The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission killed off price regulation of Frontier Communications on Monday. The regulators judged the telco’s telecom offerings face effective competition and thus should have pricing flexibility, said the commission in a news release. The regulators and Frontier have reached a conditional settlement, in which “we examine the conditions in the marketplace to determine the level of regulation necessary to ensure that consumers have access to telecommunications services at fair, just and reasonable rates, terms, and conditions,” it said. Frontier will be allowed to reduce prices if there are alternative providers of telecom services and if “the company no longer serves a significant captive customer base,” said the commission. It noted Frontier still faces state consumer protection laws as well as the commission’s service quality rules.

NARUC’s debated slamming resolution draft proposal will be tabled until November, decided the telecom committee of state commissioners on Monday after our deadline. One central point of contention surrounding this draft was whether slamming is truly possible and happening in the wireless realm (CD July 23 p19). Draft sponsor Commissioner Larry Landis of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission decided to accept the telecom subcommittee recommendation that the consideration of the resolution be tabled until NARUC’s November meeting in Orlando, Fla. That meeting should include a panel, including technical resources that can speak to the factual questions, Landis said at NARUC’s Denver meeting Monday. State commissioners are still debating whether to approve the other four resolution drafts, which will need to be formally adopted by the NARUC board Wednesday to become policy.

With only half of EU governments meeting the Jan. 1 deadline for making 4G spectrum available, the European Commission Tuesday “reluctantly” granted nine of 14 requests for delay on the grounds of exceptional circumstances, it said. Countries were supposed to make the 800 MHz digital dividend spectrum available for wireless services by the beginning of this year, it said. “This is a pragmatic and final concession” because every postponement in releasing spectrum hurts the economy and frustrates citizens, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Spectrum reform that includes more coordination in frequency assignments across Europe will be a centerpiece of the upcoming EC proposal for a telecom single market, she said. One consequence of the delay is that phones considered by consumers to be essential devices aren’t fully functional in Europe, the EC said. Phone makers leave out the radio chips needed to connect in Europe because not enough countries have delivered the spectrum on time, it said. The EC agreed to postponements for Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Romania and Finland. Meanwhile, a meeting last week with Kroes resulted in the “reassuring” takeaway that the “EU competition model constitutes a cornerstone of the telecoms framework and it is this model that the Commission intends to continue building on,” the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) said Tuesday. CEOs urged the EC to consider the key role that challenger operators are playing in driving innovation and choice for consumers and businesses in the voice and broadband markets, it said. In the transition to a next-generation access network environment, alternative players should continue driving growth by competing on the basis of their investments, network-sharing and access to dominant telcos’ networks on fair terms, it said. ECTA genuinely welcomes the EC’s single-market goals, so long as the rules of the game remain fair and aren’t changed overnight to favor dominant operators, it said.

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force released preliminary data on the repacking process for the incentive auction, including information about the TVStudy repacking software and data on Canadian and Mexican TV allotments, said a public notice released at our deadline Monday. “The material being released represents the results of a staff analysis of whether a television station could be assigned to particular channels in the incentive auction repacking process, consistent with statutory and other requirements, based on certain preliminary assumptions,” it said. The information includes supporting data for determining the coverage area and population served of each station and “descriptions of how one could pre-calculate which stations could be assigned to which channels in the repacking process, and which stations cannot operate on the same channels or adjacent channels” because of their locations, said the notice. “As directed by Congress, the FCC will ensure this process makes all reasonable efforts to preserve the coverage area and population served of each broadcast television licensee,” said a commission spokesman. The released data is the first of what the notice said will be several releases of information on the repacking, including “details about how bids will be selected, how channels will be assigned, and algorithms for carrying out these and other elements of the repacking process” that will “be made public in the coming months.” “T-Mobile appreciates the FCC moving forward on the broadcast incentive auction by providing important information related to repacking for broadcasters -- a key component for maximizing the amount of spectrum available and making the 600 MHz incentive auction a robust opportunity for wireless broadband,” said T-Mobile Vice President Kathleen Ham. “We look forward to reviewing their proposals and commenting in the weeks ahead."

Figures on retransmission consent payments show “Time Warner Cable and the pay TV lobby engage in overheated and misleading rhetoric on the merits” of retrans, said an NAB spokesman Monday by email. He cited figures from industry research firm SNL Kagan, as CBS and Time Warner Cable have been disagreeing about how much the operator will pay the broadcaster with their retrans deal expiring Wednesday (CD July 22 p7). Retrans fees “remain in the aggregate quite low compared to the aggregate programming fees that cable networks are collecting,” said the spokesman. Broadcast retrans cost $2.36 billion in 2012, or 8.2 percent of the $28.9 billion in fees to basic-cable networks, said SNL Kagan figures released Monday by NAB (http://bit.ly/12ZzlWF). The firm forecast broadcast retrans payments this year of $3.02 billion will be 9.5 percent of the $31.7 billion in such cable channel fees. “Contrary” to “the cable industry’s claims that broadcast retrans fees are causing cable rates to rise,” cable rates have increased at a lower rate since the mid-2000s, “the time frame” when TV stations “began seeking modest compensation for our popular programming,” said the NAB spokesman. Cable rates rose 4.8 percent in 2011, vs. a 5.4 percent increase the year before, a 3.7 percent rise in 2009 and a 5.9 percent increase in 2008, said SNL Kagan figures from NAB. A Time Warner Cable spokesman declined to comment.

911 call center consolidation is critical, speakers said during a panel on the next generation-911 transition at the NARUC meeting in Denver Monday. “Folks, it’s time for us to begin to look at how we can do consolidations and be more effective in our operation of” public safety answering points, said Jim Anderson, CEO of El Paso-Teller 911 Authority. He recently completed an NG-911 contract and talked about the purchase of a phone switch that would have cost about $500,000 per site. “I bought one,” he said. “I'm running eight of those 10 sites on one switch, with the capability of doing all of southern Colorado out of my phone switch.” Technology is moving faster than 911 call centers, he said. National Emergency Number Association CEO Brian Fontes said that “inevitably, consolidation is going to occur.” He cited economic and technology reasons. “Consolidation is going to happen -- it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s going to be a reduction in the labor force,” said Fontes. Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials President Terry Hall agreed on the need for consolidation, noting the expense of NG-911 equipment. Fontes said leadership will be needed from the state utility commissions during the transition.

Public Knowledge asked the FCC to slow down when acting on Verizon’s Section 214 application to discontinue domestic telecom services on Fire Island, in a filing Monday (http://bit.ly/12Zuu8b). “The FCC should exercise its discretion to take the time needed to review Verizon’s application without the threat that the application will be automatically granted before all of the evidence has been collected,” a PK spokesman said. Verizon has asked for streamlined approval. “Verizon’s application to replace its traditional, copper-based service with a more limited fixed wireless service raises several important new questions, and the FCC should not let this application receive approval before it takes the time to consider all of the data still being gathered,” said PK senior staff attorney Jodie Griffin. “This application presents new issues that could potentially bear on how the FCC will approach similar circumstances in the future, when natural disasters damage infrastructure,” Griffin said in a blog entry on the filing (http://bit.ly/12ZuHrJ).

NARUC’s proposed slamming resolution caused the most debate Sunday among the telecom subcommittee, which consists of state public utility commission staff members. Subcommittee members debate and potentially revise resolutions first at NARUC meetings. This resolution called for the FCC to update its slamming rules and includes references to wireless slamming. “I don’t understand how you can slam a wireless provider,” said Ohio Public Utilities Commission Telecom Chief Marianne Townsend before the vote. “It seems to be in search of a problem that may not actually exist,” agreed D.C. Public Service Commission Policy Adviser Cary Hinton, questioning whether the draft has a “factual basis.” Without that, such a NARUC resolution might appear “ridiculous” to the FCC and “undermine the credibility” of NARUC resolutions and recommendations, he said. “A slam is a slam,” countered Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Assistant Counsel Joe Witmer. “But that’s still speculative,” Hinton said. “Cary, it is happening,” Witmer replied. The subcommittee moved to table the resolution, leaving the debate for the NARUC telecom committee. It voted in favor of the other four resolution drafts. The NARUC telecom committee was to consider the resolution drafts Monday after our deadline.

CTIA said the FCC is on the right track on receiver standards in a report by the agency’s Technological Advisory Council on voluntary receiver standards (CD Dec 11 p2). The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment on the paper (http://bit.ly/13y4M6O) in April. TAC was chaired by Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be chairman of the FCC. “Receiver performance is a key element to successful use of electromagnetic spectrum, and it supports efforts to enhance receiver performance,” the association said (http://bit.ly/14zplFu). “CTIA believes that the TAC White Paper provides a potential framework for encouraging receiver performance where incentives have not spurred efficiency or accounted for future uses. However, CTIA notes that any initial efforts to implement a new receiver performance benchmark should be carefully tailored, and that a multi-stakeholder group process should be used to explore potential approaches.” The TAC paper laid out an interference limits policy built on power levels called “harm claim thresholds” that a service would be expected to tolerate before a claim of harmful interference could be made. Multi-stakeholder groups would play a big role in developing harm claim thresholds. “CTIA is a strong supporter of the use of multi-stakeholder groups, and has a great deal of experience with them,” the filing said. “Given the varied interests and the need for full engagement in the technical details of any new requirements for receivers, a multi-stakeholder group is the most logical approach to investigate the harm claim threshold approach suggested by the TAC White Paper.” But CTIA also urged the agency to move with care. “While CTIA is supportive of the Commission’s efforts to examine a harm claim thresholds approach, the initial steps in determining its effectiveness and appropriate bands for examination should be carefully tailored,” the filing said. “Existing CMRS spectrum allocations, where spectrum is heavily and efficiently used, are not the most appropriate place for testing these theories. Instead, CTIA suggests the Commission should choose a single new or less efficiently used allocation (or allocations) as a pilot to test the use of harm claims thresholds."

The FCC Media Bureau granted two Time Warner Cable petitions determining that it’s subject to effective competition in a number of New York and Pennsylvania communities. It’s undisputed that both DirecTV and Dish Network offer service to at least 50 percent of the households in Athens, Pa., and several New York cities, including Floyd and Westmoreland, because of their national satellite footprint, the bureau said in an order (http://fcc.us/13ZoVck). It’s undisputed that the New York communities, including Bemus Point, Panama and Tupper Lake, are served by both DBS providers and that these two multichannel video programming distributors are unaffiliated with Time Warner Cable or with each other, it said in a separate order (http://bit.ly/1aEHaD3).