T-Mobile and MetroPCS need to merge to have the scale to challenge Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the two combining companies said in an FCC filing Friday. It said the new company formed will be called Newco, to be renamed T-Mobile, and will have enough spectrum to support 20 x 20 MHz LTE deployments in many parts of the U.S. The two also said combined they don’t hold spectrum above the levels in the most recent screen in any U.S. market. Parts of the carriers’ arguments were redacted from the public version of the filing. The deal, in which T-Mobile USA parent Deutsche Telekom is buying MetroPCS to merge it with its U.S. subsidiary, was announced Oct. 3 (CD Oct 4 p1). That deal and Softbank agreeing last week to buy control of Sprint Nextel may mean smaller carriers will be bought by the Big Four, analysts predicted. (See separate report below.)
The FCC will probably take a wait-and-see approach to some of the questions it raised in a further notice of proposed rulemaking (FNPRM) on program access rules, agency officials and communications lawyers predicted. Along with letting its ban on exclusive contracts between cable operators and the networks they own expire Oct. 5, the agency solicited comments on several other proposals to expand some program access protections to multichannel video programming distributors seeking to license national cable channels (CD Oct 9 p1). Should the commission see competitive problems developing as a result of letting the exclusivity ban expire, the further notice could give the commission a way to reopen the issue, an FCC official said.
FCC staff members debated whether to “ram ... through” a review of LightSquared’s waiver for an integrated satellite-terrestrial communications network. The waiver that staff gave to the company then drew concerns from lawmakers and the GPS industry that the agency didn’t fully evaluate potential interference issues with the network. Our review of internal emails from FCC officials, released Tuesday by the House Commerce Committee (http://xrl.us/bnui2y), showed they discussed the potential for LightSquared to reap billions of dollars in a so-called windfall profit from the waiver (CD Oct 17 p2). The waiver, which the commission this year proposed to yank, would have let the now-bankrupt company that was led by hedge-fund investor Phillip Falcone use spectrum licensed to be used only with satellites for terrestrial use to start a wireless broadband service.
"Rachel from card member services” keeps calling, and industry officials are trying to figure out how to silence her nefarious rings. Officials gathered Thursday at the FTC’s “Robocall Summit” to deal with the issue, as “Rachel” became a kind of shorthand for the transnational networks of robocallers intent on manipulating the VoIP system. Until the industry implements new solutions as it transitions to an all-Internet Protocol network, filing a complaint with donotcall.gov is the “only viable option” for consumers who get unwanted robocalls, said FCC Chief Technology Officer Henning Schulzrinne. The FTC also announced a $50,000 prize for anyone who can provide a technical solution to block robocalls.
The FCC Wireless Bureau scheduled an educational workshop for Tuesday on the Section 106 process for construction of new communications towers and collocation of communications gear on other structures. The workshop is in the Commission Meeting Room, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern. It “will provide guidance to its licensees and their consultants, and for those who construct communications facilities for FCC licensees, on the Section 106 process required by the National Historic Preservation Act and by the Nationwide Programmatic Agreement for Review of Effects on Historic Properties for Certain Undertakings Approved by the Federal Communications Commission,” the bureau said (http://xrl.us/bnup6w). “Among the topics to be discussed are improvements to the submittal of documentation to the FCC, State Historic Preservation Offices, and to Indian Tribes. A particular focus will be the effects of communications projects on historic and Tribal landscapes and on Tribal religious and cultural properties.”
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai pushed for creation of an Internet Protocol transition task force to help modernize the commission’s “anachronistic laws” and accelerate the technological changes in the communications industry. “We need to adopt a holistic approach to confronting this challenge instead of addressing issues on a piecemeal basis as they happen to pop up,” Pai said Tuesday at an event on Internet transformation hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Communications Liberty and Innovation Project (CLIP). “The work of the task force will be as daunting as it is necessary, for we simply cannot not import the broken, burdensome economic regulations of the PSTN [public switched telephone network] into an all-IP world."
An Alaska Communications Systems petition for waiver of the Connect America Fund Phase I support rules faced opposition from all who commented. ACS sought a waiver of the rule requiring broadband deployment to one unserved location per each $775 received, a waiver of the definition of “unserved” to exclude those locations served by fixed wireless broadband providers; and a waiver of the definition of “broadband” to count upgrades to existing customers with speeds below 1.5 Mbps. ACS originally accepted about $4.1 million of incremental Phase I support -- the full amount allocated to it by the commission -- but later requested a waiver for $2.5 million of that allocation after a “more detailed analysis” revealed a shaky business case for deployment of broadband where it had intended (CD Sept. 28 p19).
The FCC’s regulation of rural broadband is akin to the taxation of the British government two and a half centuries ago, said Harold Furchtgott-Roth, former FCC commissioner and head of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Economics of the Internet. “Today the situation is eerily similar,” he said at a Hudson Institute panel on rural telecommunications Monday. His comparison kicked off a series of scathing critiques among panelists of how FCC policy contributed to the U.S.’s rural broadband divide. “Flat out, it’s a terrible set of rules that they came up with,” Furchtgott-Roth said of the FCC’s USF/intercarrier compensation order of November 2011.
After months of delay, the FCC released an order that will let cable operators fully encrypt their services in all-digital systems. The order, published Friday (http://xrl.us/bnuci7), had been expected as far back as February (CD Jan 26 p6). But a presentation by Boxee, which introduced a device designed to use cable operators’ unencrypted basic tier signals, slowed its approval (CD Feb 8 p4). The order is largely consistent with what an earlier draft proposed, but adopts a series of commitments by the six largest cable operators for accommodating devices like Boxee’s. The commission concluded that a limited number of customers will be affected by the rule change. Communications industry attorneys following the rulemaking said they don’t expect the order to be challenged.
Transcom Enhanced Services has brought its complaints against the Georgia Public Service Commission and Tennessee Regulatory Authority to courts in both Georgia and Tennessee this fall. The Texas-based company was formerly linked to affiliate Halo Wireless when AT&T and various ILECs alleged unpaid access charges as part of a Halo interconnection agreement. Halo and Transcom became embroiled at several state utility commissions in the course of the consideration of the allegations in cases that sprawled over the last two years. Halo was liquidated in mid-July but Transcom continues to fight back.