The FCC Wireline Bureau declined to stay the FCC inmate calling reform order Thursday. Global Tel*Link and Securus, top-two inmate calling service (ICS) providers, had asked the bureau to stay the decision pending judicial review. Bureau Chief Julie Veach said the ICS providers were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their challenge, rejecting arguments that the FCC didn’t provide adequate notice that it contemplated a cost-based rate cap structure (http://fcc.us/17NNM4z). Contrary to their characterization, “the adopted regulatory framework does not constitute traditional rate of return regulation,” which uses a “complex tariff filing process,” Veach said. Generally, the ICS providers also failed to prove the public interest supports grant of their stay petitions, the bureau chief said. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she was “pleased that the Wireline Competition Bureau denied requests to indefinitely stay or hold in abeyance reforms to provide just, reasonable and fair rates to inmates and their families.” Clyburn, who was acting chairwoman when the original order was approved, said she looks forward to working with the other commissioners “to adopt permanent rate caps to ensure that inmate calling service phone calls are just and reasonable as required by the statute."
Corrections: The companies that primarily do commercial satellite launches are European and Russian, said Satellite Industry Association President Patricia Cooper. She said the U.S. is the place where she expects the prices of launches would have to take into account additional risk, absent commercial launch indemnification (CD Nov 21 p14). … None of Harris Corp.’s LTE projects (CD Nov 21 p5) is in Harris County, Texas.
AT&T appreciates the California Public Utilities Commission’s “swift and fair” consideration of the merger between AT&T and Leap/Cricket on Nov. 8, said AT&T California President Ken McNeeley in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/18rmCin). The CPUC’s review sends an “important signal” to the federal government that combining the two companies is “in the public’s interest, delivers real benefits to consumers, and makes sense in an increasingly competitive marketplace,” said McNeeley.
Two individuals associated with Wise Media agreed to FTC settlements over allegations the company added unwarranted charges to users’ cellphone bills, totaling more than $10 million in consumer injury, according to a Thursday commission news release (http://1.usa.gov/1dkNXXq). “This case involved a new delivery system for an old-fashioned scam,” said Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich. “Getting consumers’ consent before charging them is as basic a consumer protection as you'll find, whether you're dealing with a brick and mortar store or with a mobile payment provider.” The FTC complaint alleged Wise Media set up recurring monthly charges of $9.99 without consent on consumers’ cellphone bills for “premium services,” including text messages with horoscopes and love tips, according to the release. The settlement includes a $10 million-plus judgment (http://1.usa.gov/18rMn1V). Brian Buckley, the company’s CEO, must also surrender all of his assets. Cyberfraud lawyer Mark Campbell of Changus Campbell represented both defendants in the settlement and said Buckley was “unavailable for comment.” Winston DeLoney was the other individual who agreed to the settlement. Deloney “was simply an investor in Wise and had absolutely no knowledge of or control over its day-to-day operations,” said Campbell in a written statement. “Mr. DeLoney was not privy to the enrollment, billing, or provision of services by Wise. Mr. DeLoney voluntarily returned $175,817 from his investment for refunds to Wise’s subscribers.”
Judges in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are likely to uphold the FCC Connect America Fund order, wrote Stifel Nicolaus analysts Christopher King and David Kaut in a research note Thursday. Based on what they have “heard and read so far” about Tuesday’s oral argument (CD Nov 20 p2, Nov 21 p6), the analysts expect the judges to issue their ruling in Q2 or Q3, generally upholding the revamp of the $4.5 billion USF and the intercarrier compensation framework. King and Kaut said the panel could be “more skeptical” about agency reforms limiting broadband USF subsidies for rate-of-return rural telcos. The ruling will be “generally helpful to ‘midsize’ price-cap wireline telcos” that gain access to broadband USF support, the analysts said. It could also be helpful to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, which all stand to gain from reductions in long-distance and wireless intercarrier compensation payments to LECs, they said. “We note oral arguments can be a shaky barometer of court sentiment, and we believe particular caution is in order here, due to the complexity of the case and its fallout, and the fact that we did not attend the all-day session in Denver,” the analysts said. “So the court could still come out any number of ways, with murky ramifications."
Broadband and connected devices are changing every aspect of Americans’ lives, and they can change education too, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said at a White House event Thursday. The event, attended by President Barack Obama, honored 10 educators who use technology to help students compete in a connected world. Other countries are wiring their schools with high-speed broadband and replacing traditional textbooks with digital readers, Rosenworcel said. “There is no reason for us to settle for the status quo and let other nations lead. We can do this.” Rosenworcel touted the administration’s ConnectED program, with its goal of connecting 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed broadband within five years. The FCC’s E-rate program is a big part of that, she said, having helped connect more than 95 percent of schools to the Internet “by providing support to low-income and rural schools across the country.” Obama said as long as he’s president, “I'm going to keep working not only to support the great work that educators and librarians are doing across the country but more fundamentally to make sure that young people are getting every opportunity that they deserve to thrive and succeed in this modern economy.” This is not just about wiring schools, Obama said. “it’s about changing students’ lives."
More than one third of calls to 911 emergency centers in Utah from wireless phones in June did not include accurate location information, said the Find Me 911 Coalition in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1bGbH1B). The data was released to coincide with an FCC workshop Monday on 911 location accuracy data (CD Nov 19 p1). The Find Me 911 Coalition said 846,090 of the wireless calls received in Utah 911 emergency centers since January 2011 lacked accurate Phase II location Information based on FCC data. Phase II location information displays the location of the caller, but in most cases, the 911 call center received only Phase I data, which showed the location of the cell tower from which the call originated, said the Find Me 911 Coalition.
Cox Communications allowed free access to nearly 200,000 Wi-Fi hotspots for customers using its Preferred, Premier or Ultimate High Speed Internet services. Customers can access the hotspots in cities including Los Angeles, New York and Austin, Cox said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ayNUUw). The new hotspots are located in such “high-traffic areas” as restaurants, malls and beaches, it said. “More hotspots are expected to be added before the end of the year as the integration with other cable operators continues,” Cox said.
House Republican leadership has taken an interest in moving forward with a National Security Agency surveillance proposal from the House Intelligence Committee. “There is significant member interest in this issue as well as multiple committees with jurisdiction,” a leadership aide told us when asked about the House Intelligence proposal. “Leadership is working to ensure that there is a well-coordinated process with all interested parties going forward.” No details of the House NSA proposal have been disclosed, but Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., described elements of it during an open House Intelligence hearing this fall. At a Thursday closed markup session of HR-3381, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2014, Rogers said he wants to consider any NSA bill separately from the authorization act because House Intelligence shares jurisdiction over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with the House Judiciary Committee. “I remain committed to continuing to work with members to move a FISA bill forward, but I hope we will save any amendments to FISA that Members are interested in pursing for a later day,” Rogers said in his opening statement (http://1.usa.gov/1fnGbwb) which was released outside of the hearing. The intelligence authorization passed by voice vote and advances to the House floor. A spokeswoman for Ruppersberger told us by email: “Since we did not reach the point of mark-up” of the House Intelligence NSA bill Thursday during the closed session, “there was still much that was up in the air, but the bill and any potential amendments all sought to enhance transparency, accountability, and oversight of the [intelligence community] and its national security laws and programs.” The House Intelligence bill is widely expected to preserve the government’s phone metadata bulk collection, which an alternative proposal from House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., would end. Sensenbrenner’s bill is called the USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, and now has 98 co-sponsors in the House, with two California members signing on Wednesday. “Leadership has not reached out to Congressman Sensenbrenner on NSA legislation,” a spokesman for Sensenbrenner told us Thursday. Several companies and nonprofits submitted a joint letter to House and Senate leaders Thursday urging support for Sensenbrenner’s bill and slamming alternatives that do not go as far. “We oppose legislation that codifies sweeping bulk collection activities,” the letter said (http://bit.ly/1aTXqgE). It was signed by many groups, including the Center for Democracy & Technology, Public Knowledge, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Free Press, TechFreedom, Mozilla, NetChoice, Tumblr and Reddit.
The Department of Defense has made major progress working through spectrum issues, deciding it doesn’t need to focus on sharing in the 5 GHz band, and is instead working with broadcasters on sharing broadcast auxiliary service spectrum at 2025 MHz, and working toward the opening of the 1755 MHz band for wireless broadband, said Tom Power, deputy federal chief technology officer, at a New America Foundation event Thursday. (See related story in this issue.) “There’s sort of this perception or caricature of this relationship between the agencies and industry as being this tug of war on spectrum with both sides not acting reasonably and the agencies hoarding spectrum,” he said. “But if you look at the work that these folks are doing, and I'll single out DOD … it’s really, really been impressive. They have important missions to execute on and protect, but they are also focused on the economy."