Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry sharply criticized the Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation proposal formally filed by a U.S. Telecom-organized group of carriers at the FCC Friday (CD Aug 1 p1). He argued it’s a wireline-centric plan that largely leaves wireless in the cold. Berry called the proposal “a joke.” RCA represents small to mid-sized carriers. Satellite broadband companies, who also were not part of negotiations on the proposal, also criticized it Monday. Consumer groups and states’ rights advocates expressed concerns, while executives representing small and mid-sized cable operators expressed support for elements of the plan.
Get ready for a busy autumn on spectrum legislation after Sunday’s debt limit compromise by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama, Hill and industry officials said. The debt limit agreement had no spectrum provisions. Auctions may still be an attractive option for a joint select committee set up by the proposal to find $1.5 trillion in additional savings from 2012 t0 2021 by mid-November, the officials said Monday. The House was expected to vote Monday night on the debt compromise, with a Senate vote to follow.
The FCC was asked to delay further the emergency-alert system deadline for all multichannel video programming distributors and radio and TV stations to be capable of transmitting EAS warnings in a format developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Associations representing cable operators big and small and commercial and public radio and TV broadcasters asked for another delay in the effective date of common alerting protocol (CAP) rules. The commission has been taking longer than industry and some agency officials anticipated in finalizing gear certification rules so that broadcasters and MVPDs can comply with CAP. In seeking comment on the Part 11 equipment certification rules, the commission asked about a further delay (CD May 27 p4). A major maker of EAS equipment told us it still opposes a further delay.
Incumbent telcos were able to bang out an agreement on the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms after months of negotiations. The rest of industry said the real debate has only begun. The USTelecom-brokered agreement won a last-minute okay from the three biggest rural telecom associations Friday. Left out of the discussions, though, were cable, CLECs, states’ rights and consumer advocates, many of whom were already slinging arrows at Friday’s announcement. CompTel, XO Communications, NARUC, NCTA, Sprint Nextel and the Rural Cellular Association all issued statements praising the agreement as a step forward but raising substantive questions about the deal.
The FCC didn’t back down on new program carriage rules whose prospect had spurred opposition from major cable operators, agency officials said Friday. They said Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Office of General Counsel and the Media Bureau, the latter of which wrote the order and further rulemaking notice, decided against changing the item to accommodate Commissioner Robert McDowell. His concerns had dovetailed with those of the NCTA and members including Comcast. And in another program carriage case, an independent programmer withdrew allegations that its complaint was dismissed in an atmosphere where FCC officials left to work for the cable industry.
There seems to be little momentum now at the FCC for an AllVid rulemaking proposing how consumer electronics can connect to multichannel video programming distributors and get online content without using CableCARDs, agency officials said Friday. The day before, a 10-page letter from CE companies, groups and nonprofits that have been seeking the rulemaking was posted to docket 10-91. It remains to be seen whether the letter and lobbying of the commission by AllVid advocates will lead to the rulemaking being circulated soon, and it very well may not, some commission officials watching the proceeding said.
GENEVA - Participants in ITU-R meetings may try to close a gap between the level of protection needed to guard fixed satellite service (FSS) systems from interference from high altitude platform station (HAPS) gateway links, according to interviews and documents. HAPS proponents say the gateway links can spur voice and data service in rural and underserved areas. Intelsat in the U.S. WRC-12 preparatory process has been strongly opposed to new identification of bands for HAPS gateway links, we've learned.
With the advent of IPv6 and the growing number of devices and smart objects in the house, ordinary home networks will become data centers, with subnets for communication, TV, smart grid management, healthcare applications and more. How to make such networks easy for anyone to handle and secure was a major topic of the Internet Engineering Task Force meeting in Quebec last week. Nearly 300 engineers indicated interest in a soon-to-be-formed working group of the standardization body that will talk about the requirements.
The FCC opened the door to looking at AT&T and T-Mobile’s tower holdings as part of its review of their proposed merger. The Wireless Bureau sent letters to three leading tower companies asking for data about their towers. The FCC has not considered tower consolidation in evaluating recent wireless transactions. But AT&T and T-Mobile collectively have some 17,500 cell towers, almost as many as American Tower’s 20,900 and Crown Castle’s 22,300.
A low-power TV (LPTV) operator is again seeking FCC authority to test an alternate broadcast transmission system that would let stations offer broadband service alongside traditional broadcast content. Portland, Ore.-based WatchTV filed an amended application “to evaluate new digital television technology” with the FCC this week, five months after the FCC Media Bureau denied the station’s last request to test the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based system (CD Feb 11 p12). WatchTV’s March application for review of that denial remains pending, it said.