Another Class A TV station faces downgrade to regular low-power status, losing interference protection. (See separate report in this issue.) KTJA Victoria, Texas, has 30 days to show cause why it shouldn’t lose Class A status because it went off-air for several periods in recent years, said a bureau order released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmyve8). A list of all show-cause orders is at www.warren-news.com/showcause.htm.
The FCC welcomes the FAA’s announcement it’s taking a fresh look at the use of iPads and other wireless devices on commercial flights, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday, during a hearing by a House Appropriations subcommittee (see related report in this issue). “I would encourage that,” Genachowski said. “Some of the traditional concerns about people talking on phones on planes may not apply to Kindles or iPads or other uses. I would encourage the FAA to look at that and to ensure that it’s doing as little as [is] necessary to protect public safety.” Laura Brown, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the FAA, said the agency will take a “fresh look” at the use of personal electronic devices on planes.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled Monday that the cities of Boston and Newton should refund $7.5 million in property taxes collected from Verizon New England. The court vacated a 2008 state Appellate Tax Board order that allowed the cities to levy taxes on phone poles and cables that pass over state-owned land. The court ruled that the cities acted prematurely in levying the taxes while the tax board’s order was under appeal. Based on the tax board ruling, the city of Boston had charged Verizon $5.3 million in property taxes from 2005 through 2009, while Newton charged $2.2 million for 2003 through 2008. Verizon filed suit in state court to challenge the board’s decision. A Massachusetts Superior Court judge issued a summary judgment in favor of the cities. The appeals court order overturned that ruling and agreed with Verizon that the additional assessment was improper because it’s not explicitly authorized by state law. The order also vacated the tax board’s order allowing taxation of Verizon poles and wires still under construction, but ruled that such taxation may be permissible under state law.
National prepaid wireless provider Total Call Mobile (TCM) asked to be designated as an eligible telecommunications carrier by the FCC under the federal Lifeline program. The petition covers Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia (http://xrl.us/bmysa9). The company operates an MVNO using Sprint Nextel’s network.
Alaska Communications Systems requested a limited waiver of the new phantom traffic call signaling rules adopted in the Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order, saying compliance is “not technically feasible” because of “deficiencies in the company’s currently deployed equipment, and due to the absence of necessary industry standards,” ACS said in its petition Friday (http://xrl.us/bmyscr). The phantom traffic rules require VoIP providers to transmit the telephone number of the calling party for all traffic terminated on the public switched telephone network. “ACS’s SS7 switches and MF signaling trunks are not capable of generating or passing the information required” in all cases, the petition said.
AT&T and T-Mobile want to “hide beneath the FCC’s procedural skirts” rather than answer the questions posed, Diogenes Telecom Project said in reply to a response filed by AT&T to T-Mobile. Diogenes asked the FCC to reject a transfer of AWS licenses from AT&T to T-Mobile, part of the breakup fee after AT&T dropped plans to acquire its smaller competitor in December. Diogenes filed a petition to deny (http://xrl.us/bmxkv9), arguing that AT&T and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom “made numerous material misrepresentations to the Commission throughout those proceedings, including false and misleading statements and material omissions.” AT&T and T-Mobile asked the FCC to reject the petition and approve the transfer (CD March 12 p10). Diogenes is not backing down from those charges. “Yet again, AT&T and T-Mobile have chosen not to reply to the serious charges of misrepresentation and lack of candor, preferring instead to argue petty procedural points,” Diogenes said (http://xrl.us/bmysa9).
SNL Kagan said it bought MediaCensus, a provider of geographic pay-TV subscriber estimates and other industry analyses, from MediaBiz, an independent research and consulting group in Colorado.
The proposed quantile regression formulas contemplated by the Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order “cannot lawfully be implemented,” NTCA, the National Exchange Carrier Association, OPASTCO and the Western Telecommunications Alliance said in a letter to the FCC Wireline Bureau Monday (http://xrl.us/bmyr8c). “Flaws in the models are so serious the formulas cannot simply be ‘fixed’ under delegated authority by the Bureau,” the groups said. “The Commission should accordingly suspend implementation of its quantile regression formulas and consider other alternatives.” The groups pointed to comments made by government economists in a peer review (CD March 13 p9), and argued that the peer reviews reinforced many of the concerns already highlighted in the record. The groups also noted that the peer reviews themselves were limited to whether quantile regression models were better than other statistical methods, a concern “not nearly as significant as whether it makes any sense at all” to use regression formulas to limit high-cost loop support payments to rate-of-return companies.
AT&T reached a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America on wireless contract negotiations covering about 8,800 employees in CWA District 6 in the carrier’s Southwest region, the company said. The proposed new four-year contract includes a $1,000 one-time lump sum cash payment to eligible employees upon ratification, general wage increases in each year of the contract and continued retirement savings plan with 80 percent company match on up to 6 percent of each employee’s contribution, AT&T said. It said pension plans for current employees remain unchanged. New hires will continue to be eligible for a cash-balance pension.
Bailey Cable faces $30,000 in possible FCC fines for carrying the programming of Baton Rouge, La., stations WGMB-TV and WVLA-TV without permission, said Media Bureau notices of apparent liability released Monday (http://xrl.us/bmyr8i, http://xrl.us/bmyr8k). The cable operator didn’t deny it carried the signals without “express written consent” after Dec. 31, when retransmission consent deals expired between the company and Communications Corp. of America, which owns WGMB, and Knight Broadcasting, for WVLA, the NALs said. “Bailey argues that it faced a ‘dramatic increase’ in requested” retrans fees, and “it receives the signal by antenna rather than satellite or the Internet,” they said. The broadcasters and Bailey each struck retrans deals Feb. 3, “following a telephone conference with Commission staff and the parties,” the notices said.