The FCC needs to clarify treatment of multi-association group related adjustments to line port and transport interconnection charge costs in its rules, the National Exchange Carrier Association told Wireline Bureau officials Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bocb3v). The clarification is needed because of confusion after elimination of local switching support as of July 1, NECA said. It also requested clarification on the effect of the corporate operations expense limitation on interstate common line support and the common line revenue requirement.
Puerto Rico Telephone Co. got the FCC extension it requested for subscribers who didn’t complete their Lifeline recertification process by the Dec. 31 deadline. A Wireline Bureau order gave PRTC a limited 20-day extension, and waived the requirement that the telco de-enroll subscribers that didn’t recertify by Dec. 31 as long as they did so by Jan. 20 (http://xrl.us/bocb3k). The bureau found “good cause” that a waiver would serve the public interest, Friday’s order said. “We accept PRTC’s representation that many of its subscribers may have been confused by the overlap between the [state] and FCC processes, and we find that in these unique circumstances, it would serve the public interest to allow an additional 20 days for PRTC to complete the recertification process."
AT&T Mobility had a strong Q4, adding a net 780,000 subscribers to its network and selling a record number of smartphones -- but its parent company still lost $3.9 billion for the quarter due to changes in the value of its pension plan. But AT&T’s quarterly loss was better than its results for the same period in 2011, when the telco lost $6.7 billion. In addition to the pension plan valuation, AT&T said late Thursday it attributed the loss to the sale of its advertising units and Superstorm Sandy. AT&T said its revenue for the quarter was $32.6 billion. AT&T Mobility said it sold 10.2 million smartphones during the quarter, including 8.6 million iPhones. The quarter was also a strong one for the carrier’s tiered and shared data plans; 6.6 million of its subscribers are on its “Mobile Share” shared data plans, while 31.7 million subscribers -- two-thirds of those on smartphones -- are on some kind of tiered data plan. More than 25 percent of subscribers on the shared data plans are using the highest data tier of 10 gigabytes and above per month, AT&T said. The company also reported gains for its U-verse services -- it added a net 192,000 subscribers to the U-verse TV service and a net 609,000 to its U-verse Internet service (http://xrl.us/bocb28).
The newly trading Starz stock offers no “upside” over the next 12 months, wrote Evercore Partners analysts Peter Lee and Bryan Kraft in a note to investors. They said they don’t think the company will be sold imminently, though Liberty Media was motivated to spin the company off so it could eventually sell it tax efficiently. “A transaction could provide upside, but it is unclear who the buyer might be as the large media companies are unlikely to be interested,” the analysts wrote. Meanwhile, the company is expected to invest more in original programming, which can be hit-or-miss, they said. “An original programming strategy is not easy to execute.” Plus, Starz’s affiliate fees could be under pressure as its distribution agreements come up for renewal, Lee and Kraft said. “We believe there is some risk that affiliate fee growth will be limited until all of the major distributors have renewed."
Cox Communications asked the FCC to let it out of local rate regulation in five communities in Newport County, R.I. (http://xrl.us/bocb2j). The cable operator said it’s subject to effective competition from DBS operators there which offer pay-TV services to at least half of the occupied households and serve more than 15 percent of them.
Small businesses can propose solutions to “specific” cybersecurity challenges through the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Small Business Innovation Research program, NIST said late Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/14axtdg). Phase I awards (http://1.usa.gov/VAdZqS) will give up to $90,000 over a “performance period” of seven months and are “intended to determine if the proposed research is feasible and how well the awardee performs that research,” and those awardees will be eligible for Phase II funding to “further develop their technology,” NIST said.
Time Warner Cable asked the FCC to extend through Feb. 15 a deadline for the cable operator to file an opposition to the Central Ohio Association of Broadcasters’ must-carry complaint. The cable operator said the extra time will let it and the broadcaster, the licensee of a low-power TV station in Marion, Ohio, “further discuss settlement of the matter in controversy” (http://xrl.us/bocbzg).
The Executive Office of the State of West Virginia made some missteps with its broadband stimulus grant money, the Commerce Department inspector general told House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus, R-Ill. (http://xrl.us/bocbpv). NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program gave the state a $126.3 million grant to build statewide broadband infrastructure. It could have “better managed the execution of the grant,” the Office of the Inspector General said in a Wednesday letter released Friday. OIG identified three problems: The grantee “has not demonstrated that BTOP funds used to purchase routers were spent cost effectively, has not effectively managed and tracked router inventory, and did not administer agreements with community anchor institutions (CAIs) for the receipt of federal property.” The grantee could “conservatively have projected saving 2-5 percent on router purchases if it had purchased smaller, less expensive routers” and then didn’t keep track of its 1,164 routers, OIG added. There’s no “uniform centralized inventory management tool,” just three spreadsheets, it said, recommending the grantee “strengthen” its control. The grant application included no misrepresentations, OIG said. Some Congress members questioned grantee expenses last summer after media reports (http://xrl.us/bm7adj) of the project paying $22,000 per router, prompting the review. NTIA followed its defined processes “reasonably,” OIG found. The investigation showed the total cost for 1,064 routers as $24 million, which breaks down to $22,556.39 per router. The grantee received 100 routers free with this purchase from Cisco, OIG said. NTIA declined comment, and an official of the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which leads the project, was unavailable for comment. The grantee has begun to “develop an agreement for continued use which it will require all CAIs to sign” as a result of the review, the letter said.
The U.S. needs “smart regulation” as envisioned by the National Telecom Cooperative Association, the Ohio Public Utilities Commission told the FCC, saying the approach is “appropriate” while preserving innovation. The transition to Internet Protocol-enabled services “presents the challenge of ensuring the availability and affordability of service for all consumers,” the commission said Friday (http://xrl.us/bocbxk). There’s an “ongoing need for joint state-federal regulation,” it said. It called the smart regulation approach successful in Ohio, where broadband has “flourished” under it and consumers are protected, and better than “unfettered deregulation” that may occur.
The Mobile Marketing Association and Interactive Advertising Bureau released for public comment a set of “creative guidelines” for marketing on mobile phones (http://xrl.us/bocbyj). It supplements the association’s “widely adopted” Universal Mobile Ad Package and also “aligns across” the bureau’s display ad guidelines, the groups said Friday. The detailed specifications for mobile ad units address smartphones and feature phones, are relevant for both mobile Web and in-app inventory, and include specs for basic and rich media units. They address factors such as data connection via Wi-Fi or 4G, carrier plans and the “impact of the reduced processing power” on mobile devices for file load size and Web display, the groups said. Comments are due Feb. 25 to comments@mmaglobal.com and mobile@iab.net.