The FCC must decide whether ICO Global Communications and TerreStar Networks owe Sprint Nextel for moving broadcast auxiliary service licensees out of the 2 GHz band, said a federal court in Alexandria, Va. ICO and TerreStar hoped Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia would dismiss Sprint’s lawsuit but instead she sent the issue back to the commission. BAS spectrum was swept up in the 800 MHz band reconfiguration, so Sprint is paying to move BAS off spectrum ICO and TerreStar Networks want to use. Sprint says TerreStar and ICO owe it for BAS relocation. TerreStar and ICO disagree. Both mobile satellite service providers believe that for Sprint to receive compensation they had to begin offering service by June 26. ICO launched its satellite in April (CD April 16 p17) but is not yet offering commercial service. The TerreStar craft’s launch has been delayed until next year. Sprint hopes the FCC will order TerreStar and ICO to pay, a spokesman said.
Hurricane Gustav didn’t pack the wallop of Katrina three years ago, and preparation by the government and communications carriers was better than during the earlier storm, officials said Tuesday. So Gustav probably won’t lead to the calls for hardening the communications system that followed Katrina.
Intel’s proposal that all HD set-top boxes have Internet Protocol connections to spur home networking and use of interactive applications (CD July 25 p5) is gaining industry support. Executives believe consumer electronics makers, cable companies, telcos selling TV and others can reach agreement on interoperability standards for Ethernet jacks at set tops’ backs. The FCC is “encouraged” by industry support, said an agency spokesman.
A federal appeals court ruled that competitive carriers claiming an incumbent telco negotiated interconnection in bad faith can’t go to the federal courts until they give state regulators a chance to decide. The 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court in San Francisco upheld a district court refusal to review a 2006 Nevada Public Utility Commission dismissal of a complaint by AutoTel Communications against Embarq. The accusation was bad faith negotiation over a new mid-span meeting point to be added to the companies’ interconnection agreement. The PUC dismissed the complaint as unripe, saying AutoTel offered no evidence on which the PUC could act. AutoTel sued the PUC and Embarq in federal court, also filing, ultimately unsuccessfully, a complaint to the FCC. Affirming the lower court, the 9th Circuit (Case 06-16565) said a state commission must decide a bad-faith claim before parties can go to federal court. The appeals tribunal said the PUC hadn’t “impliedly” decided in Embarq’s favor by dismissing AutoTel’s complaint. It said AutoTel made no effort to fix deficiencies noted by the PUC, so it had never actually put the issue of Embarq’s good faith before the commission.
The FCC circulated an order dismissing an OrbitCom forbearance request before it made the carrier’s petition public, acting nearly a year after Orbitcom filed the petition. The agency never posted a public notice seeking comment. The 12-month statutory forbearance deadline is Aug. 27. The situation raises red flags about FCC openness and the forbearance process, industry officials said in interviews.
Four days of attacks on government and online media Web sites have targeted Georgian and international servers in the U.S. and Europe, said Georgia’s largest ISP. Russia could cut off international voice and other traffic if it called a general embargo, an industry source said. A fiber link project expected to connect Georgia directly with Western Europe, skirting Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, is only two months from completion, the ISP said. The Russian Ministry for Information Technologies and Communications didn’t respond immediately to phone call and e-mail queries about the claims.
The FCC eased regulation of Qwest enterprise broadband services late Tuesday, voting 3-2 to grant the company forbearance on part of a petition seeking relief from Title II and Computer Inquiry rules on its enterprise broadband services. Qwest asked for the same regulatory relief the FCC gave Verizon in a controversial 2006 “deemed granted” ruling. The Qwest order, adopted July 22 and released late Tuesday, was more than a month ahead of the agency’s Sept. 12 statutory deadline for ruling. The FCC denied Qwest forbearance from statutory and regulatory mandates not specific to incumbents, and requirements other than Computer Inquiry requirements that apply to Qwest as an ILEC or Bell operating company.
Broadband providers protested FCC proposals to collect more broadband data, in comments Friday. Wireline, wireless and cable operators condemned FCC proposals to collect data on voice connections, broadband pricing and actual delivered broadband speed. They also pooh-poohed FCC customer surveys. The FCC proposals were attached to an order adopted last March revising FCC Form 497 to collect broadband data at the Census Tract level (CD June 16 p6). Broadband mapping, another proposal in the order, was debated last month (CD July 21 p1).
The FCC gave Saddleback Communications, Pine Belt Cellular, IT&E Overseas and Gila River waivers on 2006 and 2007 filing deadlines for eligible telecommunications carriers. The carriers must file service quality reports annually to receive federal universal service support. The commission refused Gila River’s request to avoid filings.
FCC practice of withholding from public view for weeks items adopted at open meetings may violate the spirit of the Government in the Sunshine Act but is well within the letter of the law, said government scholars we interviewed. House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, has drafted bill to force the FCC to act more openly. It’s meant to prompt Hill review of FCC practices, a Hill staffer said.