Incumbent carriers Rogers, Telus and BCE, the Canadian wireless market’s dominant players, were the major winners as Industry Canada on Monday ended an advanced wireless service auction. The auction brought in C$4.25 billion, nearly three times the totals analysts projected last year. No national challenger emerged, but the three main incumbents could face tough new regional competition.
The Navajo Nation risks losing its communications services provided by SES Americom on Tuesday due to bureaucratic discord, it said. “It is totally unfair to the Navajo people to have these vital communications services withdrawn because of some differences of opinion in Washington over issues that they have not yet even specified,” said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley. To fend off a shutoff, Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin late last week urging he order the U.S. Administrative Corp. to explain why it is holding back universal service E-rate funds from 2006. USAC told the Navajo Nation in March that it was placing a hold on $2.1 million, the senators wrote. OnSat and subcontractors shut off service to Navajo Nation Chapter Houses in April and SES Americom will cease service Tuesday, the senators said. “Satellite service is the primary means of communication among the [Navajo] Nation’s police, fire and emergency medical responders. Even though the public safety communications component is not part of E-rate funding and is paid for separately, the termination of the satellite transmission service affects all communications for the Nation,” the senators wrote. The FCC has received and is reviewing the letter, an FCC spokesman said. SES Americom didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Broadcasters’ efforts to put more of their receivers in mobile devices like cellphones, PDAs and laptops continue, now that the FCC has issued rules on the Commercial Mobile Alert Service this month. Broadcasters lobbied FCC commissioners on the public-safety benefits of putting FM receivers in mobile phones (CD June 20 p7). Those efforts weren’t acknowledged overtly in a July 8 FCC order on the CMAS rules, but broadcasters believe carriers can use the FM system for alerts within the framework laid out by the FCC, Emmis CEO Jeffrey Smulyan said in an interview. “My understanding is that our solution fits within the rules,” he said. Meanwhile, TV broadcasters’ efforts to develop a mobile DTV system are leading them to discussions with mobile carriers as well.
Broadcasters’ efforts continue to put more of their receivers in mobile devices like cellphones, PDAs and laptops, now that the FCC has issued rules on the Commercial Mobile Alert Service this month.
The FCC seems likely to revise automatic roaming rules to address complaints about the “in-market” exception, industry sources said Thursday. But a new issue has emerged -- whether the FCC will lift an exception for all spectrum, rather than only licenses bought in 2006’s advanced wireless service auction and in this year’s 700 MHz auction. A decision by the agency not to include markets covered by PCS licenses would be a blow to Sprint Nextel, which has pushed for a rule change but was not active in the AWS-1 or 700 MHz auctions.
While broadband is seen as essential for telehealth, the current broadband infrastructure may prevent the full realization of the benefits, said Alexander Vo, AT&T Center for Telehealth Research and Policy executive director. Also at the Alliance for Public Technology Briefing, officials foresaw the wide spread of broadband connectivity as key to lower healthcare costs and solve gaps in coverage.
Devoting $300 million to rural broadband deployment, as suggested by the Joint Board on Universal Service, “appears far short of what will be needed,” FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said Wednesday at a Quebec, Canada, conference of the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. The National Exchange Carrier Association estimates it will take $12 billion, and Educause believes the figure is $100 billion, he said.
While broadband is seen as essential for telehealth, the current broadband infrastructure may prevent the full realization of the benefits, said Alexander Vo, AT&T Center for Telehealth Research and Policy executive director. Also at the Alliance for Public Technology Briefing, officials foresaw the wide spread of broadband connectivity as key to lower healthcare costs and solve gaps in coverage.
A comprehensive intercarrier-compensation revamp might not be possible by Nov. 5, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said Wednesday at a Quebec, Canada, conference of the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. Chairman Kevin Martin has promised a complete overhaul by then (CD July 14 p2). “I'm not sure we're really going to,” Adelstein said, predicting that the work may be broken up. If it is, the FCC should tackle phantom traffic, a “growing problem,” right away, he said.
APCO and the National Emergency Number Association are backing down from demands for what carriers have insisted were unrealistically tough requirements in E-911 location- accuracy rules approved by the FCC in 2007. APCO and NENA said in a letter to the FCC they would be comfortable changing a central requirement approved by the commission at a special Sept. 11 meeting.