The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on whether to fund Rural Health Care Pilot Program participants who will exhaust money allocated to them before or during the funding year ending June 30, 2013, said a public notice released Monday (http://xrl.us/bmwcdn). The interim funding would “provide time to establish a process to transition” to the permanent Rural Health Care support mechanism, the notice said. The RHC program ensures that providers pay no more than their urban counterparts for telecom needs in the provision of healthcare services, the bureau said. The bureau also seeks comment on whether to maintain the existing level of pilot program support for eligible participants’ recurring costs. Comments are due April 18, replies May 3.
AT&T is still exploring options in response to Public Knowledge complaints about a proposed AT&T service that would let content providers and app developers pay for the mobile data their customers use (CD Feb 28 p17), a company spokesman said. “We haven’t landed on any new business models for supporting consumers’ use of data-intensive applications, but we're always thinking about how we can innovate and collaborate with others to provide the best mobile experience for our customers."
Ignoring calls by Vodafone for a moratorium on mobile roaming regulation, the European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee on Tuesday backed European Commission-proposed rules intended to cap data roaming charges, cut costs for calls and texts, and let consumers buy cross-border roaming services from suppliers outside their home countries. The legislative report, authored by Angelika Niebler of Germany and the European People’s Party, sets lower retail price caps than the EC, aiming for a rate of euro 0.15 ($0.20) per minute for outgoing voice calls; euro 0.05 per minute for incoming voice calls; euro 0.05 per text message; and euro 0.20 per megabyte for data roaming, starting in July 2014. The report recommends requiring mobile operators to offer roaming services separate from domestic contracts beginning in March 2014. Home providers will have to notify customers of that right and switching to an alternative provider must be free. Domestic mobile operators will have to allow customers to access mobile local data services temporarily while abroad, akin to using a Wi-Fi hotspot, without having to unsubscribe from their existing data roaming contract or arrangement and while keeping their mobile number, the report said. Independent mobile virtual network operators complained earlier this month that the low ceilings proposed by lawmakers will squeeze them out of the mobile roaming market (CD Feb 9 p15). The new rules could see plenary action in April, the committee said. Tuesday’s vote was “another stepping stone towards better protection against excessive roaming charges in the EU,” said European Consumers’ Organization Director General Monique Goyens. “But we haven’t crossed the finish line yet.” While roaming calls and SMS costs are being driven down, “we should not see a lava lamp effect” where prices are hiked elsewhere, such as for data or national calls, she said. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes meanwhile slammed Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao for saying, at the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday, that there should be a regulatory moratorium on roaming ceilings. Colao warned that unless the EU stops imposing prices cuts, mobile companies will slash investment in networks, The Guardian reported. Moves to regulate roaming charges are creating a “heaven or a hell scenario,” Colao was quoted as saying. The hell scenario is operators losing hundreds of millions in revenue to mobile termination rates and reducing their spending on networks, jettisoning jobs in the telecom, media, entertainment and applications-development sectors, he said. “Message to Vittorio and Vodafone: I call your bluff, and indeed do not respond well to threats,” Kroes said. The EC is on the side of Vodafone’s customers, she said, reminding the company that it’s also trying to get the mobile industry more spectrum and a bigger market.
The FCC Media Bureau denied a request from Navajo Technical College to downgrade FM service to the area on which the bureau’s grant of NTC’s original construction permit request was premised. The bureau granted NTC’s permit for a new non-commercial educational station in Crownpoint, N.M., in 2008, “requiring construction substantially as proposed with no downgrade to ’the area,'” the bureau said in a letter to NTC. NTC contends that even as modified, its station would reach out to remote residents, “including many below the poverty line,” and provide educational benefits, the bureau said. It said NTC didn’t show the loss of the original site “was beyond its control or that the technical problems of constructing and operating a radio transmission facility at the site were unforeseeable."
Public Knowledge raised a red flag Monday following news that AT&T will start a service that would allow content providers and app developers to pay for the mobile data its customers use. The report in the Wall Street Journal Monday shows why the FCC needs to investigate AT&T’s wireless and wireline data caps, said Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld. “This new plan is unfortunate because it shows how fraudulent the AT&T data cap is, and calls into question the whole rationale of the data caps,” he said. “Apparently it has nothing to do with network management. It’s a tool to get more revenue from developers and customers.” The plan effectively divides customers and app developers into two camps, he said: There are “those who pay AT&T extra for the privilege of being exempt from the cap and those who don’t.” AT&T didn’t comment by our deadline.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn’t quite wedded to Sen. John McCain’s alternative cybersecurity approach, despite reports that they plan to endorse the GOP’s forthcoming legislation. The Chamber’s Senior Director of National Security and Emergency Preparedness, Matthew Eggers, said the group “generally agrees” with McCain’s alternative approach, but the Chamber is “looking at a number of options for formally stating our organization’s views to lawmakers and staff. The letter obtained by Politico reflects this ongoing effort. We anticipate supporting this nonregulatory approach to crafting cyber policy.” McCain said he will introduce an alternative bill to S-2105, the Senate Cybersecurity Act, during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing after the Presidents Day recess this month. The forthcoming bill differs from S-2015 by fostering a “cooperative relationship with the entire private sector through information sharing, rather than an adversarial one with prescriptive regulations,” he said. Specifically the bill aims to better defend the nation from cyber attacks by “improving information sharing among the private sector and government; updating our criminal code to reflect the threat cybercriminals pose; reforming the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA); and focusing federal investments in cybersecurity,” he said. Politico reported Monday that the Chamber said McCain’s approach “'identified a smart and practical vision for tackling the cybersecurity issue’ by not trying to fight cyberthreats with new regulations on the private sector,” in a draft letter circulated to some of its members.
Icap Patent Brokerage said Maggio Media Research will auction a patent portfolio of intellectual property about delivering privacy-compliant TV viewing data from cable set-top boxes. The eight patents and 119 claims cover collecting and merging independent data sets to derive second-by-second census level ratings for TV programming, Icap said.
Sprint Nextel may refund about $74 million to LightSquared of the $310 million LightSquared has paid Sprint as part of a network sharing arrangement, the wireless carrier said Monday in an SEC filing (http://xrl.us/bmv9mu). Sprint can terminate the deal between the two companies March 15, unless LightSquared receives approval from its lender to change the arrangement and defer Sprint’s ability to terminate the deal to June 25, the filing said. The companies agreed in December “that approximately $236 million of the total $310 million of advanced payments made by LightSquared” is “irrevocably and unconditionally paid and will not be subject to dispute or claim by LightSquared,” the filing said. Sprint said it also “maintains a second lien on certain of LightSquared’s assets, including spectrum assets.” LightSquared seems to have given up a chunk the money it has paid Sprint when it renegotiated the agreement in December, Tim Farrar, a mobile satellite service consultant, said in a blog post (http://xrl.us/bmv9so). “LightSquared definitively agreed to forfeit $236M of its advance payments to Sprint if they were unable to move forward which the agreement, which seems a huge sum of money when it appears Sprint had done basically nothing in terms of deployment apart from some initial network planning."
Spectrum legislation signed by President Barack Obama last week provides the opportunity to find more spectrum for wireless broadband services, while preserving a healthy broadcast industry, said FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. The bureau is excited about the legislation, he said Monday at an Association of Public Television event in Virginia. It “nails down some things about incentive auctions” but “it leaves a lot of work to be done in the implementation.” Stations may participate by relinquishing a 6 MHz license, contributing a portion of its spectrum to be shared with another, or by exchanging a UHF channel for a VHF channel, he said. “Each option is voluntary.” For the bureau, the next 18 months will involve catching up on rulemakings on “procedures for formulating and submitting the reserve price of stations that wish to participate.” Rules must guarantee that spectrum offers will remain confidential “until the offer is accepted in auction,” he said. The bureau also must “put meat on the bones of the repacking process that will be following the auction.” The bureau supports the provision to preserve the coverage area and populations served by TV licensees that don’t participate, he added. For wireless services, “we need to establish build-out requirements for new licensees and service rules for those who inspect them in the auction.” Channel sharing might be an appropriate option for public broadcasters, he said.
LightSquared should get another 10 calendar days at most to file comments on the FCC’s proposal to pull the company’s terrestrial authorization, the Coalition to Save Our GPS said in a filing (http://xrl.us/bmv9kc). LightSquared recently asked the commission to extend the comment deadline to March 30 from March 1 (CD Feb 27 p9). The company has had a significant amount of time to address interference concerns and additional time for LightSquared to defend its business would be futile, said the coalition.