Adak Eagle Enterprises and its subsidiary, Windy City Cellular, gave FCC Wireline Bureau staff information on its ending cash balances for July through October; the annualized financial impact of eliminating six full-time positions -- roughly half their workforce -- due to the reduction in funding caused by the USF/intercarrier compensation order; and a summary of discussions with the Rural Utilities Service regarding the status of its loan. That’s according to a redacted ex parte filed by the companies last week, and released Monday (http://xrl.us/bn3mqh). The telco and carrier are waiting for FCC action on requests for waiver of some of the rules in the USF/ICC order, which they say cuts their universal service support to levels that would make operations unsustainable (CD Sept 19 p10). Windy City also canceled construction of its “Clam Lagoon” cell site, which was intended to provide network redundancy and prevent service interruptions due to severe weather on Adak Island, the filing said. Due to additional cuts, “there is no longer any backhaul redundancy,” Windy City said. Adak and Windy City have also placed on hold construction of a warehouse on Adak Island, and purchase of an administrative building, they said.
China favors manipulating voluntary global technical standards via the revised International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) to favor Chinese-owned companies like Huawei, wrote Richard Bennett, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation senior research fellow. China is seeking to alter Internet governance by changing current voluntary global technical standards -- the ITU-T “Recommendations” -- into mandatory “regulations,” he said in a report. “Technical standards are a genuinely global issue, and China has already shown a willingness to involve the ITU-T (ITU’s technical standards arm) in their development when Chinese companies are unable to get their way in the legitimate Internet standards forum, the Internet Engineering Task Force.” Other nations that seek to change the Internet governance structure at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), including Russia, can address their underlying issues outside WCIT, Bennett said. Russia recently proposed amending the ITRs to give all ITU member states “equal rights in the international allocation of Internet addressing and identification resources” (CD Nov 21 p7). In Russia’s case, “while [Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers] has been a whipping boy for a variety of interests, its shortcomings are primarily the result of a lack of participation by interested parties. Most ICANN participants today are domain registrars, but others are free to participate as well,” Bennett said (http://xrl.us/bn3moh).
Public interest groups are asking voters to urge their members of Congress to support an update to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) that would require law enforcement agencies to get warrants before they can access private emails. An ECPA update is the “last shot at privacy reform in 2012,” the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) told subscribers in an email Monday. The email encourages recipients to contact their senators, “urge them to support warrants for email” and oppose a potential amendment from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, which would “allow government agencies to read our email without a warrant.” The email points readers to a website about ECPA reform maintained by interest groups including CDT, the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Computer and Communications Industry Association (http://xrl.us/bn3mqo). Once there, users can send form letters to their senators asking them to support ECPA reform. “Prosecutors, regulatory agencies and other government officials should not be able to issue their own subpoenas to read my emails,” the letter said. “Updating ECPA will support small businesses, create jobs, and reinforce our Constitutional rights."
Blue Sky Network and Southeast Aerospace formed a partnership to provide advanced satellite tracking, professional installation and certification for aerospace applications. The companies will equip civilian and special mission aircraft “with the most advanced and operationally sound satellite tracking solutions from Blue Sky Network,” BSN said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bn3mnn). Incorporating BSN’s fleet management solution into Southeast Aerospace avionics installations “will enable easy access to this technology and certification in aviation applications,” BSN said.
If Vonage acquires its own numbering resources, Level 3 expects to see a “significant and rapid erosion in the revenue that it receives from Vonage,” it told the FCC in a letter posted Monday (http://xrl.us/bn3mjs). Level 3 was responding to Wireline Bureau questions on the financial impact to Level 3 if the commission grants Vonage’s long-pending request for direct access to numbering resources (CD March 11/11 p11). The telecom services provider said it’s developing a product to host telephone numbers assigned to customers, which could mitigate a “small fraction” of the lost Vonage revenue, but such a product is at least two or three quarters away. Granting the Vonage or any of the other waivers would likely not facilitate IP to IP interconnection, because in Level 3’s experience, a “current waiver holder” showed a “tepid interest in discussing interconnection,” Level 3 said. Level 3 declined to respond to a bureau inquiry on the industry-wide financial impact if the bureau grants the many outstanding requests for direct access to numbering resources. “If the Commission is inclined to focus on the financial impacts on the industry, the best way to obtain reliable information in that regard would be through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” Level 3 said. An NPRM process would also help answer the “myriad of technical, operational, and other concerns” raised by the waiver requests, Level 3 said.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos will step down at the end of January, an agency spokesman confirmed Monday. Kappos informed agency employees of the move on Monday morning via email, the spokesman said. Kappos told employees they had made “great progress” under his leadership “in reducing the patent backlog, increasing operational efficiency, and exerting leadership in IP policy domestically and internationally.” Commerce Department Acting Secretary Rebecca Blank said Kappos’s tenure, which started early in President Barack Obama’s term, “helped improve the IP system both here and abroad.” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., also praised Kappos for being “instrumental” in developing and enacting Leahy’s America Invents Act, and for the agency under his leadership implementing “key provisions” of the law. Leahy said he’s “sad” Kappos is leaving.
The U.S. Trade Representative wants input on the operation, effectiveness and implementation of, and compliance with, agreements on U.S. telecom products and services. Those pacts are: The World Trade Organization (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); U.S. free trade agreements with Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Korea, Morocco, Oman, Panama, Peru and Singapore; Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA); and any other telecom trade agreements, such as mutual recognition agreements for conformity assessment of telecommunications equipment. Section 1377 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 requires the USTR to review annually how all U.S. trade agreements regarding telecom products and services are operating and whether they're effective. The purpose of the review is to determine whether any act, policy or practice of a country that has a trade agreement with the U.S. is inconsistent with the terms of the pact or denies U.S. firms mutually advantageous market opportunities for telecom services and products. The USTR seeks feedback on: (1) Whether any WTO member is acting in a way that’s inconsistent with its obligations, affecting market opportunities for such products and services; (2) Whether Canada or Mexico has failed to comply with its telecom obligations under NAFTA; (3) Whether Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua has failed to comply with its obligations under the CAFTA-DR; (4) Whether Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Korea, Morocco, Oman, Panama, Peru or Singapore has failed to comply with its telecom obligations under its FTA with the U.S.; (5) Whether any country hasn’t complied with its obligations under trade agreements other than free trade agreements; (6) Whether any country’s law, policy or practice cited in a previous Section 1377 review remains unresolved; (7) Whether any measures or practices of a country that is a WTO member or for which an FTA or telecom trade agreement has entered into force with respect to the U.S. hamper access to its telecom markets or otherwise deny market opportunities to U.S. firms. Comments are due Dec. 17 at http://xrl.us/bn3me3.
The ITU-R will approve two new recommendations in the broadcasting service, and revisions to six others, unless sufficient objections arise before Jan. 22, said Francois Rancy, director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, in a letter to members. One proposed new recommendation deals with planning criteria, including protection ratios, for second generation of digital terrestrial TV broadcasting systems in the VHF/UHF bands. A second recommendation deals with synchronization of digital audio sample clock to video references, the letter said. Synchronization of digital audio signals is a necessary function for the exchange of signals between gear, it said. The objective of synchronization is primarily to time align sample clocks within digital audio signal sources and align them with video frames/fields, it said. Proposed revisions affect other recommendations dealing with: (1) spectrum shaping limits for digital terrestrial TV broadcasting; (2) planning criteria, including protection ratios, for digital terrestrial TV services in the VHF/UHF bands, transmitting antenna characteristics at VHF and UHF; (3) user requirements for audio coding systems for digital broadcasting; (4) file format for the exchange of audio program materials with metadata on information technology media; (5) harmonization of declarative application formats for interactive TV, and; (6) error-correction, data framing, modulation and emission methods for terrestrial multimedia broadcasting for mobile reception using handheld receivers in VHF/UHF bands.
The proposed T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger will “likely improve” the combined carrier’s competitive standing in the U.S. wireless market, which will serve the public interest, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May and Free State research fellow Seth Cooper Monday in an FCC filing. Deutsche Telekom announced Oct. 3 it was merging MetroPCS with T-Mobile in a deal that would give MetroPCS shareholders $1.5 billion in cash and a 26 percent ownership of the combined carrier (CD Oct 4 p1). The FCC had asked for comments as it considers whether to approve the proposed merger; comments were due Monday. T-Mobile will benefit from the addition of MetroPCS’s spectrum and other resources as it seeks to expand its deployment of 4G LTE services, May and Cooper said in the filing. While T-Mobile would benefit from the additional spectrum, it would be unlikely to exceed the FCC’s spectrum screen triggers, they said. “Additional capacity reduces risk of service disruption as spectrum is refarmed and customers migrate to more advanced networks.” The combination would not reduce the number of competitors nationwide or to a “significant” degree in any local market, May and Cooper said (http://xrl.us/bn3mbf).
An economics professor at Stanford University requested information from the FCC cable pricing survey over several years, in a revised Freedom of Information Act request. The data will be used “for non-commercial academic research which will benefit the public interest,” professor Ali Yurukoglu said in the request (http://xrl.us/bn3mac). He said he’s studying “the effect of vertical integration of cable and satellite networks with content, with a focus on regional sports networks.” Yurukoglu asked for responses to several questions about monthly charges for sports tiers and other data (CD Nov 20 p13).