The FCC will stage three panels on the 700 MHz D-block’s future at its Wednesday en banc hearing at the Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York City, it said. Panelists include: Salvatore Cassano, chief of the New York City Fire Department; Charles Dowd, deputy chief in the Communications Division of the New York City Police Department; John Farmer, former attorney general for New Jersey and senior counsel for the 9/11 Commission; and Steven Proctor, executive director of the Utah Communications Agency Network. Also testifying are officials from AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon, the Satellite Industry Association, U.S. Cellular, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola and Ericsson Federal. The hearing is to run from 10:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.
PORTLAND, Ore. - State regulators at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners summer meeting advanced resolutions on the digital TV transition, broadband expansion and pole attachments. But they put off until Tuesday votes on contentious resolutions on state enforcement of national wireless consumer protection standards and state jurisdiction over interconnection of next-generation packetized telecom services.
Broadband providers sounded alarms over an FCC proposal to create a national broadband mapping program. In comments last week, phone carriers and cable operators expressed concerns about costs and confidentiality. Wireless and satellite providers argued that they should escape any data filing requirements. But the FCC proposals -- made last month in a further notice attached to an order on broadband data collection - received strong support from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers & Advisors and the American Library Association.
The FCC’s en banc hearing in Pittsburgh will consist of a panel on the future of broadband and one on digital media, the commission said late Wednesday. The hearing will run from 4:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday at Carnegie Mellon University. Broadband panelists are Robert Quinn, AT&T’s federal regulatory senior vice president; Scott Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute; Rey Ramsey, One Economy’s CEO; Rendall Harper, a board member of Wireless Neighborhoods; Marge Kreuger, the administrative director of Communications Workers of America District 13; David Farber, a Carnegie Mellon professor; and Rahul Tongia, a senior systems scientist there. The digital media panel will have Mark Cuban, HDNet’s chairman; Matthew Polka, the American Cable Association’s CEO; Jake Witherell of Sim Ops Studios; John Heffner of Conviva; Jon Peha, a Carnegie Mellon professor; and a YouTube representative who wasn’t identified.
The FCC’s en banc hearing in Pittsburgh will consist of a panel on the future of broadband and one on digital media, the commission said late Wednesday. The hearing will run from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday at Carnegie Mellon University. Broadband panelists are Robert Quinn, AT&T’s federal regulatory senior vice president; Scott Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute; Rey Ramsey, One Economy’s CEO; Rendall Harper, a board member of Wireless Neighborhoods; Marge Kreuger, the administrative director of Communications Workers of America District 13; David Farber, a Carnegie Mellon professor; and Rahul Tongia, a senior systems scientist there. The digital media panel will have Mark Cuban, HDNet’s chairman; Matthew Polka, the American Cable Association’s CEO; Jake Witherell of Sim Ops Studios; John Heffner of Conviva; Jon Peha, a Carnegie Mellon professor; and a YouTube representative who wasn’t identified.
The FCC’s diversity committee must vote again on a recommendation to Chairman Kevin Martin that the agency examine whether Arbitron’s electronic audience measuring devices undercount minorities, said participants. Arbitron said the July 2 vote was flawed by lack of sufficient public notice, and CBS said an inquiry would overstep commission authority. The FCC should conduct a “fact finding inquiry” on the meters, as it does on notices of inquiry, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Executive Director David Honig said. Because no announcement of the meeting at which the recommendation would be considered ran in the Federal Register, the vote must be redone, Honig said Thursday in an interview. He and Henry Rivera, committee chairman, said the failure to publish the agenda was an oversight. Arbitron said the committee made “no effort” to allow the company to “present its views” at the meeting. Honig said Arbitron didn’t get “a formal invitation.” Rivera said the committee assumed, perhaps wrongly, that Arbitron knew of the meeting. “It’s unfortunate, but certainly nothing intentional, and they'll get another shot here, so I don’t think there’s any harm done,” he said. The re-vote may occur at the committee’s next meeting, on July 28, said Honig and Rivera. CBS voted no at the meeting, but the committee was “very substantially supportive” of the inquiry on the meter’s methodology, said Honig. CBS said the resolution got no “vetting” by a subcommittee, “a stark deviation” from usual committee process: “The resolution urges the FCC to launch an investigation of an entity that holds no FCC license and is clearly not regulated by the agency. We view such expanded Commission jurisdiction inappropriate.” Honig said the commission has both precedent and authority to examine areas impacting diversity, citing FCC payola investigations and section 403 of the Communications Act.
The Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday approved a bill recommending $341 million for the FY 2009 FCC budget. It also admonished the agency for inadequate oversight of the universal program. The FCC needs to do a better job with the program, the committee said. Members also ordered the FCC to report on the feasibility of a broadcast “code of conduct” for foul language, sexual content and violence. They also sought a study of commercially supported broadcasting on public school buses.
APCO and other public safety groups blasted Verizon Wireless and AT&T arguments that the FCC should launch a request for proposals seeking alternatives for building a public safety wireless broadband network and abandon its public-private partnership proposal, in reply comments on the future of the 700 MHz D-block. Meanwhile, Cyren Call defended its performance as the advisor to the PSST.
AT&T and other carriers filed in support of T-Mobile’s calls for 90 additional days of interference tests before the FCC makes a decision on the future of the advanced wireless services 3 band - spectrum to be used to offer nationwide, free broadband service. Meanwhile, Wireless Strategy proposed to the commission an alternative band plan, which it said would pose significantly less risk of interference than the plan proposed by the FCC.
Sprint Nextel sued ICO Global Communications and TerreStar Networks, seeking to recover $100 million from both mobile satellite services operators for clearing the broadcast auxiliary service from the 2 GHz band. The BAS spectrum was swept up in the 800 MHz band reconfiguration, so Sprint is paying to move BAS off the spectrum that ICO and TerreStar Networks want to use.