Low-power radio has little economic impact on full-service stations in the same market, an FCC study for Congress said. The study of all 835 “active” U.S. low-power FM stations -- which compares to 6,468 full-service commercial stations -- pointed to LPFM outlets’ low listenership figures. It also found low LPFM revenue figures and listed regulatory obstacles that limit coverage areas. Half the portion of LPFM stations have websites as do commercial full-power FM broadcasters, which are three times more likely to stream their audio online, the Media Bureau analysis said.
The FCC understands that some companies may not be able to meet newly imposed deadlines for auditing their books under new Universal Service Fund rules, Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey said Thursday. “We are well aware of the challenges of companies that have not been able to submit to a financial audit,” Mattey said in a webinar hosted by USTelecom. “I do very much appreciate the time-sensitivity of it and I think we will be able to give some guidance on the timing of that. We recognize that certain things may not be able to be implemented by the deadline of this year.”
AT&T has no regrets and “no second guesses” about its failed $39 billion T-Mobile deal, said John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Business Solutions. The carrier will now focus on a different strategy and evaluate its spectrum opportunities as it always does, he told investors Thursday. AT&T meanwhile is ahead of schedule in LTE deployment and expects to complete national deployment by 2013, he told the Citi conference in San Francisco.
Clearwire is training its sights again on T-Mobile in an eager search to sign a second wholesale customer to join Sprint Nextel on its 4G network, said Chief Financial Officer Hope Cochran. The failure of T-Mobile’s sale to AT&T “did free up a lot of conversations,” she said late Wednesday at Citi’s investors conference in San Francisco. T-Mobile needs “capacity, they need spectrum, and they need an LTE path,” Cochran said. She left unstated Clearwire’s sales pitch that it can meet those needs, and she declined to discuss any communications between the companies.
MetroPCS will begin offering the Mobile Content Venture’s Dyle mobile DTV service to customers this year on a new Samsung 4G LTE smartphone, the companies said Wednesday. The deal makes MetroPCS the first cellular carrier partner for the TV broadcasters’ fledgling mobile DTV service. Each of MetroPCS’s 14 major markets includes at least one MCV member station that will be broadcasting mobile DTV services this year, the MCV said. And some markets, such as Los Angeles, will have mobile DTV programming from as many as six stations, said Erik Moreno, co-general manager of the MCV. “We will be encouraging additional broadcasters to light up their stations in that core MetroPCS footprint,” he said.
Vonage will launch a wireless application that will allow users to text or call -- domestically or internationally -- without relying on obscure user names, CEO Marc Lefar said Wednesday. Speaking to an investors conference sponsored by Citi, Lefar said Vonage will formally launch its new wireless app within weeks. “It’s our belief that the mobile user experience still has room for improvement,” he said.
FCC Violated Plain Language of Telecom Act in Pole Attachment Order, Power Companies Claim in Briefs
The FCC violated the plain language of Section 224 of the 1996 Telecom Act when it passed its pole attachments order, power companies said in court documents filed late Tuesday. American Electric Power Service and its allies filed their brief laying out their challenge to last April’s order (CD April 8 p3) and the Edison Electric Institute filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The Department of Homeland Security faces a “very tough” challenge to do all the necessary groundwork to meet an April deadline for the launch of a federal Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) allowing wireless carriers to send warning messages to their subscribers, said Denis Gusty of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate during a webinar Wednesday sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act enacted in 2006 mandated the launch of the warning network by that date.
Pandora is on track to hold a bigger share of listening hours “soon” than the largest radio station in each of the majority of U.S. markets, CEO Joe Kennedy said Wednesday. The company passed “an inflection point” in its heft as an ad medium by doubling its national share to 4.3 percent Q3 from a year earlier, he said in a webcast presentation from a Citi investors conference in San Francisco.
The femtocell market will languish unless mobile operators start using the technology to win customers and not just close coverage gaps, said ABI Research Mobile Networks Practice Manager Aditya Kaul in a report published just before the holidays. Although the number of operator contracts is rising sharply, the number of femtocells being shipped is hardly keeping pace, he said. But Femto Forum Chair Simon Saunders told us this week that ABI’s findings amount to “damning with faint praise,” because the jump in contracts shows many providers are edging up into greater femtocell use.