The FCC Wireline Bureau is “hard at work” on drafting an order reforming the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regimes, an FCC spokesman told us Tuesday. Wireline staffers are hoping to have a draft to Zac Katz, Chairman Julius Genachowski’s adviser, by early July, an FCC official and a telco lobbyist told us. Some telco lobbyists raised concerns that the FCC didn’t have a plan of its own after Genachowski went to Omaha and challenged “stakeholders” to help him solve the universal service/intercarrier comp “Rubik’s cube” (CD May 20 p1). The commission spokesman rebuffed those suggestions: “FCC staff is hard at work drafting an order,” he said in an email Tuesday.
Sprint Nextel, a leading opponent of AT&T’s proposed buy of T-Mobile, filed its opposition at the FCC Tuesday afternoon, the day oppositions were due at the agency. The Media Access Project also made an early filing opposing the merger. But the deal got support from the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, the first merger the group has endorsed in 25 years, according to a news release.
Taking advantage of a little-used provision of the Telecom Act, Venice, Calif.-based Digital Broadcasting OVS asked the FCC for certification to operate an online pay-TV service in the top 50 U.S. TV markets, filings show. The Media Bureau published a public notice on the proposal late Friday (CD May 31 p17), providing few details. The service would provide up to 1,000 HDTV channels over the existing Internet infrastructure, the company said in its application for certification as an Open Video System (OVS). It would also provide a special IP channel for “EAS First Responder agencies” it said. The company is a certified exempt telecom company under the 1996 legislation, CEO Roy Jimenez told us.
The White House cybersecurity proposal has raised questions over whether the government could rely on a provision in the 1996 Telecom Act to control the Internet in emergency situations. The absence of any Internet “kill switch” authority in the White House cybersecurity plan was applauded by several entities, but some lawmakers believe the plan should explicitly affirm that the president doesn’t have the authority. Other technology professionals don’t think the Obama administration’s measure indicates any intent to use such authority, they said in interviews.
Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields like those from cellphones may cause cancer in humans, including glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, said a new report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization. The last major report on cellphones and cancer, the long-awaited Interphone study, produced no conclusive results (CD March 18/10 p1).
GENEVA -- Some power line telecom gear already on the market and future development of industry specifications for systems using frequencies above 80 MHz may adversely affect a critically important aeronautical instrument landing system, or hobble broadcaster and scientific use in bands up to about 400 MHz, said participants Thursday at an ITU forum on the co-existence of power line telecom (PLT) systems and radiocommunication services. New high-data rate systems that use or may adversely affect frequencies in the HF, VHF, and UHF bands are being introduced into the market, they said.
The largest combination of radio stations in many years likely will be approved later in 2011 and perhaps with few FCC conditions, agency and industry officials predicted based on the Media Bureau review so far. Cumulus in March agreed to buy Citadel in a $2.4 billion deal to form a company with more than 550 radio stations in about 120 markets. Last week, the companies said the transaction should be approved and offered more reasons, which an opponent of media consolidation said sweeten the possible public interest benefits. The transaction and another deal for $500 million may spur a small renaissance in the previously moribund market for radio station mergers and acquisitions, a consultant predicted, although a broker isn’t so sure.
Support for keeping the FCC’s retransmission consent rules as they are came from the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW), as companies, public interest groups and trade associations filed their comments on the FCC’s proposed rulemaking before Friday’s deadline. Pay-TV distributors, which had petitioned the agency to change the rules, drew support from groups such as Citizens against Government Waste and the Free State Foundation, as well as the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. Those parties favored changing the rules to assure that distributors will be able to preserve carriage of TV stations during retransmission consent disputes.
The FCC’s pending Wireless Competition Report is already being brandished as a weapon by opponents of AT&T’s proposed buy of T-Mobile, even before it’s released by the agency. The report is expected to conclude for the second year that the wireless market has grown more concentrated. Other observers say the report appears likely only to offer the same findings as last year, reaching no conclusions on whether the industry is “effectively competitive,” and thus is not a surprise.
The government may continue using roving wiretaps and other Patriot Act powers that were to expire at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Late Thursday, President Barack Obama signed into law an extension until June 1, 2015, of the government spying powers. The law made no changes to surveillance, but Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced legislation Thursday based on his failed amendment to add privacy protections. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and privacy groups said they were disappointed the renewal had no new protections for U.S. citizens.