Row 44 joined the Satellite Industry Association, “further augmenting the association’s representation of the dynamic satellite-based in-flight entertainment and connectivity sector,” SIA said in a news release Wednesday. As a satellite-based service provider of in-flight broadband to about 500 commercial aircraft on four continents, “Row 44 will lend considerable experience to SIA’s active regulatory and spectrum activities that support the satellite sector’s ongoing innovation and investment in mobility capabilities,” said the association.
The real import of the Arlington v. FCC decision (CD May 21 p1) is not that the commission can set time limits for localities to act on tower siting applications, but that Chevron deference now applies to agency interpretation of ambiguous statutes, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May in a blog post Tuesday (http://bit.ly/ZcvOlI). May said he sides with the dissent, which said an agency can’t exercise interpretive authority until a court decides the agency has that authority. “Sensible regulatory reform measures” can check agency power resulting from Arlington, May said: Congress could enact legislation with process reforms, and revise the forbearance and periodic regulatory review requirements so the “evidentiary burden is shifted to the Commission to deny regulatory relief.” Congress could also amend the Communications Act’s provision giving the commission general rulemaking authority; add a sunset provision so rules expire automatically; or adopt legislation specifying that independent regulatory agencies aren’t entitled to Chevron deference, May said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski thanked Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, for their support of the commission’s efforts to reform the video relay service (VRS) program, according to documents published by the FCC Tuesday. The letters were written before Genachowski left the commission. “My goal in this comprehensive review of the rates structure, and practices of the VRS program is to sustain and improve the program, which for many years had been beset by fraud, abuse and waste where compensation rates had become inflated well above actual costs,” Genachowski wrote. “As the Commission continues its efforts to reform VRS, our intention is to ensure that this valuable service remains available for the consumers who benefit from it.” Genachowski’s response addressed a joint letter from the senators that urged the commission to “focus on preserving innovation, consumer choice and competition from VRS providers” in its review of the program.
CEA and NCTA plan a media briefing on multichannel video programming distributors’ progress on implementing the industry’s voluntary set-top box energy conservation agreement, announced last fall. The two trade associations said in a release that the briefing is meant to “highlight the significant progress underway which should discourage the U.S. Department of Energy from undertaking a rulemaking on these devices.” They said the voluntary agreement will lead to annual residential electricity savings of $150 million for more than 90 million U.S. households. The briefing will be Monday at NCTA offices, and conducted by NCTA General Counsel Neal Goldberg and CEA’s Vice President of Technology Policy Doug Johnson.
Louisiana completed the implementation of the Alert FM and GSSNet systems across the state to improve how the state delivers voice and text emergency notifications to the public, Alert FM said on its website. The governor’s office will use the Alert FM system “to send out its emergency alerts, as will emergency managers from all 64 parishes and 42 colleges and universities across the state,” it said (http://bit.ly/11vQ8B7). The system is available for free as an app for Apple and Android devices, it said. Alert FM and GSSNet “provide a complete end-to-end, satellite-based voice and text emergency notification system for the state,” Alert FM said.
FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman told three senators the commission is “carefully reviewing the technical and policy considerations” of a rulemaking to ensure interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band, according to documents made public Tuesday. The responses came in letters to Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Thad Cochran, R-Miss. The senators had previously urged the commission to finalize its decision on an NPRM on interoperability in the 700 MHz band, according to separate letters filed with the commission.
FCC Media Bureau Chief of Communications and Industry Information Michael Perko responded to a handful of letters from lawmakers who previously sought clarification on the rules that govern the broadcast announcements of non-commercial educational (NCE) stations. The responses were revealed in documents published by the FCC Tuesday. Perko said the commission’s rules governing commercial advertisements and enhanced underwriting are applied uniformly to all NCE broadcasters and are enforced on a case-by-case basis, according to the letters. “Commission staff cannot preview or provide advance approval of specific underwriting acknowledgments that a station intends to use. Doing so would raise serious First Amendment issues and also would place burdensome demands on limited staff resources,” Perko’s letters said. The responses were sent to Sens. Dan Coats, R-Ind., and Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.; and Reps. Andre Carson, D-Ind.; Doug Lamborn, R-Colo.; and Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla.
Vonage plans to port in 50,000 telephone numbers in the Atlanta LATA, 37,000 in eastern Massachusetts, and 33,000 in Phoenix, as part of its trial of having direct access to numbers. The specific figures were redacted in Vonage’s initial filing (CD May 21 p10). Vonage released these and other numbers publicly in response to opposition from Bandwidth.com, it said. Bandwidth had questioned the need for confidentiality given that the trials were intended to be public (http://bit.ly/ZcsyqD). “Shielding the information in question could fundamentally undermine the trial process, where only a few insiders would have access to baseline information about the contours of the trials,” Bandwidth said.
CenturyLink used an internal database of “continuing plant records” to give CostQuest plant mix data for its Connect America Model, the telco said in response to an FCC Wireline Bureau inquiry (http://bit.ly/1316f7V). The ILEC ranked its wire centers by line density, and computed an average for the plant categories within each density zone in each state, it said.
The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) said it formed the Open Software Defined Data Center Incubator to “address the need for Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) management standards.” The group will work to develop standard architectures and definitions to describe SDDC technology, DMTF said. As the technology emerges, “it’s important that we work together to develop a common understanding of this new architectural model and look for ways to provide customer interoperability through best practices and standards,” said DMTF Chairman Winston Bumpus in a news release. DMTF’s “incubation” process fosters and expedites “open, collaborative, exploratory technical work that complements DMTF’s mission to lead the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable management initiatives and standards,” DMTF said. The organization is also using its standards incubation process to foster development of standards in its Cloud Management Working Group and Software Entitlement Working Group (http://bit.ly/19jRGjb).