The Massachusetts state government chose Lightower Fiber Networks as the vendor for its statewide ITT46 Network Services contract, the company said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/boezbx). The contract will let Lightower “offer Ethernet, SONET Internet Access, Colocation and Dark Fiber solutions to Massachusetts state and local government entities,” it said.
Amazon will introduce a virtual currency system that its customers can use to buy apps, games and in-app items on the Kindle Fire, it said Tuesday. Amazon Coins will launch in the U.S. in May and is “another new way for app and game developers to make money” on the tablet that will “drive traffic” and downloads, it said. At launch, Amazon will give customers “tens of millions of dollars’ worth of free Amazon Coins to spend” on apps on the Kindle Fire via the online Amazon Appstore, it said. Amazon will also “make it quick and easy” for consumers to buy additional Amazon Coins using their Amazon accounts, it said. Amazon Appstore developers will “earn their standard 70 percent revenue share when customers make purchases” using the new virtual currency, it said. Developers that already have apps and games at the Appstore in the U.S. won’t need to do anything with their apps to capitalize on the new opportunity, but developers not yet on the Appstore need to submit their apps soon because “only apps submitted and approved by April 25 will be ready when Kindle Fire customers have Amazon Coins to spend” at launch, it said. “Developers continue to report higher conversion rates on Amazon compared to other platforms,” Paul Ryder, Amazon vice president-apps and games, said in a news release (http://xrl.us/boezm3). “Average revenue per user on Amazon is higher” than on other Android-based platforms, said Keith Shepherd, CEO at developer Imangi Studios.
Call completion problems are “unacceptable,” Christopher Killion, the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s associate chief, told NARUC. He tried to convince state regulators at their Washington meeting that the agency has been taking call completion problems seriously. State commissioners have long and loudly demanded FCC action on this issue (CD Jan 28 p13). He spoke Monday at a NARUC panel. “We are convinced beyond a doubt that rural call competition is a real problem and a significant problem,” he said, saying there was never a question of whether the agency would move toward enforcement. He described, without detail, “what I would call large-scale investigations of carriers” and investigations of “more targeted complaints” in rural areas, where the agency has “actually resolved some complaints.” FCC protocol prevented him from elaborating on the investigations but he did say the agency is pressing companies, continuing investigations and that the data collected as a result of the FCC’s unposted notice of proposed rulemaking will “assist” that effort (CD Jan 25 p1). Killion agreed with commissioners that one of the “unique” challenges of call completion issues is that state commissioners often hear the complaints, not the FCC. “There’s no consistency, let’s put it that way,” he said of company records now. “They don’t even agree on the meaning of certain terms.” The NPRM would help give the agency “standardized records” to assess, he said. Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach said the notice is in front of the full commission now, and the FCC could have an order as soon as this fall if it acts “expeditiously.” “We want to do this right,” Veach said. The data collection procedures will need to hold up to challenges and should be the “least burdensome as possible for the providers,” she said.
Public safety must be paramount as the FCC develops a framework for the IP transition, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told a rural telecom industry meeting in Orlando, Fla., hosted by NTCA and OPASTCO Monday. “Any technological or network transition must, first and foremost, be judged by its ultimate impact on public safety and network resiliency,” she said, according to prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/boes5p). The commission must also ensure universal access, she said, saying 10 states have passed laws relieving carrier of last resort obligations. “We must understand what this means” for rural service, she said. “We must make sure that modern communications are available in urban America, rural America, and everything in between.” Rosenworcel urged the commission to “monitor IP interconnection” to ensure network providers negotiate in good faith. Rosenworcel also said the commission would “very shortly” release a “thoughtful rulemaking” on the issue of poor call completion in rural areas (CD Jan 25 p1). The rulemaking proposes new record-keeping requirements so that the commission will have data necessary to “go after bad actors, vigorously enforce its rules, and bring an end to this problem,” she said.
Indiana University law students swept the National Telecommunications Moot Court competition Saturday, taking first and second place in the competition run by the Federal Communications Bar Association. The winners were Joe Fuschetto, Joe Kauffman and Taylor Mayer, who also won for best brief; second place went to Meghan Burton, Michael Caine and Tim Conroy. All attend IU’s Maurer School of Law. The best oralist award went to Manab Goswami from the University of Colorado School of Law. The question concerned a hypothetical FCC requirement that wireless Internet providers advertise their average speeds in a pre-determined format, and couldn’t supplement that with any additional speed information. In a final panel judged by former FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick, Fox Vice President-Legal Joe Di Scipio, and FCBA President Laura Phillips, the winning team argued that the FCC had properly tied its authority to Title III and Section 706 of the Communications Act, and that the rule didn’t violate the First Amendment.
Bright House Networks has faced disputes with several interexchange carriers (IXCs) over more than $10 million in access charges and switching, and many more millions could be at stake if the FCC does not clarify that “functional equivalence” is the “key policy behind the symmetry rule,” it told Wireline Bureau officials in a meeting Wednesday, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/boesxe). “Very different facilities configurations can be used to do identical ‘work’ -- that is, to provide the equivalent functionality -- from an IXC’s point of view,” BHN said in an attached slide presentation. “The proper focus is on whether AT&T is getting the service it needs -- delivery of calls to the services associated with particular phone numbers -- not on the specifics of how the CLEC does it."
State regulators are circulating a draft letter intended for submission to the FCC, urging FCC action on call completion problems, NARUC Telecom Committee Chair John Burke said Sunday. He said around 90 commissioners from nearly 40 states had already signed the letter by then. A Jan. 29 ex parte filing from NARUC urged the FCC to take “decisive action” in resolving the problem and simply mandate data collection immediately (CD Jan 31 p9). “We're attacking this problem on several fronts, not all equally visible to the outside,” said Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach during a Monday afternoon panel, that briefly discussed a notice of proposed rulemaking on the problem. State commissioners expressed frustration and increased urgency after hearing of an unreleased notice of proposed rulemaking the FCC has circulated, which would call for data collection (CD Jan 28 p13). Hill staffers mentioned concern for the call completion problem Monday in a panel discussion. “This is an issue members hear about directly from their constituents,” said Policy Advisor Margaret McCarthy, who works for House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).
The FCC International Bureau allowed Iridium to modify its license to provide Aeronautical Mobile Satellite (Route) Service (AMSRS) in the 1618.725-1626.5 MHz band. Grant of the application serves the public interest by providing enhanced options “for safety communications with aircraft in areas in which such communications are currently unavailable or limited,” the bureau said in a memorandum opinion and order (http://xrl.us/boestt). The license is subject to several conditions, including limiting AMSRS operations outside the U.S. to the oceanic regions, Antarctic land mass and adjacent waters “and the remote areas of those territories for which it has successfully completed the agreement seeking process” pursuant to ITU radio regulations, it said. Iridium also is required to give priority to AMSRS and 911 safety messages, “by real-time preemption if necessary, over all Iridium message traffic that isn’t considered safety-related pursuant to a recognized safety service,” it said.
More than two dozen American Cable Association members asked the FCC to force TV stations to stop coordinating retransmission consent agreements among separately owned major-network affiliated stations in a given market. Such coordination typically happens when multiple stations have the same representative in retransmission consent negotiations, the letter said (http://xrl.us/boesz3). “No matter how the coordination is done, there is competitive harm,” the letter said. The commission should find that such arrangements violate its ownership restrictions, the letter said.
CBS said it lost power to numerous cameras and microphones during the power failure at the Superdome Sunday night during the Super Bowl. The network switched to back up power and stayed on the air with CBS Sports’s Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots reporting on the situation, a spokeswoman for CBS Sports said. All commercial commitments during the broadcast were honored, she said.