Saying its role as a newly converged regulator marked a good time to gauge the state of the nation’s telecom industry, the U.K. Office of Communications (OFCOM) said it would begin a 3-part review in Jan. The sector-wide assessment is the first in 13 years, OFCOM said, and it could lead to regulation rollbacks. British Telecom (BT), which holds the lion’s share of the markets for residential and business access and wholesale call origination, said it welcomed the review. A users’ group urged OFCOM to enforce existing initiatives before establishing out new ones.
Protecting communications during critical infrastructure threats such as blackouts, hurricanes and terror attacks requires dedicated spectrum and freedom from cybersecurity mandates, a coalition of trade groups told Congress last week. The United Telecom Council (UTC) and other members of the Critical Infrastructure Communications Coalition (CICC) wrote members of 3 key House committees last week, urging promotion and protection of private telecom services used by the electric, gas, water, oil and railroad industries.
BRUSSELS -- Two recent decisions under European competition law may signal the end of the need for sector- specific regulation for telcos, a Belgian telecom lawyer said here Wed. While there have been merger decisions in the last 15 years, they were decided on a case-by-case basis and have no precedential value, said Bernard Amory of Jones, Day. However, he said, rulings under Article 82 of the European Community Treaty -- the abuse of dominant position regulation -- may be more effective in opening telecom markets than an unapplied regulation. Other panelists at the European Competitive Telecom Assn. conference disagreed, saying a combination of antitrust enforcement and regulation was needed.
Federal spectrum users stressed to an NTIA forum Tues. the delicate balance between creating incentives for more efficient govt. spectrum use and protecting existing systems such as GPS. Several spectrum experts told the daylong forum at the Commerce Dept. that while secondary markets might have some applications for govt. spectrum, congressional budget and other policies didn’t always create incentives for more efficient use. “It’s harder than you might think to get the incentives right,” Treasury Dept. economist Adele Morris said.
More than 10 voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) providers led by the Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition are getting together to create an unprecedented group to encourage a public policy that refrains from applying traditional telecom regulation to Internet voice communications. The ad hoc coalition, expected to be announced formally before the end of the year, will try to form voluntary agreements on some key common carrier obligations, such as universal service, E911, disability access and law enforcement monitoring of VoIP calls. “These legitimate concerns can be addressed without imposing heavy regulation on VoIP and… if they are addressed successfully the political pressure to regulate VoIP will dissipate,” said VON Coalition Chmn. Tom Evslin, who represents the ad hoc group.
Broadcast, cable and satellite industry officials on the FCC’s Media Security & Reliability Council (MSRC) have adopted 49 best-practices recommendations aimed at keeping TV media functioning in the event of a major national emergency. Among the key recommendations: (1) Media companies should post security guards and provide backup power and telecommunications systems at their key facilities. (2) News operations should have “robust and redundant” ways of communicating with news services and remote news crews. (3) Media companies in the same markets should negotiate reciprocity agreements so interconnections would be available if necessary to maintain media diversification. (4) Companies should write disaster plans, update then when necessary and practice them at least once a year. (5) Disaster plans should contemplate not only short-term disruption, but the possibility that studios and transmission facilities could suffer catastrophic damage. MSRC’s Public Communications & Safety Working Group recommended a single federal agency take responsibility for ensuring public communications systems and procedures existed, worked and were available to a range of other agencies. The working group also said the single federal agency should ensure lead responsibilities and actions were delegated at every level of government and that a national, uniform risk warning system capable of communicating all kinds of hazards be created based on what a broad range of public officials and the public at-large believed would best serve the public interest. MSRC’s 41 members received the recommendations from its 2 working groups in its last public meeting Nov. 6. The council finished voting on the recommendations Nov. 26. All 49 recommendations are posted at http://www.fcc.gov/MSRC.
Following a Nov. 21 agreement on a joint approach to antimonopoly remedies under the new regulatory framework for e-communications, European telecom regulators and the European Commission (EC) late last week unveiled a consultation paper for public comment. The 130-page document from the EC and the European Regulators Group (ERG) -- composed of national regulatory authorities (NRAs) -- aims to ensure that remedies are applied consistently across the European Union, guiding NRAs and reducing uncertainty for market players, ERG said. Under the new directives, NRAs can’t impose remedies until they conduct a market analysis and identify a significant market power (SMP) operator in a defined market. Markets eligible for prospective (ex ante) regulation must be characterized by high and nontransitory entry barriers, the paper said. It said the emergence of effective competition couldn’t be foreseeable and the application of retroactive controls must be insufficient to address specific market failures. Before imposing a remedy, the paper said, NRAs must: (1) Choose one based on the nature of the problem as identified via a market analysis approach. (2) Ensure sufficient access to wholesale inputs to provide maximum benefits to consumers in situations where infrastructure competition isn’t likely to be feasible. (3) Assist in the transition process to sustainable competition where replication of the infrastructure of the SMP entity is possible. (4) Produce reasoned, proportionate decisions in a transparent manner. (5) Design remedies to be “incentive compatible,” making it easier for regulated entities to comply than to evade. “Special considerations have to be given to regulation in emerging markets,” the ERG and EC said. As a general rule, they said, such markets shouldn’t be subject to prospective rules but should be allowed to develop according to the normal dynamics of market forces. The consultation paper also guides NRAs in matching remedies to competition problems. The ERG and EC also published an interim paper setting out a common position on bitstream access services (defined in the paper as the “provision of transmission capacity (upward/downward channels may be asymmetric) between an end-user connected to a telephone connection and the point of interconnection available to” a new market entrant. There’s a ‘clear role for direct intervention” by NRAs in bitstream access, they said, but NRAs must take account of varying national circumstances resulting from different network architectures as well as the different market situations around Europe. Because bitstream access is critical for the development of competition in the wholesale broadband access market, the paper said, “NRAs should mandate a bitstream access product according to national needs.” Comments on the regulatory remedies consultation are due Jan. 19 and the ERG has set a public hearing for Jan. 26 -- erg-secretariat@cec.eu.int.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) announced it was rolling out Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) across its systems nationally with the help of MCI and Sprint. A spokesman said TWC could connect VoIP customers with one another, but it needed the help of traditional telcos to route calls through the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) if it was to offer a truly national service in its 31 markets. This marks the first time a cable company has partnered with a telco on such a large scale. Although the companies said these were multiyear, multimillion-dollar agreements, no specifics were provided. TWC said it would pay MCI and Sprint for each line and then on a usage basis.
The Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) told the FCC it had “grave concerns” about the impact leasing would have on already scarce public safety spectrum. APCO submitted comments on a further notice on secondary markets the FCC adopted in May that would extend more flexible leasing policies to most wireless services in which licensees held exclusive rights. Meanwhile, several wireless carriers and Bell companies urged the FCC to not impose additional reporting requirements on spectrum leases.
Neb. Public Service Comr. Anne Boyle criticized a wireless industry voluntary consumer code Fri. for not holding carriers accountable for implementation. “Nobody really knows if they are abiding by it,” Boyle told a Progress & Freedom Foundation lunch. But Emory U. Prof. Paul Rubin argued that state regulations, including proposed rules in Cal., limited consumer rights by reducing options for finding lower prices.