The FCC Wireline Bureau announced the proposed North American Numbering Plan Administration fund size estimate and contribution factor for the upcoming fiscal year (http://bit.ly/1315Cvb). The proposed funding requirement is $6.44 million, with a contribution factor of 0.0000302. The funding will consist of a U.S. contribution of $5.86 million, a Canadian contribution of $106,000, a Caribbean contribution of $22,000 and a surplus carryover of $454,000 from the prior fiscal year, the FCC said. The fund size estimate and contribution factor will be automatically approved if the commission takes no action within 14 days.
CLECs cannot assess local end-office switching charges, and the FCC has already settled the issue, Verizon told Wireline Bureau officials Wednesday, an ex parte filing said. Verizon responded to arguments by Level 3 and others that they are entitled to assess the charges when they route over-the-top VoIP traffic over the public Internet (http://bit.ly/130ZT8v). Verizon also discussed a recent U.S. District Court decision that said CoreTel could not assess the charges “in precisely this scenario,” the telco said. “Companies like Level 3, YMax, and CoreTel do not perform end office switching when they route over-the-top VoIP calls over the public Internet for termination.” Unlike facilities-based VoIP providers, those companies do not actually connect subscriber lines and trunks, but “simply hand off voice packets” to ISPs, Verizon said. Permitting a CLEC to charge for functions it doesn’t provide “would be at odds” with the USF/intercarrier compensation order, Verizon said.
The FCC should require carriers to notify public safety answering points within 15-30 minutes of a detected outage, CEO Brian Fontes and others from the National Emergency Number Association said in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau officials. NENA reacted to proposed rules by the commission, saying a requirement of immediate notification should be further refined. “The requirement under the PSAP notification rule should substantially differ from that under the Commission’s general network outage reporting rules,” NENA said. It said that a single notice of an outage won’t suffice. “We recommended that the Commission consider requiring regular supplemental notices, no less than twice per day, to keep PSAPs up-to-date as carriers and other service providers gain further information about an outage,” the filing said. “We also noted that while telephone and email contacts should be mandatory, PSAPs, carriers, and service providers should be free to adopt other notification methods, provided that PSAPs have a legitimate private choice as to whether they will adopt any particular method offered by a carrier or service provider.” NENA also weighed in on when PSAPs and carriers should be responsible for the connection of 911 call centers to the larger carrier network. “Diversity of circuits connecting end office switches with selective routers, as well as those connecting selective routers with the main distribution frames (or their equivalents) of end offices serving PSAPs should be the responsibility of carriers or service providers while the diversity of circuits connecting the ‘outside’ faces of main distribution frames with PSAPs should be the responsibility of PSAPs and 911 authorities,” the filing said. The FCC had said 911 calling problems were widespread following the derecho that hit the Midwest and East Coast June 29 (CD July 20 p1).
Gilat will introduce an enhanced forward channel technology in the SkyEdge II-c very small aperture terminal for increased performance. The technology will provide an increase in the DVB-S2 bandwidth forward channel to 66 megasamples per second “and improve efficiency with a 1.1 roll-off factor and savings of up to 10 percent in satellite capacity,” Gilat said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/10Fj9pd). The platform “supports multi-forward carriers managed as a single pool, with automatic load balancing of terminals,” it said. The high-throughput carriers enable coverage of wide multi-spot beam transponders “with less forward channel carriers,” Gilat said. “This reduces gateway capital expenditures and increases utilization of space segment resources.”
The FCC should clarify that a 2012 order restricting Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) from being deployed in the portions of the 800 MHz band reserved for public safety applies to not just National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee band spectrum, but also channels allocated to public safety in the 809-816/854-862 MHz band, said representatives of Motorola Solutions, in a meeting with FCC officials. The FCC should also make clear that adjacent channel power limits in the order are “applicable to any compatible technology meeting the defined bandwidth and other requirements,” Motorola said (http://bit.ly/19jOV1q).
Former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the commission would consider a letter authored by 20 House lawmakers that urged the FCC not to relax the agency’s broadcast indecency rules, according to documents that were published on the FCC website Tuesday. “Your views are important and will be included in the record of the proceeding and considered as part of the Commission’s review,” Genachowski’s letters said. “After the Supreme Court’s decision last year in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., I instructed Commission staff to commence a review of the Commission’s broadcast indecency policies and enforcement to ensure they are fully consistent with vital First Amendment principles. In the interim, I directed the Commission’s Enforcement Bureau to focus its indecency enforcement resources on egregious cases and to reduce the backlog of pending broadcast indecency complaints,” Genachowski wrote. The letters were sent to 19 Republicans and one Democrat who asked Genachowski to “reject any and all proposals that would relax current policies to only target so called egregious offenses” (http://bit.ly/103l1q9). The lawmakers are: Reps. Randy Forbes, R-Va.; Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.; Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.; Trent Franks, R-Ariz.; Alan Nunnelee, R-Miss.; James Lankford, R-Okla.; John Fleming, R-La.; Frank Wolf, R-Va.; Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla.; Keith Rothfus, R-Pa.; Kerry Bentivolio, R-Mich.; Mike McIntyre, D-N.C.; Tim Walberg, R-Mich.; Jeff Miller, R-Fla.; Walter Jones, R-N.C.; Gregg Harper, R-Miss.; Doug Collins, R-Ga.; Steve Pearce, R-N.M.; Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; and Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo.
The wireless carrier Wi-Fi market will reach $4 billion by 2018, Mobile Experts said Tuesday in a report. That growth will come as carriers are expected to rapidly adopt 802.11ac technology, driving use of 5 GHz radios in handsets, Mobile Experts said. Carriers are also expected to quickly offload mobile data onto Wi-Fi, “creating a need for new controller architectures and network integration software for interoperability with mobile networks,” said Jacob Sharony, Mobile Experts senior analyst, in a news release. Wi-Fi is “much cheaper” than LTE per bit delivered, causing some carriers to invest in Wi-Fi to take advantage of rapid deployments at a “very low cost,” said Joe Madden, Mobile Experts principal analyst, in a news release. “We are tracking multiple projects that combine small cells and Wi-Fi, with interesting combinations in DAS networks and other variations as well” (http://bit.ly/18x4Esv).
Aha by Harman and DeliRadio partnered to deliver music of touring musicians to cars equipped with Aha radio. Listeners can tune into music from artists with upcoming performances on the DeliRadio Concert Network, which is made available to local venues for streaming from their websites. The partnership is the first integration of DeliRadio into the automotive environment, the companies said. Music on DeliRadio is tied to the calendars of local clubs and festivals and enables musicians, clubs and promoters to connect with local listeners and drive ticket sales in advance of events, DeliRadio said. Artists can join DeliRadio for free and they control which songs are available for streaming, DeliRadio said. Roxy Radio on L.A.’s Roxy Theatre website was playing music from Eve to Adam Tuesday, in advance of the band’s concert at the Roxy on June 11, and from reggae band Supervillains, scheduled to perform on June 16.
HomeGrid Forum and the HomePNA Alliance merged under the HomeGrid Forum banner to “create a single organization focused on promoting advanced wired home networking technologies,” the merged group said Tuesday. The combined organization will “promote the smooth transition of all current generation” wireline home networking technologies to G.hn, the “any wire” technology defined by ITU-T open international standards, it said. The merger “creates a larger, stronger organization” that is “committed to support the tens of millions” of HomePNA devices already deployed globally, with a “defined migration path” to G.hn, it said. The merger comes just as G.hn-based products are starting to ship, and creates an organization that will “guide those planning new networks based on G.hn as well as migrating from earlier network technologies” to G.hn, it said. But “there will also be continued support for the installed base” of more than 40 million certified HomePNA devices, “protecting the investment” of HomePNA equipment makers and their customers, it said. “The obvious future direction for all wireline home networking is to migrate” to G.hn, so “it made sense for us to merge” the groups now, HomePNA President Eran Gureshnik said in a news release. The merged HomeGrid Forum has more than 70 members, including 28 service providers and some of the largest original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers and retailers globally, it said. The merger is a “great step towards advancing and harmonizing these standards-based home networking technologies,” said Eric Puetz, director-industry standards at HomeGrid Forum member AT&T. Other members include Best Buy, Cisco and Intel.
President Barack Obama plans to discuss cybersecurity issues with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they meet in June, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday. Carney would not comment on a Washington Post report (http://wapo.st/ZaMji4), whichsaid China had hacked and acquired U.S. weapons designs, but told reporters during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One that he had seen the article and said “it is a key concern” of the administration. “It is an issue that we raise at every level in our meetings with our Chinese counterparts and I'm sure will be a topic of discussion when the president meets with President Xi in California in early June. It was certainly a topic of conversation when National Security Advisor [Tom] Donilon was having meetings in China, from which he is just returning now.” Claims that Chinese hackers “have somehow led to the erosion of our capabilities or technological edge are incorrect,” a Department of Defense spokesman said Tuesday in a statement. Defense has “full confidence” in its weapons systems and has added additional protections against hackers, he said.