ReconRobotics fired back at the National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL), which asked the FCC to reconsider a February staff-level order letting ReconRobotics sell up to 8,000 units of its Recon Scout every year. The scout is a remote-controlled surveillance robot operating in the 420-450 MHz band, designed to be used to check a building prior to forced entry, search vehicle undercarriages for explosives, identify hostages, and otherwise assist first responders. “The waiver and licensing proceedings have subjected ReconRobotics to more than four years of uncertainty and delay, almost entirely at the hands of ARRL and its allies in the amateur community,” ReconRobotics said (http://xrl.us/bmyrgs). “Having lost every substantive decision in both proceedings, ARRL now seeks yet again to inject a further element of uncertainty into ReconRobotics’s operations going forward. As before, this threatens only to keep the Recon Scout away from first responders, many of whom have told the Commission that they need the device to save lives.”
T-Mobile identified 994 census tracts listed by the FCC as unserved, in which the carrier said it offers service. The list is to be used by the agency to award phase I Mobility Fund support in a single upcoming auction. The FCC’s list was based on American Roamer data, T-Mobile said (http://xrl.us/bmyrdt). “This coverage discrepancy may not be surprising,” T-Mobile said: “Because T-Mobile does not have an agreement in place with American Roamer to provide its granular coverage data, American Roamer must obtain its information about T-Mobile’s coverage from publicly available sources, which is less reliable."
The FCC International Bureau dismissed six DirecTV applications for authority to build, launch, and operate a satellite at 79 degrees west, the bureau said Friday. Four of the applications were dismissed for being “premature” as they were submitted before 2 p.m. Feb. 28, said the bureau. The bureau previously said the effective time for new rules and first- come first-served licensing for that orbital position was 2 p.m. Feb. 28. Two other applications were dismissed due to inconsistencies and because DirecTV hadn’t submitted application fees within 14 days of the filings, as required, said the bureau.
Sorenson Communications got a waiver of an FCC rule requiring that phones designed for persons with hearing disabilities reset to a volume no greater than 18 dB when returned to an on-hook position (http://xrl.us/bmyftg). Sorenson sought the waiver for models 57T and 57Tx of its handsets, which include a volume control override switch so those with hearing disabilities can use the phone without having to turn the volume back up each time. The Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau granted the waiver subject to several conditions regarding the volume reset override switch and the functioning of various indicator lights.
AT&T filed several network change certifications, according to public notices released Friday. The telco will replace copper facilities with fiber fed digital loop carriers in Mt. Sterling and Stanton, Ky.; Richland, Miss.; and Lyons, Ga. It will also replace switches in Fort Worth and Birmingham, Ala.
The unauthorized upload of address-book contacts through mobile apps forms the basis of a lawsuit seeking class-action status in the U.S. District Court in Austin. Thirteen people alleged (http://xrl.us/bmyfs8) that mobile apps Path, Foursquare, Rovio, Gowalla and Instagram, as well as Twitter, Apple, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn and Electronic Arts, among others, “have unfortunately made, distributed and sold mobile software applications ... that, once installed on a wireless mobile device, surreptitiously harvest, upload and illegally steal the owner’s address book data without the owner’s knowledge or consent. ... The surreptitious data uploads,” occurring over cellular and open networks across the U.S., “have, quite literally, turned the address book owners’ wireless mobile devices into mobile radio beacons broadcasting and publicly exposing” the data “to the world.” The plaintiffs in Opperman v. Path want a permanent injunction against the defendants’ collecting practices, deletion of collected data and monetary relief. Path CEO Dave Morin has apologized for the app’s “Add Friends” feature, which didn’t ask for user consent, and House Commerce Committee Democratic leaders have asked Apple to explain its iOS developer policies in the wake of the Path admission.
Wireless carriers that opt not to transmit Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) alerts must notify their customers by May 15 they won’t be taking part, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said Friday. The CMAS program is voluntary, though the major carriers are expected to participate. Wireless carriers “electing not to participate, in part or in whole, in the CMAS throughout their service areas must provide clear and conspicuous notice to new subscribers of their non-election or partial election at the point of sale,” said a public notice (http://xrl.us/bmyfqo). “The point of sale includes stores, kiosks, third party reseller locations, web sites, and any other venue through which the ... provider markets and sells its devices and services.” Existing customers also must be notified. The CMAS program, years in the making, is to launch nationwide April 7. The Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act of 2006 mandated the launch of the warning network by May 15. Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile participated in a regional test of the system in New York City late last year.
A National Communications Inc. affiliate agreed to buy KUQI-TV Corpus Christi from High Maintenance Media, the companies said. They expect the FCC to approve the transaction in the second half of 2012. National owns KVPH-TV Lake Charles, La., and its affiliate KUQI Licensee LLC will own the Corpus Christi station, and have a shared services agreement with London Broadcasting Co., it said.
The FCC is “open to a special access reset,” said Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeff Silva, who expects the coming months to see a commission examination of the special access market and the adequacy of 1999 pricing flexibility rules. “Our sense is the FCC has grown skeptical of predictive judgments underlying the adoption of the special access pricing flexibility regime, but at a minimum wants to have a solid legal foundation on which to base any policy pivot,” he said. “Data collection will be key to any FCC decision-making.” Chairman Julius Genachowski has twice asked for voluntary submissions of data, and may issue a mandatory data request, Silva wrote investors. He cited a Jan. 26 motion before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in which a mix of stakeholders withdrew a petition for the court to order the FCC to move forward on special access pricing reform. The motion said the parties based their withdrawal “on recent discussions with the FCC regarding its intention and plans to move forward with and complete the special access services rulemaking.” A special access “inflection point” could come in late Q2 or early Q3 when the FCC could act on AT&T petitions for pricing flexibility in relief in the San Antonio and San Francisco/Oakland markets, the analyst wrote. The stakes could be especially high for AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink, which could lose revenue from businesses that purchase dedicated access lines from major landline companies, the report said.
Free Press weighed in to support a broad 700 MHz interoperability mandate taking in more than just the lower part of that band, said an FCC filing (http://xrl.us/bmyfmo) reporting on a call between Policy Director Matt Wood and Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan. “While the Commission’s initial focus on interoperability in the Lower 700 MHz band is understandable, the forthcoming item should not foreclose consideration of interoperability across the full range of the Lower and Upper 700 MHz bands,” Free Press said. “Such requirements would promote competition in two important ways: enabling deployment by A Block licensees by improving access to competitive handsets; and facilitating customer movement between carriers with compatible equipment, not proprietary band class radios.” Because of “AT&T’s control over the device market, particularly in the lower 700 MHz spectrum band, and based on the record developed in the interoperability proceeding, the FCC must promptly issue an interoperability requirement,” the Rural Cellular Association said (http://xrl.us/bmyfkx) in a filing in docket RM-11592.