The FCC Wireline Bureau declined Sprint’s request for review of a decision by the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC). Sprint was “seeking to recover funds disbursed to Sprint for services purchased from Sprint by Dade County [Fla.] Public Schools (Dade) in funding year 1999 under the E-rate program,” according to the Tuesday order. But the bureau said Sprint received equipment and support from USAC that it never used and said Sprint should pay USAC $83,525.04 for violating FCC rules. The bureau compared the inventories of Sprint and Dade and found disparities, noting Dade’s record was more reliable than Sprint’s. Sprint also miscalculated the money it should have received, among other errors, the bureau said: “We therefore direct USAC to continue its recovery action against Sprint,” it said. Sprint declined comment.
Two California state senators are pushing the California Public Utilities Commission to assert more control over mergers. “As we become more reliant on cell phones and digital technology for every day life, we need to ensure that all consumers -- especially underserved communities -- are protected,” said Sen. Kevin De Leon, a Democrat. The two and other officials and activists gathered in front of the state capitol Tuesday to protest TracFone’s acquisition of California-based Simple Mobile earlier this year, according to a release from the Two Countries One Voice coalition, concerned about Mexican mogul Carlos Slim’s ownership of TracFone. De Leon and fellow Democrat Sen. Ricardo Lara sent a letter to the CPUC calling for investigation of the TracFone merger. They also plan to introduce legislation to ensure “the CPUC has the authority and discretion to review all mergers,” the coalition said. The CPUC should have “proper government oversight and rigorous review,” De Leon said. Lara slammed “excessive charges” associated with phone calls in a statement.
The profitability of Time Warner’s home video business has dropped even though consumers are spending more time with its movies at home, CEO Jeff Bewkes said at a UBS investor conference Tuesday. “You're moving away from DVD, which was very profitable,” he said. And with digital movies, viewers who pay for movies at home are increasingly opting for less profitable rentals than outright purchases, he said. Time Warner is trying to make that business more profitable by the windows it sells various products in “and by making ownership more easy and valuable,” through efforts such as UltraViolet, he said. “We haven’t yet succeeded in being able to do so,” he said. At its pay-TV networks, Bewkes said he’s confident Time Warner can continue increasing affiliate fees despite pushback from distributors over escalating programming costs. “The value of the package they're bringing [to consumers] is getting strong,” because of new technology such as TV Everywhere that allows broader access to programming, he said.
This week Vermont launched its second text-to-911 trial of 2012, 911 solutions company Intrado announced. Sprint Nextel customers began participating Monday in the partnership of Intrado, Sprint, the Williston 911 center and the Vermont Enhanced 911 Board for a four-month trial, according to Intrado (http://xrl.us/bn4txq). “We learned a lot from the original text to 911 trial in Vermont, including that this new technology can save lives,” 911 Board Executive Director David Tucker said in a statement. “The fact that a large number of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing already use Sprint as their preferred carrier means we will be better able to provide access for that population to the Vermont 911 system as a result of this trial with Sprint.” Intrado handled the software that'll route Sprint 911 texts to the Williston 911 center. Tucker established several parameters for texting to 911: It should only be done when voice calls can’t be made; a text may take longer than a voice call; it’s “imperative” to provide location and the nature of the emergency in the first message; text abbreviations and slang shouldn’t be used; and texters need to be within range of Vermont cell towers, according to the announcement.
Verizon Wireless has sold part of the BEA131 700 MHz lower A-block license to Texas-based Colorado Valley Communications, Verizon said Tuesday. The Houston-Galveston-Brazoria license encompasses 126,000 Texans in Fayette, Austin, Colorado, Lavaca and Washington counties, said Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Robin Nicol in a company blog post (http://xrl.us/bn4tuv). “This agreement is the fourth to be signed as a result of Verizon Wireless’ previously announced plans to offer for sale its lower 700 MHz spectrum licenses to rationalize its spectrum holdings and enable more spectrum to reach the marketplace where it can be used for the benefit of customers,” she said. Verizon’s sold 36 of its lower 700 MHz licenses to 11 telcos since 2011, she added. Financial firm Stephens Inc. and investment bank Loop Capital Markets handled the agreement.
There’s a “Plan A” at Dish Networks, and it’s to move aggressively into the wireless business, CEO Joe Clayton told a New York media briefing Tuesday. But “if you can’t get a partner, for a myriad of reasons, then you'd better have a Plan B,” Clayton said of recent statements by Dish Chairman Charles Ergen that merging with DirecTV possibly would be a “doable” deal (CD Nov 7 p4). “Plan B may be, let’s merge with DirecTV and have bigger size and scale, and then we'll launch wireless,” Clayton said. Plan C, if that doesn’t work, would be for Dish to be bought by AT&T, he said. Plans D and E would be to “sell the spectrum,” he said. “All of these are speculation, but you'd better have several different paths to success.” All would be in the best interests of Dish employees, customers and shareholders, he said: “I'm not going to handicap any of the above, but I can tell you our efforts right now is on Plan A, and that’s to move aggressively into the wireless space.” No “aggressive negotiations” are taking place between Dish and DirecTV or other potential merger partners, he said. “These are all possibilities down the road. We're moving to wireless.” On Dish’s legal battle with broadcasters over Dish’s Auto-Hop commercial-skipping feature, “we won Round 1” about a month ago when a federal judge in California denied Fox’s motion for a preliminary injunction barring the Auto-Hop feature, Clayton said. ABC has moved for a similar injunction in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, and a ruling on that motion is expected in January, he said. “We expect to prevail on that,” as Dish did in the California court, he said. “We think we'll be in pretty good shape as we go forward. That’s not going to stop the broadcasters from challenging the thing, but we'll knock them off one at a time.” Clayton thinks ultimately there'll be “a meeting of the minds,” resolving the dispute, he said. “We don’t want the broadcasters mad at us. We're supposed to be partners.” Clayton thinks that instead of “challenging technology,” broadcasters should “embrace” it, using it to “better target ads and commercials to the buying public,” he said. Broadcasters “don’t get this,” he said. Instead of embracing technology, “they walk away from it, and then they wonder why their viewership declines every single year and why the effectiveness of the advertising is not as good.” Broadcasters will never stop consumers from skipping commercials, he said: “Are you kidding me?”
Gilat’s Wavestream was selected as the core supplier for high performance transceivers used in Tecom’s solution for in-flight connectivity on commercial and military aircraft. The transceivers will be integrated into Tecom’s KuStream 1000 and KuStream 1500 broadband antenna systems, Gilat said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bn4tts). Wavestream’s product, AeroStream, “provides high output power with greater efficiency and reliability, all in more compact, lighter product package designs suitable for the extreme airborne environment,” it said.
Sprint’s upcoming monthly surcharge on its legacy Nextel customers, meant to encourage their move to its newer CDMA infrastructure, is “absolutely necessary” because Sprint can’t afford to maintain the old infrastructure while moving toward new technologies, AT&T’s Bob Quinn said in a blog post Monday (http://xrl.us/bn4tqg). Incumbent wireline providers like AT&T similarly need to transition customers off their legacy copper services, but unlike Sprint, they cannot “self-effectuate this transition,” Quinn said. Instead, ILECs must first navigate a “byzantine maze of proceedings prior to engaging the plan that Sprint has unilaterally put in motion,” he said. That’s why AT&T has asked the FCC to open a proceeding (CD Nov 8 p10) to expedite the wireline transition to an all-Internet Protocol infrastructure, he said. Quinn said Sprint’s position here -- increasing pricing to incent subscribers away from legacy technologies -- was at odds with its position in the special access proceeding. A Sprint spokeswoman rejected AT&T’s comparison between the “competitive” wireless market and the “near monopoly” AT&T has over special access. “If Sprint’s customers are unhappy with its pricing decisions, they will move to a new carrier. Purchasers of special access, on the other hand, have few if any alternatives,” she said. “Market power cannot be hidden behind such a strained analogy."
Verizon’s recent New York service failed to meet expected levels: “Performance for network reliability, as measured by the companywide CTRR [Customer Trouble Report Rate] metric, missed the threshold for this metric every month during the third quarter of 2012,” said the Tuesday report of the New York State Public Service Commission staff (http://xrl.us/bn4tje). The service is “not atypical during the summer months” due to difficult weather, staff said. Performance for repair call answer centers was fine, as was the performance of timely repairs “with one exception,” the report added. Verizon volunteered to pay New York $100,000 for one botched timeliness metric in the last week and defended its Q3 performance (CD Nov 28 p13). Staff meets monthly with Verizon, the report said. The telco’s New York wireline customers continue to decline in number, according to the report -- from September 2011 to September 2012, its access line count dropped 566,000, or 12.4 percent.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said the FCC should reject a petition for reconsideration by Navtech asking that the commission rethink a decision to restrict to airports the use of fixed radars in the 76-77 GHz band. Navtech offers a radar system with Automatic Incident Detection capability for use on highways and interstate roads, which it argued is also well suited to the band (http://xrl.us/bn4s59). “By continually measuring and tracking vehicles, people and debris using high frequency radar the system is able to generate incident alerts, whilst maintaining extremely low nuisance alarm rates,” Navtech said. “Uniquely, the system is unaffected by rain, fog, dust, smoke and direct sunlight and so is well suited for incident detection, both above ground and in tunnels.” Reject the petition, the alliance said. “General fixed use of 76-77 GHz radars, particularly near public roads, could create a high risk of harmful interference to automobile radars,” the alliance said in a filing this week at the commission (http://xrl.us/bn4s6w). Continental AG and Continental Automotive Systems also opposed the recon petition (http://xrl.us/bn4s7e). “Continental cannot share Navtech Radar´s conclusion that ... there is evidence that there is no interference between fixed infrastructure scanning radar and automotive radar,” the company said. “Continental is willing to discuss sharing frequency bands and generally feels comfortable with 76-77 GHz applications for non-roadside applications. However, Continental expresses serious concerns to the general deployment of this technology for fixed applications, including road-side applications."