The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities ordered Verizon New Jersey to make improvements to its services in western Cumberland County and to explain why its statewide customer complaints are increasing, a BPU order said. The telco has until April 12 to respond. An investigation to determine whether the telco is meeting performance standards is necessary due to the number of complaints and the severity and frequency of service outages and the duration of the service-related issues, the order said. Verizon was ordered to provide plans for any network upgrades and a timeline for making those upgrades in some municipalities. Verizon has taken significant steps to improve its wireline network in Greenwich Township in Cumberland County since the fall, a spokeswoman said. He said the number of service complaints has dropped by half since October. Verizon is working to ensure the trend continues and is considering technical options to expand broadband services in the area, he said.
Avaya will acquire visual communications software provider Radvision for $230 million. “We will seek to extend videoconferencing to any device, anytime, anywhere, making it as easy as a phone call, seizing the opportunity to deliver a fully-integrated solution and architecture that we believe sets us apart from the competition,” said Avaya President Kevin Kennedy.
A group seeking changes to retransmission consent rules wants new rules from the FCC now because “broadcasters pulled the plug on viewers in nearly forty markets in 2011 and 14 more already this year.” The commission should “do the right thing” by changing retrans rules, the American TV Alliance said Thursday of comments a day earlier by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that the number of blackouts had dwindled (CD March 15 p6).
The FCC found 109 applicants qualified to bid in an auction starting March 27 for 119 FM construction permits (CD Feb 13 p13), said a public notice released Thursday by the Media and Wireless bureaus (http://xrl.us/bmya3s). Qualified applicants for Auction 93 include Educational Media Foundation, which made an upfront payment of $151,500, Kacey Investments with $240,000 and Eastern Oklahoma State College with $20,000, an FCC list said (http://xrl.us/bmya34).
The FCC fined Gabriel Garcia $25,000 for not allowing inspections of unlicensed stations operating in various parts of the FM band in San Jose, Calif. (CD March 14/10 p11), said an Enforcement Bureau forfeiture order Thursday (http://xrl.us/bmya2p).
The cable industry should adopt a “strategic approach” to energy management and power availability to support anticipated growth in new services, said Mark Coblitz, Comcast senior vice president of strategic planning. Speaking at the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers’s Smart Energy Management Initiative forum in Philadelphia, he said comprehensive energy management strategies are needed to “ensure that the energy requirements of our broadband cable networks will be met in the face of rapidly growing demand.” He cited increased demands for Internet services and higher broadband speeds, as well as increased use of Internet Protocol unicast, HD, 3D and multiplatform video services, business service and such new offerings as security and home monitoring, as factors driving new powering needs for cable operators. Broadcast and cable networks face similar challenges as they seek to deliver new video products, he said. “Given the current course and speed, we are concerned that someday -- certainly not immediately, but foreseeably within the next five to ten years from now -- we will be faced with the reality that our ability to grow will be constrained by the quantity and timing of obtaining electrical power,” Coblitz said. “We cannot let that dependency occur.” Coblitz said cable increasingly is taking advantage of the efficiencies of network-based processing, which can enable reduced power use for consumers while increasing service flexibility for operators. He said power requirements should be a primary consideration in the design, purchase and configuration of equipment, and cited a need for a “fresh look at our power architecture” to ensure service availability. “We simply do not have control over the availability of the energy we will need to sustain our rapid future growth, but what we can control, working together, is how much power we require, and how we can require less than we otherwise would,” Coblitz said.
Representatives of Verizon Wireless and the cable operators that hope to sell it AWS spectrum discussed the carrier’s “need for additional spectrum to meet rapidly growing consumer demand for broadband wireless services,” in a meeting with Angela Giancarlo, chief of staff to FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. “They also discussed why the spectrum assignments would be at or below the spectrum screen in nearly all markets and why the assignments would cause no competitive harm in any market,” said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmyatm). “Finally they reiterated their position ... that the commercial agreements are not subject to Commission approval.” Various marketing agreements announced at the same time as the spectrum deals have proven equally if not more controversial (CD Feb 23 p1). Verizon is buying licenses from Cox and SpectrumCo, a joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
The FCC Wireless Bureau asked for “updated, year-end 2011 data and information on mobile wireless competition” as it prepares the 2012 version of the wireless competition report (http://xrl.us/bmyaot). “While recent Mobile Wireless Competition Reports have included calendar-year data for one year, as well as some partial-year or quarterly metrics for the following year, the Sixteenth Report will include calendar-year data for 2010 and 2011,” the bureau said. Comments are due April 13, replies April 30.
The FCC Wireless Bureau wrapped up a final programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) of the commission’s antenna structure registration (ASR) program, the bureau said. The bureau “intends in the near future to recommend to the Commission a further notice of proposed rulemaking in WT Docket Numbers 08-61 and 03-187 that will invite public comment on what actions the Commission should take to comply with [the National Environmental Policy Act] in light of the analysis in the final PEA,” the bureau said (http://xrl.us/bmyaqe). The FCC is examining its tower siting rules in response to a February 2008 remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (CD Feb 20/08 p2) in American Bird Conservancy v. FCC.
An Internet governance strategy to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law online won approval Thursday from the 47 members of the Council of Europe, the organization said. The strategy is a key priority of the U.K., which holds the current CoE chairmanship, it said. It calls for 40 different actions centered around Internet openness, user rights, data protection, cybercrime, democracy and culture, and children and young people. The plan’s aims include: (1) Develop a “framework of understanding and/or commitments” to protect Internet universality and openness as a way of safeguarding free speech. (2) Craft human rights-based standards to protect the cross-border flow of legal online content. (3) Develop human rights policy principles on network neutrality. (4) Update CoE data protection conventions. (5) Boost international cooperation against cybercrime and terrorist use of the Net. (6) Strengthen global coordination to protect children against child pornography and sex abuse materials. The actions will be put in place between now and 2015 in close cooperation with partners such as the EU and U.N., ISPs and other private sector players, and civil society, the CoE said.