The Commerce Department’s Inspector General is auditing the effectiveness of NTIA’s BTOP Booz Allen Hamilton contract, according to a memo to NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling. The audit could be a standard procedure, several former federal officials said. Meanwhile, federal regulators suspended a $30 million BTOP project in northern Florida due to concerns regarding deployment progress, project management and vendor oversight.
Cable operators could encrypt all channels in their basic lineups on all-digital systems if they take steps to give customers the equipment they'd need to get the programming, under a draft FCC proposal. The Media Bureau rulemaking notice on cable encryption is meant to supplant a waiver process, commission and industry officials said Friday. They said it has not been voted on by all FCC members yet, but that approval ought to be noncontroversial.
Universal service lobbying was intensifying at the FCC as the deadline for the October open meeting drew near, filings on docket 10-90 showed. Comcast, Cox Communications, Northeast Colorado Cellular, U.S. Cellular, USTelecom, NTCA, NECA, Free Press, Dish Network and CompTel posted ex parte notices Friday. If the commission is to adopt an order for the Oct. 27 meeting, drafts must circulate by Thursday. Most industry observers expect such an order, but weren’t certain how many changes staff would make from the incumbent-backed ABC and rural consensus plans. The most-contested provisions remained the right-of-first-refusal provision for wireline carriers and the size of the mobility fund, but Free Press also filed a lengthy denunciation of the plans.
LightSquared remains confident it can meet the FCC buildout requirements despite the request for additional testing from the FCC and NTIA, said LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja during an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. LightSquared, which is required by the FCC to cover 260 million people by 2015, will be able to reach that number about a year early, said Ahuja.
Three public interest groups that are strong proponents of building out broadband in the U.S. came to the defense of local governments in a filing at the FCC responding to the commission’s April acceleration of a broadband deployment notice of inquiry (http://xrl.us/bmeu7w). The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, the Media Access Project and Public Knowledge said the FCC should not impose “sweeping, standardized federal regulations on states and municipalities” in the interest of providing broadband providers easier access to public rights of way. Access Humboldt also signed the filing.
AT&T filed motions in the U.S. District Court in Washington asking the court to dismiss complaints filed by Sprint Nextel and C Spire Wireless (formerly Cellular South) against AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile. Judge Ellen Huvelle is expected to consider later this month following oral argument whether to allow the two to join the Department of Justice’s case against the deal (CD Sept 22 p1).
Some contraction of TV stations’ footprints as part of voluntary broadcast spectrum auctions is a possible and acceptable scenario, said Sherrese Smith, an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Speaking for herself and not the FCC, Smith was responding to concerns for the voluntary auction process raised by Marcellus Alexander, president National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation. He said the voluntary incentive auction process may significantly lessen the reach of broadcasters who don’t choose to auction of their spectrum. They spoke during a National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications panel at NCTA Thursday night.
Wireless carrier officials say they see some willingness on the FCC’s part to make changes to the final Universal Service Fund/intercarrier comp order to address wireless concerns. Numerous small and mid-sized carriers have been at the commission in recent days to make clear their concerns. One discussion point has been the size of the fund, industry officials said. A second has been putting in place rules that would guarantee a dedicated fund for wireless buildout.
Ongoing regulatory uncertainty for the wireless communications service band has left licensees unable to develop equipment standards for wireless broadband needs, said WCS licensees. That uncertainty is driven by pending petitions for reconsideration filed at the FCC by the WCS Coalition, which represents WCS licensees, and Sirius XM, they said, and those petitions may mean technical changes to the rules in the band, depending on what the FCC decides. The WCS Coalition is now seeking an extension to buildout requirements imposed when the FCC changed the WCS rules last year.
San Diego County, Calif., fired back at NextG Networks, which argued in a July FCC filing that the county’s siting process for new wireless facilities is “protracted, bureaucratic and replete with hidden, circular and unreasonable requirements.” Delays are the fault of NextG, not the county, the county said. Meanwhile, other local governments are filing early reply comments at the FCC questioning the need for the FCC to take any steps regarding local management of rights of way and wireless facilities siting, as examined in an April notice of inquiry (http://xrl.us/bmeu7w).