The FCC preemptively rescheduled to March 14 the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council meeting, which had been scheduled for Wednesday, as a result of the winter storm bearing down on Washington. The new time is 1-5 p.m. EDT, in the FCC meeting room (http://bit.ly/166kwSB). The meeting is the last under CSRIC’s current charter, and 10 of its 11 working groups are slated to present reports for a council vote.
The Michigan Public Service Commission fielded 2,102 telecommunications complaints and inquiries and issued 227 telecom orders in 2012, it told the Michigan Legislature in its 2012 report this week (http://1.usa.gov/ZdIHI4). The PSC noted the number of complaints dropped slightly compared to the year before and attributed the change to customers’ migration “from landline telephones to wireless and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.” Top concerns from state residents include billing errors, repair problems, cellular phones, cramming, service complaints and local number porting, it said. The report described ongoing complaints from rural telcos about least-cost routing and service quality problems in completing long-distance calls. “The Commission’s work in the telecommunications area included approving nine licenses for new telephone companies and revoking licenses for 17 companies that were grossly deficient in the statutory and regulatory responsibilities of licensed basic local exchange service providers,” the report said. “The Commission also approved 58 carriers as eligible telecommunications carriers to apply for federal Universal Service funding.”
The California Public Utility Commission can opt out of the national Lifeline database, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in an order Monday (http://bit.ly/YLDlTH). The bureau conditioned the grant on the state’s deployment of a third-party identity verification service. The state’s system for detecting and eliminating duplicative support is “comprehensive and at least as robust as the processes adopted by the [federal] Commission,” the bureau said. The bureau said it was still “concerned” about prospective subscribers’ ability to “intentionally or inadvertently” provide incorrect information in their Lifeline applications, thereby getting double support. The risk is heightened in California because “unlike the other state administrators seeking opt out approval,” CPUC “does not utilize an eligibility database,” the bureau said. Nevertheless, that limitation does not keep the state’s system from being as “robust” as the national system, the bureau said.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission (WVPSC) supports USF waiver requests by four small rural telecom providers operating in the state, it told the FCC in comments posted Tuesday (http://bit.ly/YLClPn). Armstrong, Hardy Telecommunications and Spruce Knob Seneca Rocks Telephone had sought a waiver from the method the FCC uses to calculate the rate floor for USF support recipients. The companies asked that the end-user rate benchmark be applied to a weighted average of all their local service plan rates, rather than separately to each rate on a plan-by-plan basis. “Without using a weighted average,” the companies “must increase rates paid by consumers” of certain local service tiers “to avoid losing a portion of their USF support,” the WVPSC said. Elderly and low-income customers will be disproportionately affected if that happens, it said. NTCA and Frontier also supported the request (CD March 4 p7).
Border to Border Communications needs to provide more information for the FCC Wireline Bureau to decide whether to grant its requested waiver of some of the high-cost USF rules, Bureau Chief Julie Veach said in a letter to the company Monday (http://bit.ly/YLBoXp). Border had asked for a waiver of the $250 monthly line cap and the limit on reimbursable capital and operating expenses for high-cost loop support. The bureau asked for the names and salaries of workers at an engineering company Border contracts with; a description or “illustrative network diagram” of Border’s wireline and 700 MHz radio networks; and additional information about its financials. The bureau also asked Border to describe the applicability of the new Texas statute requiring the state public utility commission to “implement a mechanism to replace the reasonably projected change in revenue” caused by FCC rules.
Tarrant County, Texas, officials told the FCC any requirement that public safety answering points must receive 911 text messages will be costly to local governments. “The volume associated with text to 911 service will likely double or triple the volume of calls to local PSAPs and thus require additional personnel to deal with the increased demand,” the county said in a letter to the commission (http://bit.ly/1666vV3) detailing concerns raised in a recent meeting with Public Safety Bureau officials. “How [will] this be funded?” the county asks. Tarrant County also warns that there is a “misconception among our citizens” that they can already send emergency texts to 911. “The general public is typically not aware of the limitations on texting for emergencies and does not recognize the enormous complexity of deploying this service in an emergency dispatch center,” the letter said. The county notes that texts will add a new layer of complexity. “The success of today’s 911 service can be largely attributed to the simplicity of operation between the caller using the 911 system and the PSAP receiving the call. Call 911 -- someone answers the phone, and a responding resource is sent based on information received. The Text to 911 concept adds multiple complicating factors for emergency call center personnel for which no funding solutions or national guidelines currently exist.” The county includes the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology said it will start on Monday a 45-day public trial of Key Bridge Global’s proposed TV band database system for use by those who want to access the Internet using TV white spaces. “OET has examined the Key Bridge database system’s channel availability calculator and registration facilities and finds that these capabilities are ready for trial testing by the public,” OET said (http://bit.ly/XKNF1d).
The U.K. Office of Communications published a broadband scorecard showing how Britain is doing against Spain, France, Germany and Italy. The government wants the U.K. to have the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015, with all premises experiencing download speeds of at least 2 Mbps by then, and 90 percent of premises having access to superfast broadband, the regulator said. The benchmark (http://xrl.us/bomgak) measures coverage, takeup and usage, speed, price and choice. Ofcom decided to focus only on the five countries with major European economies because of the wide differences among the 27 EU members’ broadband networks in factors such as geography, population size and density, and legacy infrastructure, it said.
Inmarsat and Intelsat agreed that privatization of their companies helped promote a competitive market for satellite services. The companies submitted comments in docket 13-13, which addresses the impact of privatization. The proceeding will inform the FCC’s report to Congress under the Open-Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (ORBIT) Act. Comments were due Monday. To remain competitive in the current mobile satellite service market, “Inmarsat’s I-4 fleet is continuing to adapt to support IP-based communications,” it said in its comments (http://bit.ly/WsKsGu). Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) “provides voice and broadband service at speeds of almost half a megabit per second,” it said: End users “continue to deploy BGAN in new and innovative ways.” Inmarsat has a formal agreement with the ITU “to enable the United Nations agency to help countries better prepare for and respond during disasters,” it said. For its forthcoming Ka-band satellite network, Global XPress, Inmarsat contracted with iDirect, Honeywell, Cobham/Sea Tel and other companies to provide and develop services and equipment for the network, it said. Inmarsat continues to introduce new services over the L band, including the IsatPhone Pro handheld and Low Data Rate services, it added. Privatization “generated a positive impact on the intensely competitive marketplace for communications services,” Intelsat said in its comments (http://bit.ly/WsMiHe). The company’s competitors are using diverse satellite and terrestrial-based technologies, including fiber optic cable, broadband-enabled IP applications, and terrestrial wireless platforms, “to meet the needs of a broad market for communications network services,” it said. Intelsat also said it completed a $3.75 billion capital expenditure satellite investment program over the five-year period from 2008 to 2012. “These findings clearly show that Intelsat has no continuing market advantage from the IGO [intergovernmental organization] status of its Intelsat predecessor and reinforces the conclusion that the goals of the ORBIT Act have been fully achieved."
Free Press cautioned against using a forthcoming study from the Minority Media & Telecom Council on media cross-ownership to help inform rule changes affecting women and minority owners. The FCC delayed the media ownership proceeding to give MMTC time to do the study (CD Feb 27 p1). MMTC commissioned BIA Kelsey to do the study. Free Press also said a study endorsed by the broadcast and newspaper lobbies, and carried out by an analyst who has expressed support for weakening such rules, “cannot be substituted for independent research and agency action,” Free Press said in an ex parte filing in docket 07-294 (http://bit.ly/Vw5T7Z). “Due to our understanding of this qualitative study’s methodology, we have serious concerns about its ability to provide the sort of analysis required of the commission by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the Prometheus II decision.” The filing recounted a phone conversation with Matt Wood, Free Press policy director, and David Grimaldi, media aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.