Those who oppose controls on network management “don’t have a leg to stand on” when they argue that blocking and slowing down traffic are necessary and don’t violate FCC policy, a group led by Free Press argued in reply comments filed Thursday. Opponents make “technical-sounding arguments that, when you cut through the jargon, are illogical and untrue,” the group said. Free Press said it isn’t opposed to all network management but thinks the FCC should clarify that “unreasonable delay, degradation or blocking of applications” violate the agency’s net neutrality principles.
Sprint Communications complained to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission that incumbent Hutchinson Telephone has breached the companies’ interconnection agreement by refusing to include phone numbers of Sprint’s customers in its printed phone directory. Sprint provides competitive local service in Hutchinson’s territory through a retail partnership with a local cable company’s telecom affiliate, MCC Telephony, and said it expected to see its customers’ numbers in the local phone book. Sprint said Hutchinson and Hutchinson’s affiliated directory publisher Pinnacle told it that Sprint- MCC customer listings wouldn’t be included in the 2008 directory edition but gave no reason. Sprint said the exclusion was “clearly anticompetitive” and violated state and federal laws and PUC policies. It sought a PUC order requiring Hutchinson and Pinnacle to include Sprint-MCC customer numbers in the 2009 directory.
NASHVILLE -- CompTel plans to amplify its regulatory influence in 2008, the CLEC association’s leaders said in an interview. Momentum from last year’s FCC denial of Verizon’s forbearance petition is giving CompTel members “more incentive to participate,” said CEO Jerry James. Under a new dual leadership, “we intend to take it to the next level,” said President Matthew Salmon.
Keep an eye on the FCC as it researches freeing white- space spectrum, the Wireless Innovation Alliance warned in letters to members of Congress. “We write to ensure that sound science at the Federal Communications Commission is not compromised by outside interference,” it said. “Some entities are seeking to politicize the science behind the agency’s engineering work.”
Sprint Communications complained to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission that incumbent Hutchinson Telephone has breached the companies’ interconnection agreement by refusing to put Sprint customers’ numbers in its print directory. Sprint, which offers competitive local service in Hutchinson territory via a retail partnership with MCC Telephony, a local cable company’s telecom affiliate, expected customers’ numbers to be in the local directory, it said. Sprint said Hutchinson and Hutchinson’s affiliated directory publisher Pinnacle told it that Sprint-MCC customer listings wouldn’t appear in the 2008 directory edition but gave no reason. Sprint said the exclusion, “clearly anticompetitive,” violates federal and state laws and PUC policy. It sought a PUC order requiring Hutchinson and Pinnacle to include Sprint-MCC customer numbers in the 2009 directory.
An FCC task force on the digital TV transition was rechartered this month by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, agency officials said. The body, largely dormant for years, is being reanimated amid Capitol Hill scrutiny on what some legislators call laggard efforts to coordinate industry and government efforts to educate Americans on how to get over- the-air TV after Feb. 17, 2009 (CD Feb 14 p1).
Entering a dispute between Verizon and the State Corporation Commission of Virginia, the FCC told an appeals court it believes federal law preempts a condition the state placed on the 2005 Verizon-MCI merger. The FCC told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., that the 1934 Communications Act exclusively authorizes the FCC to regulate interstate terms. So, it said in a Feb. 19 brief, the Virginia body “lacks authority to regulate interstate special access services through a merger condition.” The FCC told the court that “in the government’s view, the merger condition at issue in this case is therefore preempted.” The Virginia commission imposed a special access condition on both intrastate and interstate special access services. The condition required Verizon to continue offering special access on its terms before the merger, at prices that aren’t any higher. The condition lasts until the Virginia commission concludes that there’s enough competition to assure reasonable rates. The FCC filed the brief at the court’s request.
In an age where scores of information sources are at every citizen’s fingertips, public officials’ policymaking processes need to be fully transparent because “bad news can’t hide anymore, it will always get out,” said Victoria Clarke. The Comcast senior advisor and national news analyst made the comments in a keynote to state regulators at their winter meeting in Washington. Meanwhile, NARUC committees adopted four telecom policy resolutions including a controversial proposal for unifying federal and state oversight of wireless consumer protection. The resolutions must still be adopted by the NARUC board, which meets Wednesday, before becoming official policy.
A national broadband strategy would fix many U.S. problems, even some that seem unrelated to telecom, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told an Alliance for Public Technology forum Friday. Broadband deployment may have greater unintended benefits than phone rollout did, he said: “The profits [carriers] get don’t capture all the benefits to a broader society.” Adelstein suggested a national broadband summit involving the executive and legislative branches, state and local governments and the private sector. Such a meeting would “elevate the debate” and “make it clear how much of a national priority this is.”
To compete, small video delivery firms need a net neutrality law that stops Comcast and other operators from managing BitTorrent traffic, officials from BitTorrent, Vuze and Miro said Thursday in a Free Press conference call. BitTorrent slowing affects hundreds of companies that use the transfer protocol, said Eric Klinker, BitTorrent chief technology officer. Independent video publishers also need BitTorrent, said Nicholas Reville, executive director of Participatory Culture Foundation, the nonprofit that developed Miro, an open-source video application. “It’s the “only way they can compete with the big boys,” he said.