AT&T signed on to the Maryland Public Service Commission’s supplier diversity initiative Wednesday at a special session. It’s the 17th company to join in this memorandum of understanding, which strives to create more opportunities for diverse suppliers, according to the PSC (http://xrl.us/bnztnq). Eligibility requirements call for a company to earn more than $10 million in Maryland revenue, and the agreement calls for participating companies’ “best efforts” to grant a quarter of all contracts, subcontracts and purchase orders “to diverse suppliers, defined as minority-, women- and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses and not-for-profit organizations,” the PSC said. In a statement, AT&T Mid Atlantic President Michael Schweder touted the telco’s “strong record of success” in supplier diversity. Participating companies have to file annual reports, the PSC said. Maryland’s diverse supplier procurement grew from $294 million in 2010 to $430 million in 2011, it added. There are 16 qualifying companies that don’t participate, according to the PSC.
The FCC Media Bureau issued a series of fines against unlicensed radio operators in Florida. In forfeiture orders released Tuesday, it set fines of $20,000 against Michael William Downer and Damian Anthony Ojouku Allen for operating a station on 101.1 MHz in Pompano Beach (http://xrl.us/bnzot3, http://xrl.us/bnzouh), $15,000 against McArthur Bussey for operating an unlicensed station on 89.1 MHz in Fort Lauderdale (http://xrl.us/bnzoub) and $10,000 against Burt Byng for operating an unlicensed station on 107.1 MHz in Miami.
The federal government’s reliance on commercial satellite communications has increased, said Peter Hoene, development corporate vice president for SES Government Solutions. Overall the government business for SES is about 12 to 15 percent of total revenue, he said Tuesday during a press briefing. The government’s reliance on commercial satellite operators continues to increase, he said: “Today about 80 percent of the capacity that the U.S. government uses is commercial.” The programs of record out there today for the Air Force and the government tend to take a long time and cost a lot of money, he said. “As we go through these very significant fiscal cuts over the next few years, the government’s paying quite a bit of attention to us.” The company is seeing an increase in demand for Ka-band hosted payloads from the government, Hoene said. The commercial needs of the military in Afghanistan, Africa and other areas “will likely drive demand for capacity,” he said. “One of most affordable ways to do that would be through commercial satcom.”
A proposal was circulated on the FCC’s top floor Wednesday to seek public comment on interstate prison phone rules and rates, a commission official said. There has been considerable interest in the issue over the past year and the circulating further notice of proposed rulemaking will refresh the record, the official said. “These issues affect the families of inmates, prisoner rehabilitation, as well as prison security,” an FCC spokesman said. “We look forward to working with all stakeholders as we move forward.” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn spoke in September about the need for the commission to “move forward” on the issue and circulate a rulemaking notice proposing to lower rates for such calls (CD Sept 26 p5). Tuesday, state regulators at a NARUC conference in Baltimore adopted a resolution asking the commission to address high prison call charges (CD Nov 14 p19).
The Commerce Department Office of Inspector General is concerned about oversight of NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. “As these [BTOP] projects near their required 3-year completion dates (between November 2012 and September 30, 2013), the potential for fraud, waste, and abuse associated with such large-dollar-amount awards will increase as recipient spending increases,” said a November report on top management challenges the department faces (http://xrl.us/bnzoud). “However, the uncertain funding for BTOP oversight in FY 2013 and beyond raises significant concerns about the Department’s ability to adequately oversee the program in the future (e.g., closeout of projects and oversight of projects that received extensions).” This management should “remained committed,” the report said. “NTIA is vigorously overseeing our BTOP grantees to ensure they complete their projects on schedule, within budget, and deliver the promised benefits to the communities they serve,” a spokeswoman said.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau published a list of TV programmers that might be in violation of the commission’s closed-captioning rules. The list is of programmers who failed to fix elements of their petitions for waivers from those rules before July 5, a public notice said (http://xrl.us/bnzote). “If the program that was the subject of a petition listed herein aired without captions after the dismissal date of July 5, 2012, the video programming distributor that aired such programming may be in violation of the Commission’s closed captioning rules from that date up until the time that a new petition is filed."
The FCC Media Bureau approved the transfer of control of five TV station licenses from New Young Broadcasting to Standard General Fund, a letter released Wednesday said (http://xrl.us/bnzoso). The stations are WCDC-TV Adams, Mass., KDLO-TV Florence, S.D., KPLO-TV Reliance, S.D., KELO-TV Sioux Falls, S.D, and WTEN Albany, N.Y.
The National Emergency Number Association seeks submissions of less than 20 pages each on issues related to local, state and federal governance. Sample topics include “effectively conveying issues to decision makers, enabling NG9-1-1 through regulatory review, public safety funding opportunities, and restructuring of local/region/state planning, acquisition, and ongoing management of NG9-1-1 services to better enable economic and operational effectiveness,” NENA said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnzotc). Submissions are due Dec. 17, it said, saying they should follow American Psychological Association-backed formatting style and can be submitted electronically.
AT&T’s plans to upgrade its network and replace rural copper lines with wireless (CD Nov 8 p11) is “the single most important development in telecom since passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,” said Harold Feld, Public Knowledge senior vice president, in a blog post Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnznsr). The need for the FCC to develop a cohesive policy framework to manage the transition from TDM to IP-based services is “long overdue,” wrote Lawrence Spiwak, Phoenix Center president, in a blog post Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnzorx). Spiwak predicted “lots of bumps in the road,” including “tremendous opposition to developing a smooth transition from companies whose business plans are based upon arbitraging the current system.” Feld’s Tuesday post Tuesday said AT&T’s plan impacts “just about every aspect of wireline and wireless policy,” because the FCC must balance concerns about competition and fairness with the broader question of “what happens when our 100-year-old copper safety net gets replaced” by “essentially unregulated IP-based networks.” Pro-competitive policies such as special access, unbundled network elements, and “even access to phone numbers” will be up in the air “when the telephone network that supports these policies disappears,” Feld said. Most importantly, the FCC must decide whether Internet Protocol networks must interconnect with each other, and what to do when peering disputes lead to refusals to exchange traffic between networks, he said. “What happens if AT&T and Comcast cannot agree on terms, and several million AT&T Wireless subscribers can no longer call home?” People never expected that cable systems might go for months without carrying TV stations because of “retrans fights,” he said: When people with Comcast phone service can’t call AT&T subscribers, “the impact -- for the economy, for public safety, and for the individuals involved -- is a hell of a lot more significant than missing ‘Mad Men.'” The FCC’s USF/intercarrier compensation order of November 2011 was a “significant” step in that the commission said it would no longer subsidize traditional TDM architecture, Spiwak told us. “That really was the first boulder down the hill.” The problem now, he said, is figuring out a new paradigm, calling AT&T’s proposal for deregulatory test markets a “really interesting way of handling it.”
PrimeLink complained to the New York State Public Service Commission that Verizon owes the company money. The pole attachment invoices Verizon submitted contain amounts that are “excessive, unjust, and unreasonable,” PrimeLink said in a filing posted Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnzosu). These make-ready work rates are based on standards established in New York effective July 1, 2011, also subject to a PrimeLink complaint. These new rates have resulted in construction charges 460 percent higher than Verizon’s typical rates, it said. PrimeLink has provided partial payments to summer invoices but wants relief and for the PSC to declare the rates unjust and unreasonable. “Primelink’s complaint is noticeably silent on the fact that Verizon has not increased its rates since 1987,” a Verizon spokesman said when asked about last year’s rate increase and the complaint. Verizon plans to file a response with the PSC, he added.