Hawaii’s dominant telco criticized the state’s top cable operator for tactics that it said hurt video competition, expressing concerns on the sale by that operator and three others of advanced wireless services licenses to Verizon Wireless. Time Warner Cable’s Oceanic unit uses “below cost pricing tactics” that “exclude nascent competition from Hawaiian Telcom in the video market in Hawaii,” that telco said. Hawaiian Telcom Communications Inc. told FCC officials reviewing the Verizon Wireless AWS deals it fears “Oceanic Time Warner Cable would be able to further entrench its uniquely high monopoly share of the video market in Hawaii through the proposed transactions,” said an ex parte filing. Hawaiian Telcom said it wants to keep “a level playing field for the sale of wireless backhaul to Verizon Wireless, especially in light of the increased need that Verizon Wireless will have for backhaul in light of its acquisition of spectrum if the license transfer is approved and in avoiding an extension of the exclusivity that Oceanic Time Warner Cable has in Hawaii over certain programming to Verizon Wireless.” A spokesman for the cable operator had no comment on Monday’s filing in docket 12-4 (http://xrl.us/bmxz5e). The telco recently began selling video in Hawaii, where Time Warner Cable has a regional sports network (CD Jan 9 p5).
Level 3 withdrew its petition for declaratory relief in its long-running dispute with HyperCube, said an FCC filing posted Monday to docket 96-262 (http://xrl.us/bmxzy2). In 2009, Level 3 sought a declaratory judgment that Hypercube illegally inserted itself into Level 3’s 800-line business and overcharged it $16 million over several years. At the time HyperCube argued Level 3 was trying to use the regulatory system to avoid paying its bills (CD May 15/09 p6). A Level 3 attorney declined to comment on whether the settlement was simply monetary, or whether there were injunctive provisions.
The Republic of South Sudan will use Vizada Networks to provide Internet and voice services domestically and internationally, the company said. It said the service will begin this month.
The FCC should reconsider its decision to use “collected” revenue when calculating “Price Cap Baseline Revenues” because it’s “operationally unworkable and fundamentally unfair,” representatives from Frontier, Windstream, FairPoint, CenturyLink, AT&T and Verizon told the Wireline Bureau Thursday, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmxzoh). They agreed with USTelecom’s December petition for reconsideration of the Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order. The petition said allocating collected revenue between originating and terminating access “would be difficult, if not impossible” (http://xrl.us/bmxzpz). A more suitable measure to calculate the price cap baseline is billed revenue, the companies said, because it’s commonly used in the industry for similar issues “including price cap tariff filings.” Such revenue is a “reasonable proxy” for calculating appropriate price cap baseline revenue “given the levels of phantom traffic and the reductions in billed access minutes and revenues due to arbitrage schemes that places what is properly access traffic on local trunks, avoiding access billings on that traffic,” they said. The companies also discussed the appropriate calculation of the residential rate ceiling contemplated in the order. “This approach is consistent with the Commission’s pricing rules, which generally recognize the practical necessity of implementing rules on a study area basis,” they said.
RTÉ will use capacity on Eutelsat’s Ka-Sat to provide broadcast services in Ireland, said Eutelsat.
Cox Georgia Telcom’s petition to redefine the service area of Windstream Georgia should be granted because the “potential for creamskimming” was removed with the FCC’s Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order, Cox representatives told the Wireline Bureau Thursday, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmxznv). Elimination of the identical support rule, and calculation of high cost support based on geographic areas other than a rural ILEC’s service area, render concern over creamskimming a moot point, Cox said. It discussed the need for modification of the current redefinition rules, suggesting the framework for consideration of service area redefinition petitions should be “modified to eliminate consideration of creamskimming issues.” Cox in July requested a redefinition of Windstream’s service area.
NAB said there’s a “false premise underlying recent letters” to the FCC “suggesting that online disclosures of the information in broadcast political files was needed to inform the public.” CEO Gordon Smith and other NAB executives met with Commissioner Robert McDowell to press the association’s case (CD March 12 p3) that Congress instructed the Federal Election Commission to be “the central repository of electoral information” and not the FCC, an ex parte filing said. “Broadcasters believe there will be potential anticompetitive effects if individual advertising rate information is available online where competitors in the market and commercial advertisers may anonymously glean the lowest unit rates charged by a station to its most favored commercial advertisers.” Monday’s filing is in docket 00-168 (http://xrl.us/bmxzhm).
Sinclair got the OK to buy eight full-power TV stations from Freedom Communications, and can keep a failing station waiver for one, letting the new owner operate outlets in excess of the FCC’s limit. WCWN and WRGB “are both located in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York” designated market area, said a Media Bureau letter released Tuesday. “As part of their waiver request, the applicants have demonstrated that WCWN continues to have a very low audience share and has not had an all-day audience share” that reached 4 percent in the last three years. The companies had three years of negative cash flow and station broker Moelis & Co. said none of the 58 prospective buyers wanted to acquire WCWN, said the letter signed by Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman (http://xrl.us/bmxzfw). Sinclair agreed to pay $385 million for Freedom’s stations (CD Nov 3 p6).
Representatives of i-wireless asked for prompt consideration of the company’s eligible telecom carrier application, in meetings with Chairman Julius Genachowski and other FCC officials. “I-wireless will be updating its application to reflect the new FCC [Lifeline] rules,” the company said in an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmxzce). “We explained the procedures that i-wireless is implementing to implement the rules and to protect against waste, fraud and abuse.”
The FCC should wrap up this year an order providing for interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band, representatives of Vulcan Wireless said in a series of meetings at the agency. Creating a single band class in the band would “provide the certainty necessary for Lower 700 MHz A Block licensees to meet their looming build-out deadlines as well as upcoming USF mobility fund deadlines, allowing them to compete for universal service and other broadband funds intended to spur mobile broadband development in rural areas,” Vulcan said (http://xrl.us/bmxy5d). An interoperability requirement would also “address the ’spectrum crunch’ by unleashing 12 MHz of valuable and immediately available spectrum for competitive wireless broadband service.” The commission is slated to vote on a 700 MHz interoperability rulemaking notice at its March 21 meeting.