Federal rules are hurting companies’ ability to deploy broadband, two Iowa executives wrote in a Monday Des Moines Register op-ed (http://dmreg.co/16jxzx6). Don Jennings, executive vice president of Partner Communications Cooperative, and Debra Lucht, general manager of Minburn Communications, focused on the effects of the FCC’s November 2011 USF order on Iowa companies and cited a recent survey of 100 Iowa telcos. “Companies responding to the survey estimated they will lose $47.1 million in high-cost Universal Service Fund compensation from 2012 to 2017” due to the order, they wrote. “Eight in 10 companies answering the survey said the order will mean a cutback of investment in network infrastructure.” The Iowa Telecom Association requested the survey, conducted by Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research in the School of Business. The impact will lead telcos to cut their number of employees by “almost 10 percent by 2017, resulting in a direct loss of $14.9 million in wages,” they said of the survey. Both executives noted ways the FCC order has influenced their own company decisions.
The FCC Media Bureau granted a Comcast petition this week to exempt it from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for five communities in Pennsylvania, said a Media Bureau order released Monday (http://bit.ly/1a6dmip). Comcast’s petition cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects close to 43,000 households, including Lower Merion Township, West Pottsgrove Township and Pottstown Borough.
Vodafone India will deploy Cisco’s end-to-end networking solutions to create a complete Internet Protocol-based architecture in India, said Cisco in a press release Monday (http://bit.ly/1daaP6f). Under a single network infrastructure, Cisco will provide Vodafone with a multiservice convergence platform for residential, business and mobile customers to lower capital and operating costs, said Cisco. Networked devices will be doubled from 1 billion to 2 billion between 2012 and 2017 in India, and mobile traffic is expected to grow 60-fold from 2012 to 2017, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (http://bit.ly/11jPFI). Traditional networks will not be able to scale up to address the flexibility required by new consumer entertainment and communications services, so it’s imperative for service providers to upgrade to IP network infrastructure, said Cisco. “IP is the key to providing highly secure, scalable, value-added services, and Cisco is well-positioned to deliver IP broadband solutions over DSL, cable, Ethernet, Wi-Fi and other broadband architectures,” said Sanjay Rohatgi, Cisco managing director of service provider sales. Through this deal, Vodafone will offer newer data services at faster mobile broadband speeds, said Cisco.
The U.K.’s “expansive spying regime” appears to operate outside the law, isn’t accountable and is neither necessary nor proportionate, Privacy International (PI) said Monday in a claim filed in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (http://bit.ly/15r7MWK). The action challenges the government on two fronts, PI said: (1) Failure to have a publicly accessible legal framework in which communications data of those located in the U.K. are accessed after being obtained and passed on by the National Security Agency through Prism. (2) The “indiscriminate interception” and storing of huge amounts of data by tapping undersea fiber cables through the Tempora program. It’s reported that the U.K. has had access to Prism since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from the system in 2012, PI said. Without a legal framework that lets citizens know the circumstances in which such spying takes place, the government “effectively runs a secret surveillance regime, making it nearly impossible to hold them accountable for any potential abuses,” it said. That appears to breach the European Convention on Human Rights, which safeguards the rights to privacy, personal communications and freedom of expression, it said. PI intended to file the Prism case in the Administrative Court, which would have made it public, but after government objections, filed in the tribunal, whose proceedings aren’t public, the organization said. The Government Communications Headquarters, which is taking the lead on the case, said it doesn’t comment on intelligence matters.
Forty-five percent of European households would upgrade their Internet subscription or switch to a new ISP to get higher broadband speeds, the European Commission said Monday. Competition has made affordable prices available, but more attention is needed to ensure that demands for higher speeds are met, it said. The Eurobarometer survey also found that 54 percent of homes limit their national and international mobile calls because of cost concerns, the EC said. This isn’t acceptable in the smartphone era, where high quality mobile services are an essential part of daily life, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. However, the survey also found a sharp drop in the number of people worried about the cost of calls to networks other than their own domestic providers, a “clear sign” that EC efforts to cut mobile termination rates are working for consumers. The survey also found, among other things, that: (1) Around 40 percent of European users have found it difficult to access online content and apps because of insufficient speed or download capacity. (2) Sound quality is a concern, with only 38 percent of respondents saying sound is very good on their mobile phones, compared with 49 percent for landline phones and 25 percent for Internet calls. (3) Video blocks are the most annoying net neutrality/copyright issue. (4) Forty-four percent of households have at least one mobile Internet subscription, up from 30 percent in 2012. The e-communications household survey, completed in March, interviewed nearly 28,000 respondents face-to-face at home across Europe, the EC said.
The FCC should direct the Universal Service Administrative Co. to either grant or deny the E-rate funding applications of the New York City Department of Education, tw telecom said in a petition filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/11nF0ai). The department is a tw telecom customer. “NYC DOE has not received a USAC funding commitment decision awarding or denying its applications for E-Rate funding” for tw telecom’s 1 Gbps broadband services for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 funding years, the petition said. “Under the contract between the parties, tw telecom cannot recover the unpaid discounted portion of the cost of services provided directly from NYC DOE unless and until USAC issues a written decision denying or reducing the requested funding. In the meantime, tw telecom must incur the vast majority of the cost of providing broadband to the largest public school system in the country.” USAC’s failure to timely review the applications “undermines the Commission’s promotion of broadband Internet access service to schools” by “discouraging” tw telecom and others from participating in the E-rate program, tw telecom said. “More generally, USAC’s failure to make a decision is simply bad government.”
Chesapeake Television asked the FCC Media Bureau to grant its Fox affiliate WBFF-TV Baltimore a waiver of the “significantly viewed” exception to the agency’s network non-duplication rule and the syndicated exclusivity rule for several Maryland communities, said a filing released Friday (http://bit.ly/1bcBxgt). The waiver would cover the communities of Columbia, Glen Burnie and Ellicott City, the filing said. Chesapeake said Fox affiliate WTTG Washington no longer meets the significantly viewed criteria for those communities, and WBFF carries more “Baltimore-centric” content relevant to those areas.
The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on a draft eligible services list (ESL) for the E-rate program for funding year 2014, it said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/11nEclA). Commenters should suggest ways to make the ESL “a more useful tool during the application process,” the bureau said. The bureau also proposed to modify the language in the “fiber or dark fiber” entry to provide more detail on the differences between eligible components of a lit fiber service versus a dark fiber service. The bureau also sought input on whether certain interactive communication features should be eligible for E-rate support. Comments in docket 02-6 are due Aug. 2, replies Aug. 19.
Sky’s Now TV Internet TV service is now available to PS3 users in the U.K as part of a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment, the companies said Friday. PS3 users can now connect their game consoles to their TVs and home Wi-Fi networks to stream Now TV to their main TVs, in addition to their smartphones, tablets or laptops, the companies said. Now TV offers instant access to Sky Movies and all six Sky Sports channels with no contract or setup costs, they said.
The FCC shouldn’t change program access rules, representatives of NBCUniversal told FCC staff in a July 1 meeting, said an ex parte letter in docket 12-68 (http://bit.ly/13yJM4T). “Given the vast increase in competition throughout the video marketplace, and the sharp reduction in vertical integration between cable operators and video programmers, program access regulation should be curtailed, not expanded.” The commission should not take up an American Cable Association proposal to increase the rights of buying groups such as the National Cable Television Cooperative, because NCTC is able to negotiate agreements under the existing rules, said NBCUniversal. “While ACA may want NCTC to have increased leverage in programming negotiations, there is no evidence of a problem that warrants such regulatory action.” NBCUniversal also asked the commission to reject the ACA’s proposed 3 million-subscriber “safe harbor” for forming buying groups. Multichannel video programming distributors with 3 million subscribers “or even half that number” have “routinely negotiated independently from buying groups, and they have proved themselves to be perfectly capable of negotiating successfully on their own,” said the filing. If the FCC adopts new buying group rules, cable providers could use the First Amendment to attack the changes in court, the filing said. “First Amendment considerations also counsel against expanding the government’s role in supervising relationships between cable programmers and cable operators, and weakening the ability of programmers to manage rationally the business relations and economics that enable the creation of news and entertainment programming.”