The current World Radiocommunication Conference preparation and interagency process “needs only a ’tune-up,’ not a major overhaul,” N.Y. Satellite Industries (NYSI) and Final Analysis Communications Services (FACS) told the NTIA. The agency had asked for comments on the process and agency coordination (CD Oct 24 p6). NYSI and FACS said much of the criticism of NTIA and FCC implementation of WRC items was outdated. They said coordination on their issue, the operation of Little LEO systems and incumbent federal users of the 1.4 GHz band, and others was an example of the “positive and instructive” preparation process the agencies had implemented recently, resulting in WRC-03 adoption of Little LEO feeders links in the 1390-1392 MHz and 1430-1432 MHz bands. If anything, they said, “a more streamlined process” for implementing WRC decisions, “where appropriate, would better serve the public interest. Once an international allocation is added, applicants should be free to seek an assignment of the allocated frequencies. This will allow the Commission to review individual applications to ensure that the public interest is served by the licensee’s use of the spectrum as allocated.”
Several weeks after CTIA announced its wireless industry voluntary consumer code program and the seal of wireless quality (CD Sept 10 p2), there has been “tremendous” progress in wireless carriers’ seeking to use the seal, CTIA Asst. Gen. Counsel Andrea Williams said Thurs. Addressing the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, she said the seal had become “a competitive issue for [carriers]. So, having the impact that we hoped it would, this is going to be an area where [members] are going to be competing for consumers.”
The FCC Thurs. expanded the scope of some Enhanced 911 requirements, including a mandate that certain mobile satellite service (MSS) providers create call centers for routing emergency calls. In an order and further notice adopted unanimously at its agenda meeting, the Commission also concluded that, for now, state and local govts. were better positioned to set rules for E911 deployment by multiline telephone systems (MLTS). It expanded E911 mandates to certain telematics services and resellers of mobile wireless services, including prepaid calling cards.
The FCC shouldn’t take further regulatory actions to address migratory bird deaths at communications towers until additional scientific research is conducted, many industry representatives said in comments filed with the Commission. However, environmental groups said the FCC already had received extensive information on that subject but had continued to violate federal environmental laws for years under its current system of authorizing, licensing, approving and registering communications towers. The comments were filed in response to the Notice of Inquiry (NOI) the Commission issued earlier this year (CD Aug 21 p5), after FCC Chmn. Powell in May outlined an agency effort for a more “pro-active approach” to environmental and historic preservation issues on tower siting.
With an economy increasingly dependent on the Internet, state and federal regulators must act carefully when setting new telecom policy, despite a virtual statutory vacuum, FCC Chmn. Powell said in a speech to the Federalist Society Thurs. He said the digital revolution and resulting media convergence “throws a monkey wrench into the workings” of the 1996 Telecom Act, which he said “preserves a Balkanized legal regime built for an analog age marked by rigid specifications” based on old technology. “The rise of the Internet will severely challenge federalism as it has been applied under the Telecommunications Act,” he said.
A Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)- led task force called for sweeping changes Wed. in U.S. spectrum management, including a recommendation for joint govt. and private sector-funded research. “This is in some ways the most radical of the recommendations,” the report said of the joint research proposal, which raised concerns about declining U.S. efforts in spectrum technology research as overseas R&D was increasing. The report, drafted by a commission led by former Defense Secy. James Schlesinger, called for direct White House oversight of spectrum management.
Acting in a long-standing controversy in Ill. over setting TELRIC rates (CD June 10 p12), a federal appeals court Mon. affirmed a lower court’s decision to bar the Ill. Commerce Commission (ICC) from following guidance included in a state law aimed at raising the rates. Upholding a decision by a U.S. Dist. Court in Chicago, the 7th U.S. Appeals Court, Chicago, said the ICC now could open a proceeding to change TELRIC rates but couldn’t be guided by the changes in costing factors specified in the state law. The law had changed the depreciation and network fill factors to produce higher rates, a move that was supported by SBC Ameritech but strongly opposed by CLECs. The 7th Circuit decision written by Judge Frank Easterbrook indicated annoyance with the whole process, including the fact that the appeal brought by AT&T and MCI originally was known as Voices for Choices v. Illinois Bell: “AT&T tried to give the suit a public- interest patina by making ‘Voices for Choices’ -- which despite its name is a trade association rather than a consumers’ group -- the lead plaintiff… We have changed the caption to reflect the real parties in interest.” The new caption is AT&T Communications v. Illinois Bell. The appeals court also complained that the CLECs had filed suit too soon after the state law was passed, before the ICC “had applied the statute and announced new rates,” which “has caused unnecessary troubles.” Easterbrook wrote: “Congress provided for federal judicial review of rates set by state commissions; it did not provide for review of individual factors that influence those rates.” On the legality of the state’s action in general, the appeals court said state legislatures weren’t barred from playing any role at all in ratemaking, although the Telecom Act named the PUC as the regulator and arbitrator. However, the court said, the legislature can’t unilaterally preempt the PUC as the primary regulator: “An attempt by the state legislature to set rates by itself would transgress the federal statute.” The state law clearly errs in one particular way, the appeals court said: “The state law, as the ICC understood and applied it, does require these factors to be used in isolation. The ICC took as set in stone all ingredients of ratemaking from 1997 and it adjusted the rate only by changing fill factors and asset lives. That approach conflicts with the 1996 Act and the TELRIC methodology and is therefore preempted… A rate for unbundled network elements generated by combining some factors that are 6 years out of date with 2 other factors that are not forward-looking cannot possibly satisfy the requirements of federal law.” SBC contended in oral argument that the problem could be solved in a future ratemaking, the court said, “but the possibility of repair in the future is no warrant for promulgating today a rate that deviates from the TELRIC standard.” The bottom line is that “the injunction still bars from the ICC from using [the state law] to set rates,” the court said. “If the elected branches of state government want the Commission to proceed along these lines, they must enact new legislation that addresses fill factors and asset lives as elements of a comprehensive process.” The court urged the ICC to move quickly to set a new rate because “a rate that is long out of date, as this 1997 rate is, frustrates the goals of TELRIC every bit as much as does a rate generated under the flawed state legislation.”
Citing interference concerns, broadcasters told the FCC last week that a plan for relocating certain Defense Dept. systems to make way for advanced wireless services such as 3G “seriously underestimates” the impact on the Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS). NAB and the Assn. for Maximum Service TV (MSTV) commissioned studies to evaluate the proposed relocation of 11 DoD sites for co-equal, primary use of the 2025-2110 MHz band with the BAS. They said one study showed BAS stations would experience harmful interference from the DoD sites, which in some cases would totally overload them.
FCC Comr. Adelstein on Wed. said he was in talks with his fellow commissioners about launching a broad inquiry into alleged “payola” practices at TV and radio stations around the country. In a speech to the Federal Communications Bar Assn. (FCBA), Adelstein said the Commission needs to “get to the bottom” of allegations that some TV stations have done interviews during news programs with subjects who have been asked to pay a fee. Such shows would appear to the average person to be legitimate news programs, he said, and viewers might be unaware that money is changing hands.
Rural wireless ISP (WISP) operators urged the FCC Tues. to consider changes in power limits in unlicensed bands and more spectrum, particularly below 5 GHz. At a daylong Rural WISP Workshop in a packed Commission meeting room, rural WISP developers said they also could use changes in the agency’s Part 15 rules for unlicensed spectrum and help from the FCC on restricting local ordinances for tower siting. Citing the turnout for the workshop, Comr. Adelstein suggested it might be helpful for the FCC to take such meetings on the road, with a possible next workshop somewhere in the Midwest.