KSQA LLC said two recent decisions by the FCC Media Bureau directly conflict with each other regarding its quest for must-carry rights for its KSQA Topeka, Kan., on channel 12 on Cox’s cable systems. Cox already carries the station on channel 22 and the bureau recently dismissed the station’s complaint to exert its must-carry rights on channel 12. In its dismissal order the bureau also wrote that it dismissed the complaint without prejudice to the station refiling it after deleting its Major Channel Number 22. More recently the bureau also clarified in a separate proceeding that the station’s major channel number is 12. However, “Cox continues its refusal to carry KSQA on Channel 12,” the station said (http://xrl.us/bn8o5z). “KSQA requests that the Commission issue an order directing Cox Cable to commence carriage immediately of the KSQA signal” on channel 12, it said.
North Central Telephone Cooperative asked the FCC for a waiver of the rules eliminating the eligibility of LECs to receive Safety Net Additive support for qualifying investments made in 2010 (http://xrl.us/bn8o5p). NCTC, which provides telecom and broadband service to subscribers in rural Tennessee and Kentucky, said it made “extensive capital investments in 2010 to upgrade its facilities in rural areas that qualified it for SNA support without regard to line losses.” The “essential” investments were funded by loans and grants by the Rural Utilities Service, it said, and NCTC believed the loans could be repaid in part by SNA support. With elimination of SNA support in the 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order, NCTC realized it would have to defer substantial investments for several years, or perhaps indefinitely. “The unanticipated flash-cut of SNA support requires NCTC to defer extending fiber transmission facilities to reduce copper loop length in several portions of the service area,” it said. These deferrals will keep “vital services” from subscribers, and limit cost efficiencies, NCTC said. A waiver also would promote the policy goals of improved voice service, ubiquitous broadband availability, and greater telecom provider efficiency and productivity, NCTC said.
LodgeNet Interactive will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a deal with an affiliate of global investment company Colony Capital, LodgeNet said Monday. The Colony affiliate will provide $60 million of new capital, LodgeNet said. LodgeNet also received support from a steering committee of its lenders which hold its debt for a multi-year extension of its existing $346 million secured credit facility, it said. The transaction will be implemented via an expedited Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, at the conclusion of which the Colony affiliate would become the controlling stockholder of LodgeNet, it said. Unsecured creditors of LodgeNet will be paid in full for any pre-petition claims at the conclusion of the Chapter 11 process, it said. Colony also executed a memorandum of understanding with DirecTV, setting forth terms under which LodgeNet and DirecTV will operate as strategic partners within the hospitality and healthcare markets, LodgeNet said. DirecTV will provide its technological and marketing capabilities to help deliver unspecified new and improved LodgeNet services to the industry, LodgeNet said. LodgeNet will continue to operate throughout the Chapter 11 process, it said. As part of an amendment to the forbearance agreement with DirecTV, LodgeNet said Monday it would make a payment of $2.3 million to DirecTV by that day and, in exchange, the payment that was to be paid that day will be deferred until Jan. 11. LodgeNet will make a second payment, for $2.7 million, to DirecTV by Jan. 11 and, in exchange, the payment due Dec. 31 would be deferred until Feb. 5, but LodgeNet will pay DirecTV $30 million that day, LodgeNet said.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Monday he plans to work on a bipartisan basis to pass cybersecurity legislation in the next Congress. His comments came in a floor speech as he discussed the Senate-passed 2013 National Intelligence Authorization bill (S-3454). The bill contains a provision that would require the director of national intelligence to submit a report on the security of the U.S. IT supply chain and telecom networks. The U.S. needs to protect its critical infrastructure from “nation states, like China, Russia and now Iran who seek to do us harm through the Internet,” he said. “It is the largest threat we face that we are not prepared to handle.” Committee Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., said the threat of a catastrophic cyberattack keeps him up at night, along with “spicy food and nuclear proliferation.” Congress must act to “keep up with the cyberthreats of today and tomorrow,” he said.
Vermont is investing $5 million to expand cell service in multiple counties around the state, the governor’s office said Monday (http://xrl.us/bn8ozk). The Vermont Telecom Authority [VTA] approved the grant. “This investment of state funds for cellular equipment through VTel Wireless will fill in some of our most challenging gaps in southern Vermont,” said Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, in a statement. “Connect VT, the VTA and our carriers are tackling our cellular challenge on all fronts.” VTel Wireless has already built significant broadband infrastructure, which will be expanded into 4G LTE as part of the company’s Wireless Open World efforts, the governor said. It’s “building towers, extending fiber, adding equipment for faster service, and using our expedited permitting process to get it done,” he added. VTel President Michel Guite credited the expansion to the state grant and the FCC Mobility Fund. Connect Vermont Chief Karen Marshall said the state’s goal is to “vastly expand” access by the end of next year. Shumlin has sought to expand broadband access throughout his Connect Vermont program and outlined progress in a separate release Monday (http://xrl.us/bn8ozx). The state’s “high-speed broadband network has expanded to reach an estimated 282,000 locations since 2010, is poised to connect to another 12,500 in the coming months, and barring any unforeseen glitches, is on track to serve every household and business in Vermont by the end of 2013,” the governor’s office said. Average connection speed has risen from 5.5 Mbps to 9 Mbps, it said, and “$248 million of the currently planned $373 million has been spent, with 2100 of our 3500 fiber miles constructed, more than 40 new cell sites built, and more than 83 percent of our connections at an average speed greater than 4 Mbps.” Vermont has 500 areas that remain a challenge that it’s seeking to creatively address, it said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved a transfer of control from Wavecom Solutions Corp. to Hawaiian Telcom of domestic and international Section 214 authorizations, a cable landing license, and various wireless licenses, according to the FCC’s order (http://xrl.us/bn8ozn). The commission said the potential competitive harms from the transaction are “limited,” and the transaction is likely to generate public interest benefits: The transaction will enhance Hawaiian Telcom’s network by augmenting next-generation fiber capacity, and will put Wavecom on “a more solid financial footing."
T-Mobile doesn’t feel there’s any need for a hearing in what it calls a “moot” complaint proceeding before the California Public Utilities Commission. Sherman Oaks, Calif., resident Barbara Jerey complained of disputed bill charges “caused by negligence and error of the company” in a Nov. 26 filing (http://xrl.us/bn8ox9). She slammed the “defective” equipment she received and disputed “the validity of this debt in full,” she wrote. T-Mobile replied in a filing posted Friday (http://xrl.us/bn8oyd) that Jerey failed to pay her bills and terminated her accounts earlier this year. “The complaint should be dismissed with prejudice on that basis alone,” T-Mobile said. However, it provided a courtesy credit of $494.49 and $132.20, covering Jerey’s outstanding balances, on Dec. 6, it said, further eliminating the need for any hearings. Jerey “does not seem to identify any specific relief sought in her complaint,” T-Mobile added.
Hawaiian Telcom said its union-represented employees voted to ratify a five-year collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that will take effect Wednesday. Hawaiian Telcom and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1357 leaders announced they had reached an agreement on the CBA Dec. 14, and the IBEW held a mail-in vote on ratification over the following two weeks, Hawaiian Telcom said Friday. The CBA includes guaranteed annual wage increases, a 401(k) matching program and a fixed-percentage employee contribution to health insurance premiums, Hawaiian Telcom said (http://xrl.us/bn8cau). The agreement comes months after the National Labor Relations Board’s appeal office “conclusively” dismissed an unfair labor practices charge the IBEW filed against Hawaiian Telcom after the company implemented Last, Best and Final Offer employment terms last year (CD Aug 30 p11).
The Senate approved the House-passed FISA Amendments and Reauthorization Act Friday by a 73-23 vote. The bill, which would reauthorize for five years intelligence agencies’ ability to monitor and collect international communications related to foreign terrorist suspects, now awaits President Barack Obama’s signature. In September the administration said it strongly supports the legislation and the president is widely expected to sign the bill before FISA expires on Monday. Senators passed a clean bill and voted down four amendments aimed at increasing congressional oversight over the classified intelligence gathering program (CD Dec 28 p5). The author of the bill, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, in a news release Friday, urged the president to sign it. “HR-5949 enables the intelligence community to gather information on foreign terrorists overseas, while still protecting the civil liberties of U.S. citizens at home and abroad,” Smith said. “The President should sign this bipartisan bill to ensure that our intelligence capabilities are not dismantled and our nation not put in danger.” The Senate reauthorization bill (S-3276) languished after revelations that the government had abused its powers. Government officials acknowledged in a July letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that NSA surveillance had gone further than is permitted by FISA (CD Aug 31 p1).
A Republican ex-FCC commissioner agrees with a former Democratic commissioner that the agency should vote every month on some media ownership diversity proposals that have been pending for years. Deborah Tate said she backed the suggestion of Michael Copps in 2007, when they were both FCC members, though the two “probably don’t agree about much regarding media ownership.” Her hope now: “Just please do something in 2013 to ensure that women and minorities can participate fully in America’s broadcasting industry,” Tate wrote Thursday on the blog of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (http://xrl.us/bn8cao). “The latest FCC draft media ownership decision spends over 30 pages recounting legal arguments against any action regarding policies that would help minority and female ownership, although there are dozens of pending proposals that do not run afoul of the Supreme Court’s standards for race-conscious actions.” The council, of which Tate is a director, has backed such proposals. Two business professors separately clarified a research paper the FCC paid them to write as part of studies on ownership conducted for the upcoming media ownership order. An assumption by Adam Rennhoff of Middle Tennessee State University and Duke University’s Kenneth Wilbur “which we thought was innocuous, was not innocuous,” they wrote. The determination was a result of feedback from peers before a version of “Local Media Ownership and Viewpoint Diversity in Local Television News” is published in an academic journal, they said. “Viewpoint diversity is positively associated with increases in the number of co-owned television stations within a market,” the professors wrote in further revisions to the study posted on the agency’s media ownership report website (http://xrl.us/bkz6ju). The academics had no immediate further comment.