The FCC International Bureau granted SES Americom’s request for a ruling on access to the U.S. market using a planned geostationary satellite in the DBS service. The proposed satellite, AMC 20, will operate under the supervision of the U.K. at 105.5 degrees west, the bureau said in an order (http://xrl.us/boa9fn). The bureau concluded that granting the company’s provision of service to U.S. customers, using the 12.2-12.7 GHz frequency band for downlink service transmissions, and 17.3-17.8 GHz for uplink feeder link “would serve the public interest.” The satellite’s entry in the U.S. market for the purpose of offering DBS services in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band “will not negatively affect competition for these services in the U.S. market, including Alaska and Hawaii,” it said.
Charter asked the FCC to let it out of local regulation in five Massachusetts towns. In a petition for special relief, the cable operator said its cable systems in Boylston, Leicester, Northbridge, Paxton and Spencer are subject to effective competition from DBS operators (http://xrl.us/boa9fa).
The Virginia State Corporation Commission recommended imposing certain testing and maintenance rules on telcos, in a staff report released Thursday (http://xrl.us/boa9dz). It investigated the 911 outages due to failures of Verizon following last June’s derecho storm, which the FCC Public Safety Bureau also investigated. The bureau made similar recommendations regarding backup power last week, prefacing a pending FCC notice of proposed rulemaking (CD Jan 11 p3). “Ensuring that testing and maintenance is performed properly and timely in all of Verizon’s offices should go a long way in preventing a similar 911 outage as the one following the June 29 Derecho,” the Virginia report said. The FCC and the Virginia commission seem to be in “lock step,” Telecom Director William Irby told us last week. Verizon will “closely review” the report and recommendations, said Kyle Malady, senior vice president-global network operations and engineering, in a statement. “And we will continue to work daily to improve our network’s resiliency, apply lessons learned and collaborate with the public safety community -- as well as local, state and federal government officials.” He defended the telco’s progress and cited its performance during last fall’s Superstorm Sandy. Virginia staff “applauds” Verizon’s post-derecho actions but recommend monitoring and evaluating the telco’s actions going forward, potentially for one to three years, “to ensure that Verizon continues to undertake the necessary corrective action.” The report said Verizon allowed equipment and facilities “to deteriorate,” which contributed to generator failures and subsequent 911 outages, and recommended that Verizon attend to not only its critical 911 facilities but all offices throughout Virginia. “The audits for the 911 mission-critical offices in Virginia identified hundreds of abnormalities,” both minor and critical, the Virginia commission found. The commission recommends the investigatory docket remain open, that Verizon file quarterly reports on its progress, that Verizon fix all problems found in its power audits and meet with all 911 centers actively. The telco should plan to conduct power, mechanical and HVAC audits of all Virginia offices by the end of Q1 2013 and “at a minimum, batteries should be inspected and tested in all Virginia locations by the end of 2Q 2013,” it said. Commission staff should assemble and file annual reports on these issues, it said. Verizon had met with and provided staff with hundreds of documents, the report added. Despite changes away from copper, a telecom system’s integrity still depends on functioning offices and 911 “regardless of technology,” the report said, citing VoIP, wireless and FIOS.
QuickPlay Media said its OpenVideo multi-screen distribution platform supports closed captions. The system runs content through encoding and transcoding processes, adds digital rights management, device profiles and packaging information and can flag content if it lacks closed captioning data, QuickPlay said. “Closed captions not only greatly enhance the mobile video viewing experience for people with hearing impairments but they drive up overall viewership numbers,” said Kavi Maharajh, Quickplay vice president-product research development.
Executives for the Weather Channel met with FCC Media Bureau officials to discuss challenges to making on-screen emergency information more accessible to the blind. “In particular the parties discussed [The Weather Channel’s] localization strategies and the obstacles it would face in implementing a secondary audio channel solution to the accessibility issues raised in this docket,” an ex parte notice said (http://xrl.us/boa9eh).
Local Broadcast TV stations brought in more than 80 percent of all political TV ads in the last election, the TV ad Bureau said. In the presidential race, TV stations took in nearly $500 million between the conventions and Election Day, it said. That was a 65 percent increase from 2008, it said. Though the Romney campaign outspent the Obama campaign, the Obama campaign bought about 10 percent more TV spots, TVB said. “The buying power advantage was particularly impactful in the 60-day lowest unit rate period prior to Election Day,” when most of the Obama campaign’s ads qualified for the lowest rates but Romney campaign ads did not, TVB said.
Dish Network asked the FCC to hold in abeyance and stop the informal shot clock on its consideration of SoftBank’s proposed buy of Sprint Nextel, as the agency also looks at Sprint’s proposed acquisition of de facto control of Clearwire. “Sprint’s acquisition of control over Clearwire is subject to, among other things, a vote of the non-Sprint shareholders in the face of a higher value offer made by DISH and Clearwire’s response to DISH’s offer,” Dish said (http://xrl.us/boa9cy). “These contingencies make SoftBank’s and Sprint’s applications unripe for consideration. Indeed, with competing offers for Clearwire in place, premature Commission evaluation of Sprint’s initial offer could undermine the Commission’s policy objective of neutrality in takeover contests by giving SoftBank and Sprint ... a very real advantage in the corporate valuation process.” Sprint did not have an immediate response Thursday.
The FCC said it updated the portion of its website dedicated to providing resources about the incentive spectrum auctions to broadcasters. The new Learn Everything About Reverse Auctions Now (LEARN) site features a staff summary of the broadcast incentive auction process, the agency said. “The new and improved LEARN website provides easy access to current, clear, concise and accurate information designed to help the nation’s broadcasters make informed business decisions about participating in the incentive auction,” said Gary Epstein, the FCC’s incentive auction task force chair. View the site here: www.fcc.gov/learnprogram.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer wants the FCC to release money for broadband deployment quickly and with flexibility. “These [Connect America Fund Phase I] rules are so restrictive that it is difficult for carriers to utilize them to deploy broadband in my home state of New York; but the problem is not localized to our region,” the New York Democrat told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a Wednesday letter. “There is clear evidence that more flexibility is needed because the rules have left and will continue to leave significant portions of the money on the table -- and therefore not working on the ground to get broadband to the consumers and businesses who need it.” Frontier Communications has struggled with investing federal money in the Hudson valley but can’t due to “restrictions,” Schumer said in a release (http://xrl.us/boa8xg), referring to how the FCC currently will only “unlock this funding for companies that can provide broadband for less than $775 per household, and only in specific types of areas.” “We agree with Senator Schumer regarding the need for additional funding for providers to deploy more broadband to unserved and underserved Americans,” a Frontier spokeswoman told us. These rules, affecting $185 million of unclaimed Phase I money and $300 million for this year, need to be “restructured,” he told Genachowski. Frontier would bring broadband to Orange and Sullivan counties if it had more flexibility, he said. Schumer cited support from Orange County Executive Ed Diana, Focus Media CEO Josh Sommers, Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp. President Mike Oates, Sullivan County Legislators Kitty Vetter and Cora Edwards, and Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency Chairman Ira Steingart. He applauded the FCC’s recent notice of proposed rulemaking (http://xrl.us/boa9bv) and its sentiment: “The CAF rules should be refined to enable price cap carriers to bring service to unserved and underserved households as quickly as possible,” the letter said. Comments are due to the FCC Jan. 28 and replies Feb. 11. These comments will be used to further the FCC’s “overarching goal to use available funds to rapidly and efficiently deploy broadband networks throughout America,” the Dec. 28 Federal Register summary said (http://xrl.us/boa9cd). USTelecom is “encouraged” to see Schumer’s support in refining these rules and speeding deployment, President Walter McCormick wrote in a Thursday blog post (http://bit.ly/V8CNIK) that focused on how Schumer’s suggestions reflect Genachowski’s recommendations. McCormick praised the benefits of the FCC potentially “putting these CAF funds to work this spring.” The FCC declined comment.
The U.S. District Attorney of Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz, defended her office’s prosecution of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide last week, for alleged violations under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Ortiz said her office’s conduct was “appropriate in bringing and handling this case,” in a statement Wednesday (http://xrl.us/boa897). “The prosecutors recognized that there was no evidence against Mr. Swartz indicating that he committed his acts for personal financial gain, and they recognized that his conduct -- while a violation of the law -- did not warrant the severe punishments authorized by Congress and called for by the sentencing guidelines in appropriate cases.” Swartz was under investigation for his alleged unauthorized downloading of millions of academic articles from JSTOR through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology network. Ortiz said: “At no time did this office ever seek -- or ever tell Mr. Swartz’s attorneys that it intended to seek -- maximum penalties under the law.” The U.S. Attorney’s office was seeking a six-month, low security prison sentence for Swartz which she said was “an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct” and added that Swartz’s defense counsel “would have been free to recommend a sentence of probation.” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced a bill this week aimed at reforming the 27-year-old CFAA and other laws which she said have allowed the government to prosecute individuals under a “dangerous legal interpretation.” Ortiz said “there is little I can say to abate the anger felt by those who believe that this office’s prosecution of Mr. Swartz was unwarranted and somehow led to the tragic result of him taking his own life.” In a recent statement (http://xrl.us/boa4cg), Swartz’s family and partner said his death was “the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach” on the part of the office of the U.S. attorney in Boston -- which “pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges,” including more than 30 years in prison.