Google is providing free public Wi-Fi in the southwest section of the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan through a partnership with the Chelsea Improvement Co., the two announced Tuesday (http://bit.ly/WtNMtS). The Wi-Fi provided by Google -- which has 3,000 employees in its Chelsea headquarters -- will cover “roughly between Gansevoort St. and 19[th] St. from 8th Ave to the West Side Highway, as well as the neighborhood’s public spaces, including the Chelsea Triangle, 14th Street Park, and Gansevoort Plaza,” according to a release. “New York is determined to become the world’s leading digital city, and universal access to high-speed Internet is one the core building blocks of that vision,” Mayor Mike Bloomberg said in the announcement. “Thanks to Google, free WiFi across this part of Chelsea takes us another step closer to that goal.” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in the same statement this “cutting edge wireless network will help to cement New York’s reputation as a leader in technological development, will help the city continue to attract business and grow our booming Silicon Alley, and will take us one step closer to our goal of becoming the most well connected city in America."
Atlantic Broadband sought a one-week delay of a deadline, to Jan. 14, to respond to a must-carry complaint from Western Pacific Broadcast, which didn’t object to the extension. “Atlantic Broadband and Western Pacific have attempted to resolve their issues, and believe they may be able to do so without the need for Commission intervention,” the cable operator said in a motion for extension posted Monday in docket 12-1 (http://xrl.us/bn9xos). The complaint, seeking guaranteed carriage of Western Pacific’s WACP Atlantic City, N.J., on the operator’s Philadelphia-area systems, would then have a Jan. 24 reply deadline for the broadcaster. Western Pacific recently dismissed carriage complaints against Verizon (CD Jan 8 p13).
NAB asked FCC officials about plans to release publicly any software the agency will use to assign TV stations new channels after an incentive auction of their frequencies. Association executives specializing in technical and auction issues met with counterparts at the agency, reported ex-Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan, now helping to lead NAB’s auction work. The broadcast officials asked about the agency’s plans to use geographic areas in a band plan, when TV stations will be repacked, and international border coordination issues, said a filing Monday in docket 12-268 (http://xrl.us/bn9xnn). FCC participants included Gary Epstein, who’s helping lead incentive auction efforts; Chief Julius Knapp and others in the Office of Engineering and Technology; Chief Bill Lake and Rebecca Hanson, then of the Media Bureau and who Monday was named acting director of commission public-private initiatives, Chief Ruth Milkman and others in the Wireless Bureau.
Halo Wireless is liable to AT&T for its unpaid access charges on non-local traffic as well as for unpaid interconnection facility charges, the Kentucky Public Service Commission ordered Monday (http://xrl.us/bn9xfo). It said AT&T is excused from the interconnection agreement. Several other state commissions had issued similar orders over the past year against Halo (CD Aug 2 p8), which defended itself until it was liquidated as part of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding last July. AT&T first complained to the Kentucky PSC July 26, about a week after the liquidation. The Halo trustee hasn’t participated in the case, the PSC said.
Lawyers for the American Cable Association told an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski the commission should, in the context of its media ownership rule review, “address the increasingly prevalent practice of separately owned, same market television stations coordinating” retransmission consent negotiations with pay-TV distributors, an ex parte notice said (http://xrl.us/bn9xfd). The association’s previous comments in the proceeding demonstrate the harm to competition in local TV markets that results from such practices, the notice said. An advocate for the free community newspaper industry met with an aide to Genachowski to argue against loosening media ownership restrictions, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bn9xea). Jim Haigh, a government relations consultant for the Association of Free Community Newspapers and Mid-Atlantic Community Newspapers Association, told Elizabeth Andrion, Genachowski’s acting chief legal adviser, that the worst possible outcome of the FCC’s media ownership proceeding would be “the widespread formation of outsized cross-media entities leveraging traditional advantages while also given the ability to leverage game-ending digital advantage.” That’s if the ownership rules proceed as reported and the agency’s open Internet rules are overturned by the courts, the notice said.
Jordan Soldier Valley Telephone Co. asked the FCC Wireline Bureau for a waiver of its Dec. 31 due date to submit a “true-up adjustment” for local switching support (http://xrl.us/bn9xby). The annual true-up process, required by the Universal Service Administrative Co., adjusts support amounts based on actual incumbent carrier data. Jordan Soldier -- a rural ILEC with 263 access lines -- said it failed to submit the 2011 true-up data because “an employee who is no longer with the company was responsible for submitting this filing.” When that employee retired in May, “his responsibilities were then spread among existing employees,” except for the duty to submit the true-up data, which “was overlooked.” Without a waiver to late-file the true-up adjustment, the telco will lose about $76,000 in recovery, it said.
The FCC must address “statistical and data-related shortcomings” of the regression analysis-based caps on USF support, NTCA told aides to Commissioners Robert McDowell, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel on Monday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bn9w6k). Broader concerns exist about the “persistent lack of transparency, accuracy, and predictability” of the capping mechanisms, NTCA said. Before applying additional constraints on USF support, the commission must first study the effect of current reforms on end user rates, service quality, broadband adoption, state universal funds, and the advancement of broadband-capable network deployment and sustainable ongoing operations by carriers of last resort, NTCA said.
More than 10,000 government radio users have migrated to digital radios, the Miami-Dade County Information Technology Department said. The analog system was 18 years old, the county said, which called the new Harris Corp. technology “one of the largest Internet Protocol based digital radio systems ever deployed in the Western Hemisphere in terms of user density and traffic.” Its Tuesday release added that users will now be able to access 800 and 700 MHz frequencies. The government agencies that migrated include Water and Sewer, Seaport, Aviation, Public Works and Waste Management, Transit’s Bus Operations, Fire Rescue’s operations and the Miami-Dade School Board, the county said. The Harris contract was first approved in 2010. The county has transitioned away from 16,000 old models in 2012 and will do so with another 14,000 in 2013, it said, noting that 24,000 of these 30,000 are acquired through negotiations with Sprint-Nextel as part of an FCC settlement.
The “big data” technologies and service market will grow to $23.8 billion in 2016, said a new forecast from International Data Corp. (IDC) (http://xrl.us/bn9w5d). The market will see a compound annual growth rate of 31.7 percent, IDC said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bn9w5h). Individual segments of the market will see varied growth, with services seeing 21.2 percent growth, while storage will see 53.4 percent growth. “The Big Data technology and services market ... is an important topic on many executive agendas and presents some of the most attractive job opportunities for people with the right technology, analytics, communication, and industry domain expertise,” said IDC Vice President-Business Analytics and Big Data Research Dan Vesset in a statement.