The Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council (AFTRCC) “strongly supports” an FCC proposal to allocate spectrum for Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry in the 5091-5150 MHz band, the group said in comments filed at the FCC. “The 5091-5150 MHz allocation proposal is in response to U.S. recognition that the extraordinary growth in telemetry data rates places serious constraints on existing allocations for flight test telemetry,” AFTRCC said (http://bit.ly/YzLVVC). “The strained capacity of the existing bands adversely affects aviation development and, if the situation were left untreated, the productivity and global competitiveness of U.S. aerospace manufacturers could be undermined.” AFTRCC also supported the deletion of the non-federal Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry allocation at 2310-2320 MHz, as also proposed by the commission. “It is of limited utility due to its secondary status which precludes its use for safety-related applications,” the group said. “Given that and the impending development of LTE systems in that band, AFTRCC would urge that the allocation be removed. However, recognizing that there are a few (three) licensees which still hold authorizations for this spectrum, AFTRCC would urge that a reasonable period of time be allowed for a phase-out of the allocation, either five years or the end of each respective licensee’s current license, whichever is longer.” Boeing supported AFTRCC’s comments, with an additional caveat. “Because of the sensitivity of flight test receive equipment, and the critical nature of flight test communications, Boeing would urge the FAA to coordinate any implementation of WiMax at airports with operators of flight test receivers that could suffer harmful interference from co-channel operations in the 5091-5150 MHz band,” Boeing said (http://bit.ly/YEzpYZ).
The FCC must continue to monitor interconnection during and after the IP transition, T-Mobile said in reply comments filed at the FCC on a Wireline Bureau notice refreshing the record on the commission’s copper retirement rules (CD Feb 27 p4). “An overwhelming majority of parties, including all commenters representing the wireless industry, CLECs, state utilities regulators, public interest groups, and large users of IP services, as well as most cable commenters, agree that the IP transition will be hindered unless all providers of IP services are able to interconnect with one another on reasonable terms and that Commission oversight is necessary to ensure this,” T-Mobile said (http://bit.ly/WrgcXb). A trial or testbed as proposed by AT&T “may be a useful vehicle to test regulatory provisions that will be helpful to the IP transition” but only if it is “competitively neutral,” the carrier said. PCIA called on the FCC to modernize its rules. “PCIA agrees with the majority of commenters that the IP transition can be hastened if the Commission modernizes the regulatory environment for voice services in light of new technologies and market realities,” the group said (http://bit.ly/Yzzb3u). But PCIA said the commission should reject proposals to provide rural local exchange carriers with additional universal service support to facilitate their transition to an IP world. “Through 2017, these carriers will receive approximately $2 billion per year in high-cost universal service support,” PCIA said. “This existing support, coupled with the fact that these carriers are already investing in IP-based services and the market reality that consumers are increasingly relying on wireless and broadband services to meet their needs, begs the question as to why rural carriers now require additional support to do what they are already doing for fewer customers."
FCC Managing Director David Robbins it slated to brief FCC staff Thursday afternoon on the overall effects of a sequester, if sequestration takes effect as many expect on Friday. The FCC is paid for through industry fees but still faces the same cuts as other federal agencies, FCC officials said Tuesday. Part of what the FCC does, like auctions which will raise revenue, is not subject to cuts. Hogan Lovells lawyer Trey Hanbury estimated on a blog last year that sequestration will force the FCC to cut its annual $340 million budget by about $28 million, or about 8.2 percent, over a one year period (http://bit.ly/XZmuj7). Hanbury noted Tuesday that the cuts will be about $14 million initially, since the government is entering the second half of its fiscal year. The agency is likely to cut discretionary expenses like travel and equipment purchases first, followed by recurring costs like office space, but ultimately will have to cut contractors and full-time employees through furloughs, since salaries make up about $245 million of the agency’s total budget, he said.
Public broadcasting stations are challenged by the need to become more local, inclusive and interactive, said FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. They're moving “to evolve content that appeals to a younger demographic more accustomed to digital media,” he said at the Association of Public Television Stations Public Media Summit in Virginia. They are also challenged by even more responsibility “for providing the journalism our democracy needs, in light of the financial stresses hitting many newspapers,” he said. Meeting these needs costs money “at a time when federal funding is flat and uncertain, and other funding sources are stressed by the long recession.” Participating in the broadcast spectrum incentive auction offers a one-time opportunity “to address the inefficiencies of overlapping coverage and duplication of programming in markets that have grown up over time to have multiple PBS stations,” he said. If public broadcasting stations seize that opportunity and are willing to make some hard decisions, “they can prove to Congress and the public that they are capable of rationalizing their operations, so that neither government nor private dollars will be wasted on inefficiency,” he said.
Cablevision and AMC Networks continue to negotiate dividing up the $700 million the companies received in settlement of a breach-of-contract suit with Dish Network, AMC executives told analysts in a conference call. The fall settlement called for Dish to pay Cablevision and AMC $700 million, including $80 million for multichannel video distribution and data revenue (MVDDS) spectrum licenses. The pact ended a long-running breach-of-contract suit for far less than the $2.5 billion that had been sought for Dish’s dropping Voom HD in 2008, ending a 15-year distribution agreement signed three years earlier. While analysts have speculated that Cablevision would receive $390 million and AMC would get $310 million, AMC CEO Josh Sapan declined to disclose details, including when a final agreement might be reached. AMC spent $11 million on Dish-related litigation in 2012, up from $5 million a year earlier, Sapan said. The pact with Dish was reached in October as AMC settled a carriage dispute with the satellite service operator, which had dropped its channels -- AMC, We, Independent Film Channel (IFC) and Sundance -- in July. The dispute with Dish cut into AMC’s Q4 revenue, which rose 8 percent to $367 million. AMC’s Q4 sales would have been up “healthy double digits” had its networks not been dropped by Dish, Sapan said. AMC’s adjusted operating cash flow rose 5.4 percent in Q4 to $465 million, but would have jumped 14 percent to $505 million had there been a carriage agreement with Dish, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said. AMC’s Q4 net income dropped to $15 million from $29 million a year earlier, tied largely to the cost of repaying a loan. AMC reached carriage agreements last year with AT&T, Comcast, Suddenlink, Verizon FiOS and a short-term pact with Time Warner Cable, analysts said. The Time Warner Cable agreement expired at year-end. Meanwhile, AMC is developing a direct-to-consumer streaming video service and will “have more to say on this initiative in the coming weeks,” an AMC spokeswoman said. Netflix has been AMC’s “primary” partner for video streaming, she said. AMC’s Mad Men starts a new season on April 7, while Hell on Wheels is expected to start a third season in Q3, analysts said. A third season of The Killing started production Feb. 25 in Vancouver, Canada, as part of an agreement with Fox Television.
More than half of Montana Lifeline customers lost Lifeline support during recertification, the Montana Public Service Commission said Monday (http://1.usa.gov/YypLmD). Eighteen companies offer Lifeline service in the state and attempted to contact customers as part of the FCC’s Lifeline reform process. But 6,821 people didn’t respond and were automatically de-enrolled, the PSC said. The companies had heard back from 6,363 but “only 37 were determined to be no longer eligible for Lifeline,” it said. “Since December, the PSC has received numerous calls from customers who were unaware they needed to recertify,” the commission said. “PSC staffers working in the Consumer Assistance program have helped Montanans through the process of seeking to reinstate the discount.” The PSC asked state residents to check their phone bill to see if they lost the discount and advised them of appropriate steps to take.
AMC Networks Q4 sales increased 14 percent from a year earlier to $1.35 billion, the company said. Ad sales increases at its U.S. pay-TV networks, as well as higher distribution fees, helped results and offset lower international revenue, the company said. Profit fell about 48 percent to $15.2 million on higher interest expense and a loss on the extinguishment of some debt.
E.W. Scripps Co.’s TV station Q4 sales rose 44 percent from the year-ago period to $152 million, the company said. The increase was primarily due to higher political ad sales and the fact that it acquired some stations in 2012, it said. Retransmission consent revenue more than doubled to $7.9 million. Digital ad sales gained 59 percent to $4.4 million. Quarterly profit was $65.3 million, up from $23.2 million.
Cities and counties fear the possible effects of sequestration on the tax exempt status of municipal bonds and infrastructure investments, said the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties in a joint media advisory (http://bit.ly/X98xR7). “Mayors, county and local leaders of all three non-partisan organizations believe that a proposal to limit the tax exemption on municipal bonds is misguided and would increase the costs of borrowing for local governments, prevent many infrastructure projects,” the groups said. These projects have included telecom networks and investment in some communities. Officials will gather at the National Press Club in Washington Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. to brief reporters and Hill staffers on the issues.
Suddenlink opposed a request by Gray TV to delete West Virginia stations WOWK-TV Huntington and WVAH-TV Charleston from the significantly viewed station list in Parkersburg (http://bit.ly/WegPIZ). “There is no basis for the Commission to grant the requested waiver because it would not actually have the intended impact on Parkersburg customers,” Suddenlink said. The stations’ noise-limited contours overlap Parkersburg, so even if the stations were deleted from the significantly-viewed list, Gray would be unable to require them to be blacked out on the local cable systems, Suddenlink said. Gray submitted inadequate ratings data to justify removing the stations from the significantly-viewed list, Suddenlink said.