With election uncertainty overhanging the FCC and every other institution in Washington, there have been fewer ex parte meetings at the agency in the past month than what has become the norm, a review of filings showed. Eighth-floor officials confirmed this trend.
The Coalition of Concerned Utilities criticized the pole-attachment provisions of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, saying the commission’s recommendations were so “one-sided” that they can’t support any FCC actions, “let alone ones that potentially impact the safe and efficient operation of electric utility distribution systems across the country.”
The FCC media ownership review due to Congress in 2010 has been further delayed (CD May 18 p4), and a final order is unlikely until the second half of next year, agency officials said. They said the reasons include a lag in getting from Congress money that the commission needed to pay for outsiders such as professors to study media ownership (CD Aug 9 p6). The FCC’s focus on broadband, the difficulty of completing the quadrennial review on time -- which has never been done before -- and career Media Bureau staffers focusing on reviewing Comcast’s multibillion dollar purchase of control in NBC Universal are other explanations, agency and industry officials said.
The FCC is looking to Capitol Hill for action on retransmission consent rules, perhaps by new legislation, instead of acting now on the issue, officials at and outside the commission said Monday. Almost 15 days into their retrans dispute, Cablevision and News Corp. over the weekend ended a blackout, restoring Fox TV stations as well as several cable channels to the cable operator’s subscribers. Fox and Dish Network averted a separate retrans blackout Friday, signing a long-term deal. With those negotiations wrapped up for now, the commission doesn’t seem poised to take regulatory action on the issue, FCC and other officials said.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The U.S. military hasn’t gotten across adequately to policymakers involved in shuffling spectrum how it’s used for national and homeland security and why the uses are crucial, a Pentagon official said Monday. “Some important people don’t understand” these matters, said Steve Molina, director of strategic planning in the Defense Information Systems Administration’s Defense Spectrum Organization. “We need to do a better job of educating folks."
Hoping to refine its testing before tackling a special-access overhaul, the FCC issued a wide-ranging public notice seeking information on non-ILEC and “out of region” ILEC facilities. An FCC official told us the commission wants to come up with the right measuring stick for gauging special-access concerns. The notice, published late Thursday, promises that a separate data request is coming.
Eutelsat will be unable to use its just-launched W3B satellite due to a leak in the satellite’s propulsion system, the company said Friday. Soon after the satellite launched, the company learned of the debilitating leak in one of two propellant tanks, which has left the satellite unable to reach the necessary orbit. The satellite will remain in transfer orbit until Eutelsat and the satellite’s maker, Thales Alenia, decide what to do with it, said Eutelsat. The company declined to say how much it paid for the Ku- and Ka-band satellite and launch. Arianespace launched the satellite from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle.
The latest draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) does a better job than previous versions of addressing matters concerning deterrence and enforcement, but the agreement could be tougher on violations by foreign governments and make a greater effort to ensure that other rights aren’t violated, some speakers said Friday at a Washington International Trade Association event. The draft, released last month, takes up some issues not covered in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement from the World Trade Organization, they said.
The FCC recently sought comment on proposals to enable more flying of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a technology that could add to satellite capacity demand in coming years. The vehicles have grown increasingly common in the Middle East as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan progressed but are largely unused for civil operations, something that could change once a regulatory framework is in place. UAVs rely heavily on satellite and terrestrial communications, and some changes to spectrum allocations are likely required to ensure safety. The recommendations come from the advisory committee to the World Radiocommunication Conference of 2012 and have several steps to go before allowing for widespread use, satellite executives said.
Consumers who have cut their landline connections in favor of using only cellphones still are left out of many national polls, experts said this week. But major polling companies are rethinking whether they should include cellphone numbers in their survey calls.