Wireless cramming is an ongoing issue in California, according to data the California Public Utilities Commission gave the FCC on the wireless cramming complaints it’s received, an ex parte filing posted online Friday showed (http://bit.ly/V4sCqr). The CPUC has directly received a handful of complaints each month going back years, between one and 16 a month. Wireless carriers reported giving 161,708 refunds in September out of 1.665 million purchases. In that month, the total amount billed was $13.09 million, with $1.2 million refunded. Carriers have been providing this data on direct refunds to the state commission since 2011, the filing said.
Belo Corp. Q4 sales increased 14 percent from a year earlier to $205 million, the company said. Political ad sales of $32.4 million during the quarter helped results, as did higher retransmission consent, online ad and national ad sales, it said. Net income increased 15 percent to $35.1 million.
New York hospital executives should expect survey questions from government officials soon, the Healthcare Association of New York State said Friday (http://xrl.us/bofo4t). NTIA is gathering information about broadband availability in community anchor institutions, it said. New York partnered with the Center for Technology in Government to develop “a new online data collection strategy to expand outreach efforts for collecting data” from such institutions, and the state’s broadband program office runs the Connect NY Broadband Grant program, the association added.
Comments are due Feb. 28 on a petition for waiver of two high-cost universal service rules filed by several W. Va. rural telcos, a public notice said (http://bit.ly/YKwXyw). The telcos seek a waiver of Section 54.313(a)(10) of the FCC’s rules, which set forth rate comparability reporting requirements. They also seek a waiver of Section 54.318(i), which defines the method used to determine if an ILEC has met the rate floor requirements. Reply comments in WC docket 10-90 will be due March 7.
The FCC International Bureau accepted Sirius XM’s application to modify the authorization for its XM-5 Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service satellite at the 85.15 degrees west location. Sirius seeks to remove the license conditions that restrict its ability to activate the XM-5 communications payloads in the 2320-2345 MHz and 7025-7075 MHz bands, the bureau said in a public notice(http://bit.ly/WUkDwA). The bureau also accepted an application from Intelsat seeking a 180-day special temporary authority license to conduct operations to drift Intelsat 701 from 157 degrees east to 29.5 degrees west, it said.
Utah eligible telecom carriers and the Utah Public Service Commission will get a limited waiver of some of the rules and deadlines in the FCC’s Lifeline order, said an order adopted Friday by the Wireline Bureau (http://bit.ly/VJtePc). The Utah PSC said that, “despite good faith efforts,” it was unable to file its annual recertification report by the Jan. 31 deadline, the order said. The Utah PSC said it was unable to use the state eligibility verification database until late in 2012 “due to the legislature’s reorganization of the relevant state agencies,” the order said. As a result, the Utah PSC could not send recertification notices to certain subscribers until December, and Utah state rules require 60 days between notice and de-enrollment of a subscriber. The Utah PSC will get until Feb. 14 to file the recertification report, and wireline ETCs in Utah will have a reporting deadline of March 17, the order said. “The unique circumstances preventing timely Utah PSC access to an eligibility database provide good cause to grant this waiver,” the bureau said.
NAB attorneys and engineers expressed concerns about the interference analysis software the FCC plans to use to repack the TV band following the incentive spectrum auction, an ex parte notice shows (http://bit.ly/12zccdO). In a meeting with officials from the Office of Engineering and Technology, NAB said it had “serious reservations” with the a Public Notice released last week that contemplated changes to its previous software, called OET Bulletin No. 69. The changes would invite “unnecessary delay into the process and would cause widespread uncertainty for broadcasters who may be deciding whether to participate in the auction,” the ex parte notice said. The trade association has three central issues with the FCC’s plan to update the software. First, it said proposed changes to the software’s methodology appear to violate the act of congress that gave the FCC the authority to hold the incentive auction. That law referenced OET-69. Second, the proposed changes may need to be made at the commission level, not at OET, it said. “Given the high profile nature of the incentive auction ... it makes better sense to explore such changes, if at all, in the sunlight of the full commission.” And third, the NAB said it’s the wrong time to update OET-69. “It creates instability in the process that can only serve to undermine the auction,” it said. “NAB does not oppose an in-depth examination of improving coverage and interference prediction methodologies,” it said. “This proceeding is not an appropriate forum because, beyond speeding up the processing of the nationwide repack ... the package of changes contemplated are highly unlikely to yield any appreciable benefit” for any auction stakeholder, it said.
DirecTV cautioned the FCC against complications that could arise from a requirement to make televised emergency information on national cable channels accessible to the visually impaired. Although DirecTV has worked with national programmers on strategies to make emergency information more accessible, “the requirements currently under consideration would necessitate a significant investment of resources to develop an alternative approach,” the company said in a filing in docket 12-107 (http://bit.ly/XsOU3y). The proceeding is on FCC implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). If the emergency information accessibility requirements of the CVAA are deemed to apply to such national channels, the FCC “should allow distributors sufficient time ... to implement this mandate, and flexibility in developing a solution to do so,” DirecTV said. The DBS company also urged in DirecTV attorneys’ conversation with Media Bureau staff the commission to adopt a streamlined procedure for granting a waiver of any secondary audio carriage requirement in a particular market.
Correction: FCC Enforcement Bureau Associate Chief Christopher Killion told a NARUC audience that rural call completion is a “significant problem” (CD Feb 6 p14).
While the FCC doesn’t have a plan to offer free Wi-Fi nationwide, as The Washington Post suggested last week (http://xrl.us/bofos5), free Wi-Fi is a good idea, said Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project Friday. “There is certainly a strong case to be made that 21st-century public infrastructure should include a minimum level of broadband connectivity almost everywhere,” Calabrese wrote in Slate (http://xrl.us/bofosi). “By leveraging existing public assets -- both unlicensed spectrum and the spider web of federal, state, and local fiber optic backhaul that crisscrosses the nation -- it would be relatively inexpensive to blanket most areas with a basic level of wireless connectivity.” Calabrese said Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum are more accepted than ever, even by the major wireless carriers. “Five years ago, the most powerful opponents of unlicensed spectrum were AT&T and Verizon,” he wrote. “Today, AT&T operates more than 30,000 Wi-Fi hotspots -- and dozens of ‘hot zones’ in places like Times Square and Wrigley Field -- to relieve congestion that iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices create on its pricey and limited licensed spectrum. Verizon, meanwhile, has formed a partnership with a consortium of the largest cable companies, which have rapidly built out more than 50,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to promote ‘TV Everywhere’ for their wireline subscribers. As a result, the cable companies have recently become advocates for more unlicensed spectrum.” Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said in a blog post Friday that free Wi-Fi could become a reality. “I will boldly state that, if the FCC produces a solid 20 MHz of contiguous empty space for TV White spaces in the Incentive Auction proceeding, or even two 10 MHz guard channels that could nationally produce two decent sized LTE -- for unlicensed channels, then we will have exactly the kind of free publicly available wifi” described by the Post, Feld said (http://xrl.us/bofos3). The Post eventually offer clarification of claims made in the article, noting the FCC did not plan to get in the Wi-Fi business (http://xrl.us/bofotu).