An interconnection agreement between T-Mobile and the Puerto Rico Telephone Company wasn’t discriminatory, because Section 252(i) of the Communications Act allows other entities to opt into an interconnection agreement under certain conditions, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The dispute concerned $2 million in fees (http://xrl.us/bm558j). It’s the first time the 1st Circuit articulated a standard of review for determining when an interconnection agreement (ICA) is discriminatory in violation of Sections 251-252, the Boston court said.
The U.S. supports an initiative at the ITU calling for studies to spur common, worldwide allocations and identification of spectrum suitable for mobile broadband, even if the bands identified are at 5 MHz or higher, said Decker Anstrom, U.S. ambassador to the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference. Anstrom told an FCBA luncheon on Thursday it’s impossible to say what bands may eventually spark commercial interest as technology continues to evolve.
NAB is dropping its legal challenge to the FCC’s 2008 white spaces order, which it filed in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in February 2009. NAB filed a motion with the court Thursday, saying its concerns had subsequently been addressed by the FCC in an order this April 5 on petitions for reconsideration of the white spaces rules (http://xrl.us/bm552d). The move by NAB is seen clearing one of the remaining hurdles to full-scale use of the TV white spaces to access the Internet.
The major U.S. tower companies, most of which had a solid Q1, are expected to continue the growth in Q2 and the rest of the year, analysts told us. They cited LTE deployments, potential tower transactions and an improved credit market. American Tower more than doubled its Q1 earnings from the year-ago period and raised its full-year earnings estimate.
FCC members probably won’t overturn a Media Bureau order that may require Comcast to move Bloomberg TV’s channel placement on some of its cable systems, industry and public interest attorneys told us. The bureau late Wednesday gave Comcast 60 days to comply with the order, in which it found Comcast to be in violation of the news neighborhood condition of the commission order approving Comcast’s purchase of control in NBCUniversal. Comcast promised it would appeal that order to the full commission (CD May 3 p6).
Comcast won a stay of an FCC administrative judge’s decision (CD Dec 28 p2) that it move the Tennis Channel to the same programming package as the cable operator’s own sports networks. The Office of General Counsel’s stay may be short-lived, because commissioners have a draft order before them on the case. The Media Bureau Wednesday separately backed a complaint Comcast isn’t living up to the conditions of last year’s order letting it buy control of NBCUniversal, because Bloomberg TV isn’t near the channel positions of other news networks. (See separate report in this issue.)
Communications and electronic groups increased campaign contributions to GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney in Q1, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. But industry groups vastly favored President Barack Obama, giving his reelection campaign $4.75 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data current as of April 21.
Comcast must move Bloomberg TV to a channel position adjacent to other news channels on some cable systems, FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake wrote in an order released late Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm52km). The order granted in part a Bloomberg complaint that Comcast was violating a condition of its approval to purchase control of NBCUniversal, which owns MSNBC and CNBC. A Comcast spokeswoman said the company disagrees with the interpretation of the condition. “We plan to immediately appeal to the Full Commission and believe they will agree to enforce only conditions as they were originally negotiated and intended, and that the Media Bureau’s mis-interpretation will be overturned,” she said by e-mail.
The broadband adoption gap between blacks and whites is narrowing, the National Urban League’s Policy Institute said in a report released Wednesday. In 2010, the gap fell to 11 percentage points -- 56 percent for African Americans versus 67 percent for whites, according to the report. That gap is down from 19 percent the previous year, the report said. The league released the report at the NCTA, at an event attended by all three FCC commissioners.
The FCC Wednesday released rules for its first-ever reverse auction, for Phase I of the Mobility Fund, offering $300 million for carriers willing to offer 3G or 4G wireless service in areas of the U.S. found to be unserved. The window for filing short-term applications to participate in the auction opens on June 27, and closes at 6 p.m. July 11. The auction is tentatively slated to start Sept. 27. Winners must deploy service within three years of the award for 4G service, two years for 3G service.