Private equity firm GTCR’s Rural Broadband Investments agreed to buy NewWave Communications from Pamlico Capital. “This acquisition … is a great first step and provides us with an excellent platform to build upon,” said Phil Spencer, Rural Broadband Investments’ CEO. GTCR has been looking at “numerous opportunities in the cable industry,” said Phil Canfield, a managing director. “We look to build a leading cable platform through increasing high-speed data penetration, growth in commercial services and accretive acquisitions.” NewWave passes about 250,000 homes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Arkansas. It has about 90,000 subscribers. Rural Broadband Investments said it plans to continue buying small and mid-sized cable operators until it reaches 300,000-400,000 subscribers.
Briefs in an appeal of the FCC’s order allowing its viewability rules to expire were filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit this week. The FCC, NTCA and Time Warner Cable defended the agency’s decision to let the rule expire. The National Hispanic Media Coalition and a group of broadcasters sued over the order and that includes the NAB, Agape Church, London Broadcasting and Una Vez Mas filed final briefs opposing the FCC’s order. The broadcasters said the FCC’s order was in conflict with Congress’s intent that pay-TV operators distribute TV stations to all subscribers. The National Hispanic Media Coalition urged the court to reverse the FCC’s order on statutory grounds raised by the broadcasters. But it said the order also failed on procedural grounds because FCC didn’t provide a proper notice and comment period on the plan to let the rule expire and that its decision to do so was arbitrary and capricious. The FCC defended the order (http://bit.ly/12G5JcM). It said the commission reasonably concluded “there was no longer a threat to the viability of must-carry stations that justified the burden on cable-operator speech imposed by analog carriage.”. The agency interpreted the relevant section of the Communications Act reasonably, and its interpretation is consistent with “text, structure and purposes of that provision,” it said. “Statutory interpretations are not set in stone, otherwise agencies would be powerless to respond to rapid changes in technology.” The FCC said it provided reasonable notice of its plans. NCTA and Time Warner Cable said the agency was right to let the viewability rule expire. “There can be no serious dispute that on the record before the FCC, the Government may not compel cable operators to devote their limited capacity to carrying broadcast stations in two different formats,” they said in a joint brief.
Cost is becoming a more important factor for datacenter owners and operators, DatacenterDynamics Intelligence said Thursday. Cost has traditionally been “very much a secondary consideration to resilience,” but the industry has given cost greater weight since the global financial crisis, said the report by DCD, which calls itself a business-to-business information provider (http://bit.ly/XC0eJ2). Companies are considering consolidating existing datacenter facilities and alternatives to building new “owned” datacenters, and some are even considering reducing datacenter capacity, DCD Intelligence said. Tighter budgets are resulting in a move away from building highly resilient bulletproof “Tier 4” facilities, with “Tier 3” facilities being examined as “sufficient to save on the cost of building a Tier 4 facility,” the report said.
The FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau posted several presentations on disaster communications issues from a variety of individuals Thursday in docket 11-60. Topics include climate change and its potential impact on telecom (http://bit.ly/WLrwky), how to manage interoperability during disasters (http://bit.ly/VhlfOP) and lessons learned from the 9/11 terrorist attacks (http://bit.ly/WLsA7S), among others.
Twelve members of the Congressional Black Caucus urged the FCC to release the remaining Connect America Fund Phase I money. “We urge you to proceed promptly to finalize rules for CAF Phase I incremental support so that the $185 million unclaimed in 2012 and the original $300 million in support that is anticipated for 2013 can be invested quickly,” said a letter sent Wednesday by Reps. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., G.K. Butterfield., D-N.C., and ten others. The caucus members represent both rural and urban districts, so CAF funding is “not just a rural issue,” said a CenturyLink spokeswoman. In total, 20 senators and 44 representatives have sent letters asking the FCC to release the CAF funds, she said. As an ILEC, CenturyLink would be eligible for additional Phase I funding. CLECs have opposed efforts of large telcos to expand the program. The American Cable Association “combed through the Price Cap LEC comments searching for data providing sufficient support for their proposals to expand the areas eligible for Phase I incremental support or use of support for second-mile fiber and found none,” said ACA President Matthew Polka. “Their proposed wholesale expansion of eligible areas from 768/200 Mbps broadband service to those lacking 4/1 Mbps is not supported by the data."
The Florida Public Service Commission dismissed an older complaint and granted its default final judgment in order to close some long-inactive dockets. In 2010, AT&T had complained that LifeConnex Telecom wasn’t honoring the terms of its interconnection agreement, the Wednesday order said (http://xrl.us/bogy57). In late 2010, AT&T reached a memorandum of understanding with LifeConnex’s affiliate company American Dial Tone (ADT) “wherein AT&T agreed not to disconnect ADT’s service, in return for ADT placing approximately $197,000 into a segregated escrow account pending resolution,” which the company did, according to the PSC. But American Dial Tone ceased to exist over the last two years, LifeConnex has ceased doing business in the state and no major activity has taken place in the docket since 2011, it said, adding the PSC never received any responses to queries from anyone in late 2012. The PSC judged that AT&T is entitled to relief, all the money in the escrow account and that the allegations of the original complaint are correct.
The New York State Public Service Commission cleaned house of all the telecom companies that it judged inactive. Staff examined companies that hadn’t filed certain forms since 2009 or earlier, said a PSC Wednesday order. “These inactive companies were notified of their status, given adequate notice to comply, and did not respond to staff’s request for an updated form,” the order said. “Based on a thorough investigation, staff concludes that these companies are no longer doing business in New York State and, therefore, recommends that their Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCNs) and associated tariff(s) be cancelled.” Commissioners accepted the recommendation and removed 69 telecom companies from their consideration in regards to certificates and tariffs, it said.
President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order and the reintroduction of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (CD Feb 14 p1) continued to draw reactions Thursday. The American Public Power Association said utilities “share this goal” of protecting critical infrastructure from cyberattacks: The executive order is an “important step in maintaining the already-high level of mandatory cybersecurity standards that govern our industry while also opening the door to other venues of collaboration between the federal government and the electric utility sector.” What is “necessary” for utilities is “sharing and protection of information” with the government, it said. Stifel Nicolaus analysts said the telco and cable sectors have concerns about new language in the final executive order -- updated from a November draft -- exempting “consumer information technology services” such as software applications, on top of the draft’s exemption of IT devices and equipment from regulation. “The precise scope of the exclusion is unclear and may depend on how IT products and services are used, but broadband providers object to giving tech/edge players a free pass, even though their devices/equipment and applications are integral to the communications eco-system,” the analysts wrote investors Wednesday. It’s also “a little curious” that the order seems to tell the FCC, “an independent regulatory agency, what to do” in language instructing it to “exercise its authority and expertise” with other agencies to prioritize communications infrastructure, identify communications vulnerabilities and work with stakeholders to increase security and resilience, the report said. Telcos also may have concerns the instruction to the FCC “could entangle them in the bureaucratic fights” of other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the report said. Business Roundtable President John Engler said in testimony Thursday (http://xrl.us/bogyzp) to the House Intelligence Committee that the group supported the reintroduced CISPA, as it did last year’s bill. “From our perspective, the missing piece of effective cybersecurity is robust, two-way information sharing, with appropriate legal and privacy protections, between business and government,” he said: What exists today is “not supported by strong legal protections” for companies sharing and receiving cybersecurity information, and also lacks “formal guidance on antitrust laws” for sharing information within and across sectors. Plus, “there are not nearly enough security clearances” for employees at “large global enterprises” and “senior corporate managers can only speculate about which threats are greatest” without access to “timely and actionable threat information,” said Engler, a Republican and former governor of Michigan. Kevin Richards, TechAmerica senior vice president of federal government affairs, said the group continues to support CISPA because it “prioritizes information sharing, which is the linchpin to any successful cybersecurity strategy and offers critical liability protections.” Meanwhile, a national survey of 1,021 adults by cyber consulting firm Tenable Network Security last week found that 93 percent believe U.S. businesses are “at least somewhat vulnerable to state-sponsored” cyberattacks, and 95 percent of government agencies are “somewhat to very” vulnerable, Tenable said Thursday. Six in 10 support increasing government spending to train and equip “cyberwarriors,” with only one in 10 opposed, it said. Ninety-four percent said the president should have “the same level of authority” to react to cyberattacks as to “physical attacks” on the U.S. Americans are conflicted about who should take responsibility, with 66 percent saying corporations “should be held responsible for cyber breaches” and 62 percent saying government should protect business from cyberattacks, the survey found.
Life Wireless will offer low-income residents of Arizona cellphones, the company said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bogyxn). State regulators approved its entry, Life Wireless said. The company participates in the national Lifeline program.
The Commerce Department Office of Inspector General told NTIA that it’s begun its audit of the closeout process of the federal government’s more than 200 broadband stimulus grantees. NTIA awarded these three-year Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants in 2009 and 2010 and has already started closing some grants. The office sent NTIA officials the notification letter Feb. 7 and posted it Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/Ybg3qa). The goals of the audit include determining “whether adequate closeout policies and procedures have been established to effectively close out” the grantees and to “assess if closeout procedures are being followed,” the letter said. “Our fieldwork will be conducted at NTIA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., grant offices at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other locations as needed,” OIG said. “We plan to begin work immediately."