Much of the current criticism of the Lifeline program is “uninformed and based on a lack of understanding of the program,” Telrite told the FCC in a letter Wednesday (http://bit.ly/Y6WfuN). Telrite’s customers are predominantly females and ethnic minorities, with an average age of 40, it said. Only 35 percent are employed, and of that group, only 39 percent have full-time jobs, it said. According to Telrite’s survey of over 1,000 of its subscribers, 70 percent use their Lifeline-supported phone service to pursue job opportunities; 94 percent use it to stay connected with family and friends; and 93 percent use it to contact schools, doctors and emergency services. “Lifeline-supported communications services, and pre-paid wireless services in particular, are critical for low-income Americans to seek and retain employment and keep in contact with family, schools, health care providers and emergency services,” Telrite said.
The May 4 Kentucky Derby prompted more focus on wireless coverage in Louisville, Ky., due to the large crowds exceeding 150,000, AT&T and Mobilitie said Thursday in separate press releases. Mobilitie is adding a distributed antenna system to the racetrack area, it said (http://yhoo.it/12KBip3). AT&T worked with Mobilitie on that system as well as offered six compact A/C radio telephone sites to the area and is providing two cell-on-wheels, the telco said (http://yhoo.it/ZnfChX).
Harris Corp. received a $19 million contract to overhaul the emergency communications system of Spotsylvania County, Va., it said Thursday (http://bit.ly/11UPrfy). The system will feature “seven new transmission sites and increases the communications capacity and extends coverage to more than 95 percent of the county,” the company said.
The NBC Affiliates Board supported TVB’s findings that live plus same day viewing data is moving closer to the national live plus three-day commercial (C3) currency rating standard. “With C3 data being unavailable in the local markets, it only makes sense to simplify the media-buying process by better relating local-TV audience data to the nationally accepted C3 ratings currency,” board Chairman Jordan Wertlieb said in a press release. Capturing live and delayed viewing “provides the most accurate metric for how television is viewed both locally and nationally,” he said.
Level 3 Communications had a net $78 million loss in Q1, an improvement on its $138 million net loss at the same time in 2012. The company said Thursday its total revenue for Q1 was $1.58 billion, a slight drop from the $1.59 billion in revenue it received during the same period in 2012. Level 3 was able to keep its revenue basically even because of rising revenue in its core network services business -- that business made $1.37 billion in revenue, up year-over-year from $1.35 billion in 2012. The company’s wholesale voice services and other revenue made $205 million in revenue for the quarter, down year-over-year from $236 million in 2012. Level 3 said it expects its core network services business to continue to grow at a stronger clip than it did in 2012 (http://bit.ly/13xodOL).
Time Warner Cable will offer expanded communications option for the city of Austin, it said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/15QAJNc), weeks after the municipality’s new partnership with Google Fiber was announced. The cable company plans the citywide TWC WiFi for Austinites, a hotspot service that will be free to those subscribed to Time Warner Cable’s broadband. AT&T also talked up tentative plans for a faster network in Austin following the Google Fiber announcement, which is expected to bring gigabit speeds to the Texas city in 2014 (CD April 10 p10). Google Fiber’s recent agreement with Olathe, Kan., included provisions for potentially offering Wi-Fi (CD March 21 p6).
Time Warner Cable Q1 sales rose 6.6 percent to $5.5 billion from the year-ago quarter, the company said Wednesday. Some of the results were worse than Wall Street expected, said analysts. “TWC reported a disappointing 1Q against a backdrop of low market expectations for both financial and subscriber results,” said Evercore Partners in an email to investors. Residential services revenue increased 4 percent to $4.6 billion, “driven by an increase in high speed data revenue” though the gain was “partially offset” by declines in video subscribers and a drop in the average revenue per voice subscriber, the company said in a news release (http://bit.ly/ZvxcRM). CEO Glenn Britt said it’s “executing on our revitalization plans to build a fundamentally stronger and more agile operation” in residential services. TWC’s business services revenue rose 25 percent to $537 million “primarily due to increases in high-speed data and voice subscribers and growth in cell tower backhaul revenue,” said TWC. “The company did generate financial results about in line with consensus expectations, but subscriber trends were lower than expected,” said Evercore.
Top wireless carrier and trade association officials Wednesday urged NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling to push forward on a proposal to clear the 1755-1780 MHz band for wireless broadband so it can be paired with the 2155-2180 MHz band for a spectrum auction. The leading technology around the world for commercial mobile broadband is Long Term Evolution (LTE), using standards defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project. “Carriers around the world have plans to deploy LTE consistent with 3GPP band plans,” said the letter, signed by CTIA, 4G Americas, Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile. “The 1755-1780 MHz band, when paired with the 2155-2180 MHz band, aligns closely with 3GPP Band Class 10. Pairing the 1755-1780 MHz band with the 2155-2180 MHz band would allow this spectrum to be auctioned and licensed by February 2015, as the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission recently noted.” Rather than focusing on the entire 1755-1850 MHz band, “at some point in the distant future we strongly urge that NTIA focus the effort on reallocation of the 1755-1780 MHz sub-band as soon as possible,” the letter said. The letter came as the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces held a hearing on spectrum issues. Wireless carriers remain focused on getting exclusive-use spectrum, where possible, instead of shared spectrum, CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe said at the hearing. He pressed in particular for the reallocation of the 1755-1780 MHz band for wireless broadband after it’s cleared of the Department of Defense and other incumbents. “What’s in there?” he asked. “What needs to be moved or what can be retuned? What can we help to upgrade?” Maj. Gen. Robert Wheeler, deputy chief information officer at DOD, countered key DOD operations are in the spectrum. Wheeler noted that the broader 1755-1850 MHz band contains many of the operations formerly in the 1710-1755 MHz band, which was previously auctioned by the FCC in the AWS-1 auction. To just make the 1755-1780 MHz band available, DOD would have to “redo all of the systems” in the broader band, he said. “We're looking at airborne platforms that go across the whole United States that actually span that whole band,” he said. “We actually have satellite control functions that are in the 1755-1780 area. Of those 100 systems most come across that whole area. That’s really the problem.” But Wheeler acknowledged that DOD has yet to do a specific study of the costs of clearing just the 1755-1780 MHz band. “That … is definitely something that we can do,” he said. Wheeler also stressed the importance of spectrum sharing. “We agree that sharing is a methodology for the future,” he said. Guttman-McCabe said carriers in the U.S. are falling behind their peers internationally in terms of the amount of spectrum they have available for broadband. “The United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Mexico, Canada, all of these countries have brought hundreds of megahertz of cleared spectrum to market in the last year,” he said. “They're all a fraction of our size, have a fraction of our usage.”
Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting agreed to buy 19 TV stations for $270 million, acquiring the privately held companies that own them. Nexstar said in a news release Wednesday it and Mission are buying Communications Corp. of America and White Knight Broadcasting, with stations in 10 markets. The two acquirers have bought other stations together in the past, and both have opposed a draft FCC Media Bureau order that would attribute some types of joint sales agreements among separately owned outlets within a market (CD Jan 18 p1). Nexstar said it’s buying 11 CCA stations “and will enter into services agreements with certain identified parties, including Mission, who are acquiring 8 of the stations."
The Parents Television Council asked its members to file indecency complaints with the FCC over a recent episode of the show American Dad that it says was extremely sexually graphic, the organization said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/11EulmS). Though the April 14 episode was entitled “The Missing Kink,” and centered on a married couple trying to enhance their sex life, Fox rated the program as appropriate for 14-year-old children, PTC said. The organization also faulted Fox for airing the episode too early in the evening, at 8:30 in the Central and Mountain timezones. “Such extremely graphic sexual content has no place on the publicly-owned airwaves at a time when millions of children are in the viewing audience,” said PTC President Tim Winter in the release. He also urged PTC members to file public comments urging the FCC to enforce the broadcast decency law. “Every Fox affiliate that aired this ‘American Dad’ episode should be held accountable for violating the law,” Winters said. “It’s time that the network affiliates live up to the terms of their broadcast licenses and serve the public interest, which includes their obligation to stay within the bounds of decency before 10:00 p.m.” Fox did not comment.