CompUSA is expected to close on the acquisition of Good Guys later this month, further cementing its new focus on the CE category. While CompUSA plans few changes at the 71-store chain initially, it will draw on the Brisbane, Cal-based retailer’s ties to vendors to strengthen its own hand.
The FCC’s Network Reliability & Interoperability Council (NRIC) voted Fri. to adopt more than 300 best practices aimed at enhancing reliability and security of the U.S. telecom networks in times of emergency. Although the vote marked the last meeting of a 2-year initiative, members have until Dec. 12 to submit their written comments. “The set of homeland security best practices adopted by the Council will guide the industry in fulfilling its commitments with its customers and with one another -- to engineer and operate the most reliable, robust communications service network in the world,” FCC Chmn. Powell said.
Congress will attempt to fix a “broken” FCC next year, 2 senior Hill staffers told a Public Law Institute conference Thurs. A bill by Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R- Ariz.) and ranking Democrat Hollings (S.C.), S-1264, already has cleared that committee, and the House Commerce Committee will be playing catch-up, said Howard Waltzman, telecom counsel for House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.). Kevin Kayes, Democratic staff dir. for the Senate Commerce Committee, said he could envision as a follow-up in the next Congress an attempt to rewrite the Telecom Act. That would be popular in this town, he said: “I think there’s a tremendous interest by lobbyists and lawyers and everybody to do a new Act because it’s a huge amount of business.”
Several local emergency response agencies recently weighed in at the FCC on a proposed 800 MHz reconfiguration plan backed by Nextel, the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials, PCIA and others. The plan would entail a spectrum swap involving 700, 800 and 900 MHz and 1.9 GHz, including a Nextel funding commitment of $850 million to relocate private wireless and public safety incumbents that would be displaced. The point of the “consensus plan” is to mitigate public safety interference at 800 MHz. The Va. Fire Chiefs Assn. told the FCC it endorsed the plan, with 2 caveats: (1) That Nextel pay the entire cost of programming and replacement of public safety radios, “regardless of the dollar amount.” (2) That a “simple system be established that will allow public safety agencies to utilize the funds necessary to make the transition without any out-of- pocket/upfront expense.” The Firemen’s Assn. of the State of N.Y. told the FCC it endorsed the consensus plan, saying “first responders in New York and across the nation are increasingly at risk because their public safety radio communications are vulnerable to interference from cellular phones.” It said first responders “urgently” needed more 800 MHz spectrum to have interoperable communications among police and firefighters and neighboring jurisdictions. However, the City of Baltimore said it opposed the consensus plan, favoring instead an alternative backed by CTIA and others that relied on measures such as best practices rather than rebanding. “We have very serious concerns about a proposal that will be executed at the expense of public safety systems, like ours, that have spent money to install high-quality equipment that enables us to operate successfully in a spectrum-crowded environment,” the city told the FCC. “Baltimore’s system was updated in 1998 at a cost of some $70 million.” It said that retuning public safety systems carried an “unacceptable risk” that key systems would be impaired or interrupted during the process. “Our public safety system is not like a commercial system that can survive if impaired for a short time.”
FCC Chmn. Powell gave early indications of his thinking about a regulatory regime for Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) Mon., saying he saw consensus that the service might be deemed “interstate” in nature and that concerns about VoIP were focused on 4 or 5 discrete issues. His comments to reporters came after an FCC forum on VoIP that featured industry leaders, state public utility commissioners and others.
The International Assn. of Fire Fighters and the National Volunteer Fire Council have endorsed legislation designed to improve funding for first responders. The bill, HR-3266, is sponsored by House Homeland Security Committee Chmn. Cox (R-Cal.) and ranking Democrat Turner (Tex.) and has passed the Emergency Preparedness & Response Subcommittee unanimously. “This common-sense legislation will ensure that first responder funding for terrorism is distributed more fairly, while still protecting successful programs that existed pre-9/11, such as the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program,” said Philip Stittleburg, National Volunteer Fire Council chmn.
A recent agreement by the U.S. and European Commission (EC) may be an indication the 2 continents are very close to reaching a final accord on GPS and Galileo coordination, said an official close to the situation. A statement by the U.S. and the EC said the parties “bridged several outstanding issues regarding the EC’s Galileo satellite navigation system and the U.S. [GPS]. Most significantly, in view of national security and performance considerations, the parties identified a mutually acceptable modulation for Galileo Public Regulated Services [PRS].” PRS includes civil protection, maritime safety services and emergency response services. The agreement means Galileo’s PRS signal will be located outside the proposed military code, and the code will have a split signal on either side of an existing civil signal at 1575.42 MHz. The only remaining coordination issue deals with the open service and safety-of-life signal proposed for Galileo that, as planned, still will overlap the future military code, he said: “The Europeans are seeking to maximize the performance characteristics of their open service for future users. The trade-off is that there would be significant operational impacts in the battlefield related to navigation warfare concept. Additionally, the DoD believes [the current proposal] endangers more lives.” While this issue and others -- including trade issues raised due to China’s participation in Galileo -- remain, “nothing seems as intractable as it was 2 weeks ago,” the official said. In addition to coordinating the use of certain spectrum, he said, “we want to cooperate in terms of open trade… We want to make sure we have no discrimination in Europe concerning GPS.” Discrimination could be in the form of the creation of regulation or mandates that take away the user’s choice when considering which technology to use, he said: “We don’t want any tilting of the currently level playing field. We want it to be technology neutral.”
Wireless local number portability (LNP) began Mon. amid continued regulatory challenges, including a new petition for partial stay of the FCC’s wireline-to-wireless order that was filed at the Commission late Fri. by a coalition of rural carrier groups. The groups representing so-called 2% carriers -- those that individually serve less than 2% of telephone consumers in the U.S. -- included the Independent Telephone & Telecom Alliance (ITTA), the National Telecom Co- op Assn (NTCA) and OPASTCO. Although the FCC last week denied a similar petition by USTA and CenturyTel, those filing the new one contended they were raising wireline- wireless issues that hadn’t been specifically raised before. USTA and CenturyTel since have sought a stay in the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., where the case is pending. The D.C. Circuit already had turned down a petition by rural carriers seeking a stay of the wireless-to-wireless porting rules.
Just weeks before it was to hold its final meeting, the National Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) received a jolt last week, with the EPA saying it would have to discontinue funding because rules prohibited disbursement of federal funds to grantees for lobbying. As a result, the NEPSI meeting scheduled for the first week of Dec. has been cancelled. NEPSI stakeholders were developing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that not only would call on the signatories to support federal legislation to set up a system for the collection and recycling of electronics waste (e-waste), but also would require them to lobby for such legislation.
FCC Chmn. Powell told reporters Tues. the Commission didn’t expect major glitches with wireless local number portability (LNP) next week, but there might be some initial “hiccups,” as was the case with any new technology. Asked about possible legal challenges to recent wireless LNP decisions, Powell said: “I recommend that they look at the film of the do-not-call database fiasco.” Meanwhile, wireless carriers have ramped up testing efforts in anticipation of the Nov. 24 wireless LNP deadline.