB-922) would require Internet service providers (ISP) automatically to forward electronic mail of former customers to their new e-mail addresses for 3 months after provider change. Forwarding requirement would apply only to customers who maintained e-mail account for at least one year. Current law imposes no e-mail forwarding obligation on ISPs. Bill tentatively has been scheduled for March 27 hearing by Assembly Utilities & Commerce Committee.

EchoStar said Young Bcstg. told it to remove stations KRON-TV (Ch. 4, NBC) San Francisco and WKRN-TV (Ch. 2, ABC) Nashville from DISH network because companies were unable to agree on retransmission consent. EchoStar Pres. Charles Ergen accused Young of holding viewers “hostage solely for financial gain” and charging “exorbitant fees” for carriage that would force DISH to charge subscribers more. To compensate, DISH subscribers in those cities will be offered replacement network affiliate from another city for $1.50.

Sirius Satellite said it completed offering of 11.5 million shares of common stock, raising $230 million to be used to finance operations until end of 2002. Offering topped 10 million shares originally planned to be sold. Lehman Bros. exercised its overallotment option to purchase additional 1.5 million shares.

Orbital Imaging introduced Orbimage Maritime Information Service Thurs. It provides sea surface information, sea surface temperature and weather information through partner Applied Weather Technology.

LOS ANGELES -- Good news and bad news predictions for future of interactive TV (iTV) dominated Myers Forum on iTV here (CD March 1 p8). Industry executives debated how quickly installed base for digital set-top boxes would grow and whether or not technology was robust enough to support all that iTV content creators want to offer to consumers.

Consumer and labor interests on service quality panel at NARUC winter meeting blamed telecom deregulation for general deterioration in telephone service quality in last 6 years. Consumer attorney Kathy O'Reilly said financial freedom under price-based regulation had encouraged diversion of revenues away from network to shareholders. “Fines haven’t worked to halt this trend because of the low levels imposed,” she said. “The incumbents have been lucky so far that there hasn’t been a disaster attributable to their phone service failures.” She urged denial of long distance entry for Bells and further deregulation for non-Bell companies until they showed sustained top-quality service. Ken Peres, CWA regional economic research dir., agreed that service quality would suffer under deregulation “unless the standards are clear and the penalties big.” Consumer affairs consultant Barbara Alexander said incumbent telcos today were run by salesmen and accountants, not engineers. She said effective enforcement of service quality required states to “pick measures that reflect real customer interactions with the phone network, following recognized best practices.” James Shelley, external affairs pres., SBC/Ameritech, said effective service quality enforcement required “standards based on actual customer expectations, which regulators apply equally to everyone, incumbent and competitor alike.” He said company “isn’t here to pay fines” and wants to provide good service, but also wants its rivals to be under same service quality obligations.

Speakers at NARUC winter meeting panel on broadband deployment costs said huge expense of upgrading long rural loops for broadband service meant broadband never would reach very rural subscribers unless wireless or satellite technologies were used. Dale Lehman, assoc. economics prof. at Ft. Lewis College, Wash., said Wed. no business case could justify rural wireline broadband investment outside of small towns, especially for areas served by large incumbent telcos. He said use of universal service subsidies to make rural broadband ubiquitous would introduce unsustainable market distortions and quash any possibility of competition. Victor Glass, dir.-rate development for National Exchange Carrier Assn., said that within 3 years, 65% of rural loops would have broadband capability. But remaining loops, mostly those more than 3.5 miles long, may never see broadband because of upgrading costs exceeding $9,000 per loop, he said. Joslyn Read, vp-regulatory affairs of Hughes Network Systems, said service providers “aren’t considering satellite systems for rural broadband service delivery, but should be.” She said broadband- capable cable, major alternative to telco-provided broadband services, passed only 33% of households: “Satellite service is available to everyone, urban, suburban, rural.” She said equipment costs around $700 installed, with service available today at around $70 monthly. Marvin Sirbus, public policy prof. at Carnegie-Mellon U., Pittsburgh, urged regulators to consider fixed wireless for rural broadband delivery, even in more densely populated areas. He said customer-premises equipment (CPE) required for fixed wireless could be sold for under $1,000, which many rural people might be willing to pay to gain broadband service. Exclusive of CPE, fixed wireless could be provided for under $400 per customer, he said.

Ensuring viability of open, interoperable Internet doesn’t constitute “regulation” in traditional sense, FCC Comr. Tristani said in separate statement on Commission’s approval of AOL acquisition of Time Warner (CD Jan 16 p1) released Thurs. Far from regulating Internet, ensuring interoperability actually “blocks de facto regulation of the Internet by a private corporation through a combination of cable bottleneck, proprietary code, network effects and the high consumer cost of switching to a competing service,” she said in statement setting forth her reasons for voting to approve deal. Referring to condition barring new AOL-TW from offering new service using AOL instant messaging service’s Names and Presence Database (NPD) and TW’s cable assets until it has achieved interoperability with at least 3 competitors, Tristani said best public interest outcome -- maintaining openness that has characterized Internet since its inception -- wasn’t guaranteed. Outcome most threatening to free flow of information and consumer choice, “where the tipped market in the text-based instant messaging world migrates to the broadband world of high-speed services, would appear to be mitigated, not avoided,” she said. Rather than ensuring best outcome, condition sought instead to avoid worst, Tristani said in explaining how her approach differed from that of her colleagues: (1) New company, under “bar-the-worst-approach,” may decline to offer new service that triggers interoperability condition. “Under this scenario there is no interoperability and little, if any, public interest benefit arising from the condition.” (2) Merged company, if it chooses to offer new service, may do so by entering into contracts with no fewer than 3 competitors that offer NPD-based services. That would result in contractual interoperability rather than code-based interoperability because if competitors agreed to use new company’s proprietary code, they actually would expand market domination of that code rather than interoperate with it. “This is not interoperability like that which makes e-mail work today.” Merged company may offer new, high-speed service using its combined assets if it achieves server-to-server interoperability using public, published protocol that has approval of international standard setting bodies, Tristani said, and that’s outcome that best serves public interest. She said she supported overall scheme in Commission’s order in part because it set forth several policy features applicable to future mergers: (1) Commission rejected private corporate control of Internet protocol pathway. (2) It rejected “the facile assumption that business practices based on a proprietary code that create informational bottlenecks on the Internet somehow serve the public interest.” (3) Merged company must achieve interoperability at time it seeks to utilize combined assets, not before. (4) New entity would be relieved from ban on new service offering if it showed clear and convincing evidence that condition no longer served public interest, which Tristani said would be “a fair outcome for consumers and the parties.”

Wireless industry continued Thurs. to step up calls for policymakers to move quickly to free up spectrum and to examine auction plans that would use part of proceeds from bidding to move incumbents. One theme of wireless panel at Precursor Group conference in Washington was that decisions needed to be made quickly to keep U.S. competitive with wireless data offerings unfolding elsewhere in world. FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Thomas Sugrue told conference that Commission planned to make decision by fall on notice of proposed rulemaking on whether there still is need for spectrum cap.

Only reason CableLabs’ PHILA copy protection provisions deals with component analog outputs is that those outputs transmit high- definition digital picture, albeit in analog, to viewing devices, NCTA Senior Vp-Law & Regulatory Policy Dan Brenner said in letter to FCC Chmn. Powell. Responding to objections to PHILA technology license raised by Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) (CD Feb 21 p9), Brenner said that in currently available digital TV receivers, manufacturers have chosen to convert digital signal to high-quality analog. Several industries, including motion picture, broadcast and cable industries, have supported inclusion of protected digital interface in all receivers, so content from any digital device could be displayed on TV receiver. But in absence of such digital interface, Brenner said, component analog outputs may be used to deliver high-quality digital content and in that case they will be subject to PHILA copy protection provisions. Therefore, those provisions contain only digital technology, he said. As for CERC objection to mandate that OpenCable digital boxes automatically shut off or degrade image in response to particular copy control signal, he said CERC “ignores” fact that without some affirmative action by cable operator, on program-by-program basis, copy protection restrictions wouldn’t be applied. Option lies with cable operator based on agreements with program suppliers to trigger copy protection capability, he said: “But, by themselves, the devices will not automatically affect images one way or another.”