Mexico’s AXTEL said it finalized the sale of 883 telecommunications sites to MATC Digital, a subsidiary of American Tower, a deal worth about $250 million. AXTEL said it’s using the proceeds to pay down debt. The U.S. tower company has been increasing its investments in Latin America. In January, Telefónica’s Movistar Chile announced the transfer of 558 telecommunications towers to ATC, American Tower’s Chilean subsidiary.
The launch of the Intelsat 27 satellite failed about 40 seconds after liftoff from the Pacific Ocean, Intelsat said Friday in a news release (http://xrl.us/bod6hi). The satellite was designed to serve customers in North America, South America, the North Atlantic and Europe, it said. All telemetry was lost “indicating a loss of mission,” said the launch provider, Sea Launch (http://xrl.us/bod6hr). Intelsat 27 was launched on a Zenit-3SL launch vehicle, it said. “The cause of the failure is unknown,” but Sea Launch is evaluating it, Sea Launch said. Intelsat said service to customers on Intelsat 805 and Galaxy 11 “will not be interrupted as a result of today’s event.” Intelsat is reviewing the loss of capacity “and we plan to make a decision in the coming weeks regarding replacement of the spacecraft,” a spokesman said. Sea Launch didn’t comment.
Michigan just expanded the state’s 211 community access line service. The Public Service Commission selected Community Access Line of the Lakeshore to be the 211 community access service answering point for 36 exchanges across seven counties, bringing the company’s total number of counties served to 11, the PSC said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bod6fz). It said nearly half a million calls were made to 211 in 2011 in the state. The “Commission’s approval is provisional, in part, due to the FCC’s ability to recall the 2-1-1 number,” the PSC said.
SES and VimpelCom, a Russia-based mobile carrier, signed an agreement for additional capacity on SES’s NSS-9 satellite to deliver what SES called high-quality data services in eastern Russia. The capacity “will be used to provide data services to VimpelCom’s corporate clients based in the Kamchatka, Magadan and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regions” and enable VimpelCom to optimize the use of satellite capacity for their 3G network in the far eastern Russia and East Siberia region,” SES said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bod6go).
FairPoint has sold its Idaho operations to the Montana-based Blackfoot Telecommunications Group for $30 million in cash, as planned late last year. The sale was closed and 11 FairPoint workers are joining Blackfoot in Idaho, FairPoint said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bod6cm). The properties are located in eastern Idaho and serve about 5,000 residential and business customers, it added.
The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, which has been focusing on the complicated issues associated with spectrum sharing between carriers and federal licensees, will meet Feb. 21, NTIA said in a notice in the Federal Register (http://xrl.us/bod582). The meeting will be at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Room 130, at Stanford University in California and is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon PST.
Vulcan Wireless said it’s time for the FCC to restore device interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band. In a letter to the commission posted Friday, Vulcan said doing so would be relatively simple and straightforward. “More than three years have passed since the Commission first received a petition seeking resolution to the severe deployment obstacles that have resulted from the unprecedented and unforeseeable creation of two overlapping band specifications for the Lower 700 MHz band,” the carrier said (http://xrl.us/bod58q). “Restoring Lower 700 MHz interoperability can be accomplished through a number of alternative routes at minimal cost. However, as Vulcan has previously explained, the Commission need not decide which of these alternatives is best. Rather, it need only specify that, by a date certain, all devices capable of operating on any paired spectrum block in the Lower 700 MHz band be capable of operating across all paired spectrum blocks in the Lower 700 MHz band. Consequently, industry can then jointly determine whether achieving interoperability should be accomplished through either Band Class 12, expansion of Band Class 17, or incorporation of a ‘dual band’ mobile device solution."
T-Mobile representatives met with some FCC officials designing an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum to present the carrier’s alternative band plan. The FCC’s preferred band plan was roundly criticized by broadcasters, carriers and others, in comments filed at the commission (CD Jan 28 p1). T-Mobile offered various iterations of its plan, depending on whether the FCC manages to clear as few as 10 channels (60 MHz) or as many as 20 (120 MHz). The base plan “provides 35 x 35 MHz of paired spectrum, seven paired 5 MHz blocks; limits wasteful guard bands,” while reducing the risk of interference for carriers and broadcasters, T-Mobile officials said, based on slides filed at the FCC (http://xrl.us/bod575). The plan also “offers meaningful opportunities for competition” and “accommodates supplemental downlink when more than 84 MHz (14 TV channels) is cleared.”
The CTIA Spectrum Clearinghouse relocated 62 AWS links in the second half of 2012, at an average cost of $180,537, according to a report filed at the FCC (http://xrl.us/bod53g). Throughout its lifetime, the clearinghouse has relocated 1,581 links, the report said.
Telecoms Without Borders deployed a team of emergency responders to Timbuktu, Mali, to aid with communications in the West African country, where the government, with the help of French troops, is battling Islamist militias. The team will bring with it 14 portable satellite kits and other equipment necessary to create four emergency telecom centers, it said. “This equipment will deliver broadband connectivity to the humanitarian workers in the region of Timbuktu enabling them to coordinate aid to the population in the wake of the fighting,” the nongovernmental organization said Friday (http://www.tsfi.org). “Landline and mobile networks have been cut off in several towns in Northern Mali, and the activities of the NGOs in this region are very limited. The lack on communications has made a challenging security environment even worse."