Congressional investigators are looking into allegations of loan fraud raised by cable operators against a county government in Minnesota that accepted about $66 million in funds from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to build a fiber broadband network there. Mediacom Communications, which serves some of the less sparsely populated parts of Lake County, Minn., complained last year to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s office of the inspector general that Lake County’s Broadband Initiatives Project (BIP) loan application appeared to be fraudulent, designed to set the county up for financial failure and allow outside consultants hand-picked by local officials to buy the fiber-to-the-home systems at a discount (CD March 17/11 p6). More recently it has been taking its case to nearly anyone else who might listen, including federal prosecutors in D.C. and investigators with the House Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and apparently gaining some traction.
Communications and electronic groups increased campaign contributions to GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney in Q1, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. But industry groups vastly favored President Barack Obama, giving his reelection campaign $4.75 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data current as of April 21.
CEA became the third to ask the FCC to revisit parts of January’s Internet Protocol captioning order (CD May 1 p10) implementing a 2010 disabilities accessibility law, while the Entertainment Software Association lobbied the commission to waive other disabilities rules for videogames. The agency shouldn’t make removable media players like those that play Blu-ray discs and DVDs apparatus covered by the requirement that traditional TV shows be captioned when delivered by IP, CEA said. It asked the agency “to limit the applicability of the apparatus closed captioning rules to only those devices intended by the manufacturer to receive, play back, or record video programming.” Unneeded “industry compliance costs” would be saved by not requiring DVD players to display captions, with “strong public policy reasons ... because the content on the media that these players need to operate is not required to be closed captioned,” said a petition for reconsideration posted Tuesday in docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/bm5z4q). The association also asked for a clarification that the Jan. 1, 2014, compliance deadline is for the date of a device’s manufacture. ESA cited “the broad recognition among private and public stakeholders, including other federal agencies” that the types of videogames and services it seeks exemption from advanced communications service accessibility rules “have a primary purpose of playing, enabling or distributing games” and not ACS. The waiver isn’t for “general-purpose products or services” and is “limited to game industry products and services,” the association reported executives told officials of the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology. An ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 10-213 (http://xrl.us/bm5z5v) noted the waivers are sought for products “that may allow consumers to access and use some ACS, but are designed primarily to enable the playing of or access to video games."
Carriers filing replies in the FCC Lifeline proceeding generally supported the creation of a national Lifeline eligibility database, and want to maintain the current monthly reimbursement of $9.25, or increase it to $10. Replies posted Wednesday in docket 11-42 discussed an array of lingering concerns, including reseller eligibility for Lifeline discounts and whether Lifeline should be applied to bundled offerings that include a voice component.
The FCC Tuesday effectively suspended for 21 days the 180-day clock on its review of Verizon Wireless’s buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox. Opponents of the deals had asked the FCC to stop the clock because of problems they have had gaining access to documents and working their way through the massive record. Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan said in a letter posted on the FCC website he had little choice. The clock is non-binding, but still closely watched. Tuesday was officially day 103 of the commission’s 180-day review.
The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District defended its decision to cut off service at one of its transit stations last August to fend off a possible riot. BART subsequently approved a policy for shutoffs (CD Dec 2 p11) and the FCC started to ask questions. On March 1, the FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus asked for comments on “concerns and issues” raised by the intentional interruption of CMRS service by government authorities for the purposes of protecting public safety (CD March 2 p14).
The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on Sprint Nextel’s petition for declaratory ruling on a number of issues concerning the applicability of tariffed access rates to VoIP-originated calls. Sprint asked the commission to declare that before Dec. 29, “access tariffs filed with the Commission, including CenturyLink’s tariffs, did not impose compensation obligations on VoIP originated calls delivered over the public switched telephone network.” Sprint also seeks a ruling that “because the VoIP originated traffic is jurisdictionally interstate, intrastate access tariffs cannot impose compensation obligations with respect to that traffic, even if those calls originate and terminate in the same state.” Sprint wants the FCC to declare that it did not violate Section 201(b) of the Communications Act when it compensated CenturyLink at $0.0007 per minute, rather than at rates in CenturyLink’s switched access tariffs. The public notice (http://xrl.us/bm5tgi) said the petition was filed “to effectuate a referral” from a Louisiana district court, where CenturyLink filed a complaint against Sprint to enforce state and federal access tariffs with respect to VoIP-originated calls. Comments are due June 14 in docket 12-105, replies July 16.
Everything’s up in the air as the further notice of proposed rulemaking on contribution reform contains many more questions than answers. The notice, approved unanimously by the FCC Friday, poses questions about what types of communications providers should contribute to the Universal Service Fund, how contributions should be assessed, and how to reduce the overall cost of contribution. The text of the notice was not released by our deadline.
Google will pay a $25,000 fine for allegedly (CD April 17 p7) obstructing an investigation of Google Street View as related to federal wiretap law, the company said in a letter to the FCC Thursday. But the company also disputed whether it had done anything wrong. “Google had every interest in cooperating and did so fully at all times on a timetable discussed and agreed to by the Commission,” said the 17-page letter signed by Google counsel Ashton Johnston. “Google shares the FCC’s concern about the protracted nature of the investigation, but notes that most of the delays resulted from internal FCC process.” During a 17-month investigation, the commission “did not contact Google for weeks and months at a time,” the letter read. “The Commission stands behind the work of the career staff who investigated Google’s secret collection of personal passwords, emails, and other private data through its Street View project,” spokeswoman Tammy Sun said in response. “In promising to pay the Bureau’s penalty, the company has rightly admitted wrongdoing. Going forward, important concerns about the privacy of unencrypted wi-fi communications remain."
Incumbent LECs roundly condemned several legacy telecom regulations in reply comments posted Wednesday in docket 12-61 in support of USTelecom’s petition for forbearance, breaking out the thesaurus to describe the rules they say unfairly shackle ILECs while allowing other carriers to thrive. State commissions opposed the petition, arguing the elimination of several reporting requirements would harm consumers and make it harder for commissions to do their jobs.