The Outdoor Channel said it renewed a multi-year carriage agreement with AT&T’s U-verse covering the SD and HD feeds of its network in all U-verse markets. The channel is available on U-verse’s sports pack and U450 tiers. Terms weren’t disclosed.
The European Commission’s antitrust division has requested information from five major telecom operators and the GSM Association relating to the manner in which standardization for future services in mobile communications is taking place, a spokeswoman for the Competition Directorate General said Wednesday. The companies involved are Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Telecom Italia, she said. The EC hasn’t opened formal competition proceedings and “these fact-finding steps do not mean that we have competition concerns at this stage, nor do they pre-judge the followup,” she told us. The EC’s concerns spring from a series of meetings that began last year in which the companies discussed issues such as mobile payments and the challenges posed by Google, Apple and other U.S. tech giants, the Financial Times reported. The GSMA confirmed that it recently received correspondence from the EC which it will respond to in due course, the FT said.
Two more Class A stations were ordered to “show cause” to the FCC why they shouldn’t be downgraded to regular low-power TV status, losing some interference protection, because they went off-air in recent years without permission. Media Bureau orders Wednesday went to WJJN Dothan, Ala. (http://xrl.us/bmx5r5), and WGSA Savannah, Ga. (http://xrl.us/bmx5r7).
Verizon and Comcast executives are scheduled to testify before the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee in a hearing next week on the Verizon/SpectrumCo deal. The committee announced witnesses Wednesday for the March 21 hearing, to start at 2 p.m. in Room 226, Dirksen Building. Scheduled witnesses are: Verizon General Counsel Randal Milch, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry, Free Press Policy Advisor Joel Kelsey and Columbia University Law School Professor Timothy Wu.
CompTel wants an extension of time to comment on CenturyLink’s petition for forbearance from various dominant carrier and inquiry requirements on enterprise broadband services, said a motion filed Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmx5kt). The April 5 and 20 dates for comments and reply comments won’t afford enough time to review CenturyLink data redacted from the public version of the petition but not yet released to interested parties, CompTel said. “The first week of the 30 day comment period has already elapsed and interested parties still do not have access to the highly confidential information,” it said, which prohibits it from providing “meaningful comments.” CompTel requested new and reply comment filing deadlines of 30 and 45 days after release of the highly confidential material under a protective order.
Cricket filed an amended petition at the FCC seeking designation as an eligible telecommunications carrier so it can offer Lifeline service in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The carrier said it filed its original petition in December 2009. “In light of the Commission’s recent release of a Report and Order amending the Lifeline rules, Cricket submits this amended petition to ensure consistency with the ETC application requirements that will take effect later this year,” the company said (http://xrl.us/bmx5hb).
The “clock has stopped” on the FCC’s 45-day review period of Sandwich Isle Communications’ petition for waiver of certain universal service support rules while the Wireline Bureau waits for more detailed financial information, bureau Chief Sharon Gillett said in a letter Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmx5gp). The Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order implemented a prioritized 45-day review process of waiver petitions filed by providers serving tribal lands and insular areas. The Hawaiian telco in December filed a petition for waiver of section 54.302 of the commission’s rules, implemented as part of the USF/intercarrier comp order, establishing a total limit on high-cost universal service support of $250 per line per month beginning July 1. The bureau stopped the clock to request additional details on capital leases, payments and payables to affiliates, plant-specific expense, network operations expense, non-regulated income, and employee compensation. The bureau also seeks an explanation of Sandwich Isle’s past and expected growth, to determine whether the telco’s expected additional expenses are “reasonable.” Third parties will have an opportunity to comment on the new details, Gillett said.
A Minnesota bill that bans municipal networks isn’t expected to go anywhere this year because it was introduced late, an industry official said. HF-2695 would ban cities and counties in the state from using tax revenue to build, acquire, own or operate broadband networks. Legislators are expected to work on the bill this summer and take it up again next session, which starts January 2013, the industry official said.
A Kentucky Senate panel approved a bill that would eliminate Public Service Commission jurisdiction over rates for basic local exchange phone service after 60 months. SB-135 also limits the PSC’s ability to investigate telecom issues on its own motion, and exempts utilities from state law relating to filing and displaying of schedules of rates and conditions of services. The bill also exempts utilities from state law relating to changes in rates and how they are made. The bill removes the PSC’s responsibility to develop cellphone standards and requires the use of FCC standards. The bill also limits the PSC’s authority in resolution of broadband complaints.
The intercarrier compensation order “plainly” capped at interstate levels the rate for traffic that originates or terminates in VoIP, representatives from Cablevision and Charter Communications told aides to each FCC commissioner Thursday, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmx2kw). Frontier and Windstream had petitioned the Wireline Bureau to clarify that the order only addressed termination fees for intrastate toll traffic that originates in TDM and terminates in VoIP, but did not touch origination fees (CD Feb 14 p13). Cablevision and Charter said it’s “essential” that TDM-to-VoIP traffic be treated identically to VoIP-to-TDM access. “This symmetric treatment was a crucial component of the Order, and allowing TDM-to-VoIP traffic to be assessed at rates higher than VoIP-to-TDM traffic makes no sense as a matter of policy,” the letter said. “Such an asymmetric rate structure would create yet another arbitrary intercarrier compensation distinction and would discourage TDM-based LECs from adopting IP equipment, as doing so would instantly lower the revenues they could collect.” Executives from the NCTA also met with FCC officials Thursday to discuss the issue. “Cable VoIP providers, either directly as competitive LECs or through affiliated or partner competitive LECs, have tariffed and assessed intrastate originating access rates and that they will lose millions of dollars in revenue annually as a result of the Commission in the CAF Order reducing those rates to the interstate access level,” NCTA’s ex parte letter said (http://xrl.us/bmx2kb). NCTA noted that the originating access rate reductions “resulted in no offsetting cost reductions, unlike reductions to terminating access rates, which were offset by corresponding reductions in payments to other LECs to terminate traffic."