The FCC International Bureau proposed to block LightSquared from beginning terrestrial service (CD Feb 15 p1), severely dampening the company’s prospects and possibly increasing the likelihood of a bankruptcy filing in the near future. While the agency initiated Wednesday a proceeding on the proposals, many consider that process largely perfunctory, said industry observers.
GENEVA -- The ITU should “maintain its focus on the management of frequency assignments,” not take on the operational role of assigning identification numbers to satellites or becoming involved in satellite tracking, a U.S. official told us. A World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) decision aims to assign and use an identification number for spacecraft as part of due diligence information submitted for certain broadcasting satellite service (BSS) networks in regions other than the Americas, officials said. Use of a new “queue jumping” concept for priority access for certain satellite network filings should not be considered in other bands or situations in the future, the U.S. official said. Further approvals will be needed this week before the decisions become final.
The FCC’s VoIP outage reporting order will impose rules fairly analogous to the obligations facing traditional TDM voice services, industry and agency officials said Tuesday. The order, scheduled for a vote at Wednesday’s FCC meeting, will limit VoIP outage reporting requirements to hard outages of a company’s own interconnected VoIP services, the officials said. A “hard outage” refers to calls that, once originated, cannot be terminated.
Candidates in political campaigns are increasingly using cellphones and mobile technologies, which is fundamentally transforming politics in the U.S. and around the world, said speakers at a Brookings Institution panel on mobile technology’s impact on political campaigns. Experts said how candidates are using mobile technologies is getting more sophisticated as the 2012 campaign season unfolds.
Senators gave mixed praise to the Senate Cybersecurity Act Tuesday, both commending the bill for addressing cyberthreats to the U.S. and citing a lack of procedural cohesion over its development. The Cybersecurity Act (http://xrl.us/bmr4rs) gives the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the authority to lead the nation’s cybersecurity response and fortify the nation’s critical infrastructure and federal networks. The legislation provides a framework for sharing cyberthreat information between the federal government and the private sector, amends the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), strengthens the partnership between DHS and the Department of Defense (DOD), increases cybersecurity research and development and cybersecurity recruitment and training.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Representatives of carriers from competing mobile-payments alliances said Tuesday their conflict could be solved some time. “There’s an opportunity for Google Wallet and Isis to play nice in this space and work together to make it even more successful,” said Paul Boyer, legal-affairs director of T-Mobile USA, a member of Isis along with Verizon Wireless, AT&T, the four largest credit-card companies and others. On a Law Seminars International program, he added, “I'd like to see that. … We'd love to see Sprint … or U.S. Cellular or all of the 26 other carriers in the U.S.” come aboard.
Capitol Hill spectrum negotiators may be closing in on consensus as Congress nears a vote on the payroll tax cut extension that may include spectrum auctions as a “pay for,” Hill officials and industry lobbyists said Tuesday. House Republicans floated a proposal this week to strip all offsets from the payroll tax bill, but lobbyists said spectrum is still likely to make the final cut after the bill moves through the Senate. “Staff negotiations are ongoing and good progress is being made,” a House Commerce Committee spokeswoman said of the spectrum talks. “Everyone agrees about the important role this legislation can play in supporting job creation and producing savings for taxpayers."
The outdated retransmission consent system is worsening problems at cable operators of all sizes, executives pushing for rule changes said. They still seek FCC modifications because retrans costs are going up, said executives at the American Cable Association and Time Warner Cable. Counterparts from News Corp.’s Fox TV Stations and the NAB said Tuesday that retrans costs represent a relatively small slice of cable programming costs and customer bills, contending changes aren’t necessary except perhaps to add rules governing pay-TV notice to subscribers of potential retrans blackouts. Lawyers on both sides of the issue did agree at an FCBA panel that the outlook for regulatory or legislative action anytime soon is hard to read.
CTIA and CEA both urged the FCC to exempt small businesses from new accessibility rules for advanced communications services (ACS) under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA), in response to an October further notice of proposed rulemaking. The rules are intended to make sure the 54 million Americans with disabilities are able to take full advantage of new communications services, such as video calling. The initial rules provided a short-term exemption for small businesses based on the definition of a small business by the Small Business Administration and teed up a series of questions for a follow up order (http://xrl.us/bmr32w).
A government review of GPS standards seems to be a likely result of the ongoing feud between LightSquared and the GPS industry, several executives from both sides of the argument said. It’s unclear, though, how the government would proceed, either seeking better protection of GPS services through interference standards or imposing GPS receiver standards. An NTIA report to the FCC advising the agency on how to proceed on LightSquared was released late Tuesday.