A Wisconsin bill (AB 473) that would have delayed for a year the restrictions on participation by the University of Wisconsin System in providing telecom services died as the state legislative session ended Friday. Under the state law, the UW System can’t use a third party organization, like WiscNet (Wisconsin’s Research and Education Network), to compete with private sector telecom providers. WiscNet has been staffed by UW System employees and has used UW System facilities. Specifically, the statute provides that as of July 2013, if WiscNet continues to be linked to UW System, WiscNet can’t serve other customers. If WiscNet separates from the UW System, it can compete freely. The UW System has battled with the industry over the $37 million high-speed broadband network it’s building across the state (CD Aug 31/11 p10).
Members of the team developing the FCC’s National Broadband Plan looked closely at a proposal to repack broadcast spectrum in the early stages while the plan was under construction but had to scuttle those efforts, said Blair Levin, who led the plan. Carlos Kirjner, a member of the team who is now at analyst at Sanford Bernstein, revealed in a recent research report that during a dinner as the plan was being developed a high-tech executive sketched out a plan on a napkin showing how the FCC could repackage the broadcast band to take advantage of the fact that now that the transition to DTV is complete, “6 MHz had the capacity to carry up to 5 or 6 standard definition TV channels,” Kirjner wrote. Under the proposal, “broadcasters could continue to operate their primary channels offering standard definition TV service to the 10 percent or so of households that still use free over-the-air as their main source of TV, meeting whatever was left of the initial ‘public interest’ in full or in near-totality, while freeing up valuable spectrum to be allocated, most probably through auctions or other market-based mechanisms, to the most valuable (to the country) use.” Staff analyzed the proposal and found that it could have freed up 186 MHz. “This could have been revolutionary,” Kirjner wrote. “That much spectrum, in those bands, could simultaneously achieve many previously competing objectives.” The plan would have provided enough spectrum for AT&T and Verizon to grow their networks while getting competitors including T-Mobile, Leap and MetroPCS much of what they need, he said. “Fast forward two-and-a-half years and look at what we got. … We may get 60-80 MHz, if that, as the total amount will depend on broadcasters’ willingness to part with their licenses in a two-sided incentives auction yet to be designed and conducted, a process that we think will take at least 2 years.” Levin confirmed most of the details, though he laughed in pointing out the technologist used a placemat, not a napkin. “It was a very interesting plan -- slightly too complicated for a napkin -- and it would have had a very dramatic effect,” Levin told us. “Unfortunately, we were in the process of developing the plan when the leadership of the commission kind of publicly said things that essentially took it off the table.” Scuttling the proposal before it could become part of the discussions was “unfortunate,” even though it stood little chance of being adopted as sketched out on the placemat, Levin said. “It was a process mistake, it was a policy mistake and, frankly, a political mistake to take ideas like that off the table. But that’s what happened.” A recent study found that 15 percent of households still rely on over the air TV and the number is growing, NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said in response. “NAB is looking forward, not backward, as we work with the FCC to implement incentive auction legislation that recognizes broadcasting as an indispensable daily source of local news, entertainment, sports and lifesaving weather information,” he said. “Because of the cord-cutter and cord-never phenomenon, broadcasting’s relevance and importance will only grow.”
Originating access charges for all VoIP-public stitched telephone network traffic is subject to interstate, not intrastate, rates, the Voice on the Net Coalition said in a letter Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bmyeje). VON disagrees with Frontier and Windstream, who have argued that the order did not discuss the reduction of originating access rates, but rather focused on terminating charges. “While VON supports the six year glide path to bill and keep, allowing LECs [local exchange carriers] to charge intrastate access rates for toll calls that originate on the PSTN and terminate in IP format, will further complicate intercarrier relationships, perpetuating the disputes and litigation that the Commission aptly attempted to end when it adopted ICC [intercarrier compensation] reform,” wrote VON Executive Director Glenn Richards.
Qwest and All West Communications applied for assignment of four portions of Qwest’s Utah and Wyoming local exchange company service areas to All West, according to a Section 214 application released Thursday (http://xrl.us/bmyeif). The transfer constitutes a settlement by the two companies of an exchange boundary dispute regarding a then-unserved portion of a private development. The dispute was resolved via stipulation before the Utah Public Service Commission.
The Justice Department should be “vigilant in monitoring the anticompetitive use of standard essential patents” and consult with the International Trade Commission in investigations of alleged infringement, said top Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., sent a letter Thursday to Attorney General Eric Holder on the DOJ Antitrust Division’s decisions to allow Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and Apple, Microsoft and Research In Motion’s acquisitions of Nortel patents. “While we take no position on the merits of the acquisitions, we take seriously the concern raised by the Department about the potential for ‘inappropriate use of [standard essential patents] to disrupt competition … particularly as they relate to smartphones and computer tablets,'” Leahy and Kohl said. “We share the Department’s concern that patent holders may choose to seek an exclusionary order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) in a manner that would threaten competition, rather than simply dispute the reasonable terms of the license in court in a way that would allow continued use by competitors. The misuse of ITC exclusion orders to prevent rival technologies poses a significant threat to competition and innovation, especially where competitors have developed products based on a mutual commitment within a standard-setting organization to license standard essential patents on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.” Leahy and Kohl believe that ITC exclusion orders may have “anticompetitive effects” if “a patent is part of a standard and is encumbered by an agreement to license the patent on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms,” they said.
The House Oversight Committee gave the FCC an “A” in the committee’s report card on the “Federal Government’s Efforts to Track and Manage [Freedom of Information Act] Requests.” Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked “180 entities representing 100 government agencies” last year for information on the handling of FOIA requests, the report said. Agencies that responded with “logs that contained all necessary components” received an “A” on the report card (http://xrl.us/bmybvv). The Executive Office of Science and Technology Policy scored an “A+” for providing “information beyond what was required.” The Justice Department received a “D” for not including “three or more necessary components,” while the Commerce Department got an “F” for not producing “any logs,” the report card said.
The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved the motion of Commissioner James Cawley Thursday to reopen the record of its rural ILEC access charge investigation order (docket No. C-2009-2098380) to examine the “cross-effects” from the FCC’s Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order, the PUC said. The PUC will initiate a new proceeding no later than April 20 to examine the implementation of the FCC order, it said. The implementation of the FCC’s USF order triggers a series of compliance obligations, Cawley said. The FCC’s order also has material effects on major adjudication decisions by the PUC, and the PUC’s access charge order needs to be updated accordingly, he said. The PUC’s rural ILEC access charge investigation order had ruled that the intrastate switched access rates for rural incumbent LECs had to gradually move to their interstate equivalents. The rural ILECs would have been afforded “revenue neutral” recovery of “lost” intrastate carrier access charge revenues from retail local service rates through the use of a $23 monthly basic local residential service “benchmark.” That’s the residential local rate per month, and would not include various taxes.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed AT&T and Verizon Wireless a loss in a dispute with incumbent LECs in North Carolina over a ruling on interconnection agreements by the North Carolina Utilities Commission. The wireless carriers challenged the NCUC’s ruling that they, the terminating wireless carriers, bear the responsibility of paying transit charges for calls that originate on the wireline company’s networks, cross an intermediate network operated by AT&T, and terminate with the wireless carriers. The NCUC also concluded that the wireless carriers could seek reimbursement from the rural LECs for these transit charges through reciprocal compensation arrangements. The NCUC determined that the obligation to pay transit charges depends on the location of the physical point of interconnection between and designated a single point located with the RLECs’ networks. The 4th Circuit asked the FCC for guidance. “No prior FCC order has addressed whether the originating carrier or the terminating carrier is responsible for paying transit charges to an intermediate carrier under the facts presented here,” the commission said in a brief (http://xrl.us/bmybsw). “Nor has the FCC clearly opined on whether the Communications Act authorizes state commissions to suspend or modify the application of federal pricing requirements to small rural telephone companies.” A lower court in North Carolina granted summary judgment in favor the ILECs and the state commission. The Richmond, Va.,-based appeals court agreed, in a decision by Judge Andre Davis. “Because we ultimately agree with the arguments advanced by the RLECs and the NCUC, we affirm the judgment of the district court,” Davis wrote (http://xrl.us/bmybtt). The NCUC’s decision “is worthy of some deference,” he said. “Although we review legal issues of a federal nature, the NCUC has ‘expertise and experience in applying [tenets of] communications law,'” the court said. “The NCUC proceedings involved evidence and argument, and the parties prefiled testimony, participated in an evidentiary hearing, and briefed the arguments.”
As the big phone companies’ begin adding new video subscribers more slowly, they will also probably sign up fewer new broadband subscribers, factors that bode well for cable operators, UBS analyst John Hodulik wrote investors. “We believe the cable industry’s competitive position will continue to improve as video consumption habits change.” With market share losses to the telcos having reached their apparent peak, cable is increasingly well positioned to compete in the residential services market, he said. “Hegemony in the market for residential broadband will eventually lead to pricing power,” he said. “We believe this is already becoming evident given the strength we have seen in cable” average revenue per unit, he said. “Over time, both direct price increase and indirect price hikes through implementation of usage-based pricing will likely lead to revenue growth in this high-margin category."