The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on a Budget PrePay petition for a waiver of rules requiring Budget to recertify its June 2012 subscriber base by Dec. 31, and report its findings to the Universal Service Administrative Co. by Jan. 31. Comments in docket 11-42 are due Nov. 23, replies Dec. 7, according to a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnx5jx).
Burlington, Vt., is trying to improve its bond rating with a November election question that has become wrapped in municipal telecom controversy. Conservative political action committee Vermonters First sent out a mailer the weekend of Nov. 3 attacking the election ballot’s Question 1, at stake Tuesday. This ballot item seeks authorization to refinance the city’s funds, a measure local officials have deemed necessary after Burlington’s past spending, a credit downgrade this summer and the misfortunes of municipally funded Burlington Telecom. The ballot question asks if the city should be allowed to issue general obligation bonds “not to exceed nine million dollars,” according to the sample ballot. Burlington would use this refinanced bond money for the city’s working capital, costs and expenses, it said -- “excluding Burlington Telecom,” it specified. But “the bond does not address the underlying threats to our fiscal stability: the $50 million debt of Burlington Telecom and the underfunded city pension,” the Vermonters First mailer said, asking residents to vote no (http://xrl.us/bnx5f3). Mayor Miro Weinberger strongly advocates a yes vote on Question 1. The bonds will “help restore Burlington’s near-junk bond status credit rating, and, over time, will save millions of dollars of unnecessary interest spending,” he said Friday in a statement (http://xrl.us/bnx5hn). The bonds won’t be a Burlington Telecom “bailout,” and the city will “aggressively pursue repayment of the $17 million” the city lent to fund the network, he said in a statement on his site (http://xrl.us/bnx5i8). The city council voted in support of the bond question 13-1, he added. The mayor blasted the mailer on Twitter as “inaccurate” (http://bit.ly/Xeg6WR) and held a press conference Saturday widely reported in local media outlets to say so. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, meanwhile, praised Burlington Telecom in a Monday blog post for its recent announcement that it'll launch one-gigabit speeds for $150 a month starting Dec. 1 (http://xrl.us/bnx5gh).
The Supreme Court decided not to hear a case against TV programmers including Comcast’s NBCUniversal, the high court said Monday (http://xrl.us/bnx5km). Rob Brantley et al. v. NBC Universal et al. was an appeal from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, court records for docket 12-171 show (http://xrl.us/bnx5kj). The 9th Circuit had dismissed a lawsuit by Brantley and other pay-TV subscribers who had sued major cable, DBS and programmer companies, alleging they violated antitrust law by not selling channels individually (CD June 6/11 p16). A lawyer for Brantley had no comment Monday.
The FCC Wireless Bureau set up a pleading cycle for the proposed sale of three lower 700 MHz licenses from Wireless Communications Venture, Central Stearns Comsis and Communications Alternatives to AT&T Mobility. Applicants said the “additional spectrum will enable AT&T to increase its system capacity, particularly for Long Term Evolution services, and to facilitate the provision of additional products and services” in the St. Cloud, Minn., area, the bureau said (http://xrl.us/bnx5f7). Based on a preliminary review, AT&T would hold 75 MHz of spectrum and 55 MHz below 1 GHz in that market, the bureau said. Petitions to deny are due Nov. 16, oppositions Nov. 26 and replies Dec. 3.
The decision by Netflix to adopt a stockholder rights plan was “a very reasonable thing to do in light of the recent accumulation of shares and options by an activist investor,” spokesman Jonathan Friedland said Monday. The activist investor he was clearly referring to, but declined to name, was Carl Icahn, who disclosed in an SEC filing last week that he and his affiliated companies bought about a combined 10 percent of Netflix. Icahn bought the shares with the belief that they were “undervalued due to the Issuer’s dominant market position and international growth prospects,” Icahn said in the filing. Icahn also believes Netflix “may hold significant strategic value for a variety of significantly larger companies that are engaging in more direct competition with one another due to the evolution” of the Internet, mobile and “traditional industry,” the filing said. The Netflix board adopted the stockholder rights plan, often called a “poison pill,” to “protect” the company and its stockholders from “efforts to obtain control” of Netflix that the board “determines are not in the best interests of Netflix and its stockholders, and to enable all stockholders to realize the long-term value of their investment in Netflix,” it said in a news release Monday. Under the plan, Netflix is issuing one right for each current share of common stock outstanding at the close of business Nov. 2, it said. Initially, the rights won’t be exercisable and will trade with shares of Netflix common stock, but if the rights become exercisable, each right will entitle stockholders to buy one one-thousandth of a share of a new series of participating preferred stock at an exercise price of $350 per right, it said. The rights will be exercisable only if a person or group buys 10 percent (or 20 percent in the case of institutional investors filing on Schedule 13G) or more of Netflix common stock in a transaction not approved by the board, it said. If a person or group acquires the 10 or 20 percent or more of outstanding common stock, each right will entitle its holder to buy, at the right’s exercise price, a number of shares of Netflix common stock having a then-current market value of twice the exercise price, it said. The rights will expire Nov. 2, 2015, unless they have previously been redeemed by the board, it said.
The Edison Electric Institute said its members “are in fact among this nation’s largest users of communications networks” and need more spectrum, including access to the 4.9 GHz band. EEI represents electric utilities. “Electric utilities have a strong interest in broad, efficient use of the 4.9 GHz band by utilities and other [critical infrastructure] entities, which will go far to ensure reliability and efficiency of utility communications, particularly during and in the immediate aftermath of emergency situations, when communications may be disrupted,” EEI said (http://xrl.us/bnx44m). Motorola said a key use of the 4.9 GHz band could be wireless backhaul for the new FirstNet (http://xrl.us/bnx46b). “The Commission’s actions in this proceeding on [implementing a nationwide, broadband, interoperable public safety network in the 700 MHz band] should seek to preserve existing uses of the band while enabling continued innovation and efficiency in 4.9 GHz applications,” Motorola said. But the FCC needs to improve frequency coordination procedures for the band “through leveraging the capabilities and expertise of private land mobile radio frequency coordinators and the Regional Planning Committees,” the company said. “The Commission also should revise its 4.9 GHz band licensing policies to promote a diversity of public safety uses, including by expanding eligibility to critical infrastructure industry users and by encouraging jurisdictional licensing."
Accipiter Communications said it “requires” a waiver through 2014 of the $250 per line cap rule and related regression caps in the USF/intercarrier compensation order (http://xrl.us/bnxn7m). Accipiter had previously filed a request for waiver of the $250 per-line per-month cap, and a six-month waiver of the regression caps. But it has since experienced “significant and unexpected revenue reductions” from the National Exchange Carrier Association traffic sensitive pool, it said. Based on updated financial forecasts, to maintain operations Accipiter “has no reasonable alternative but to request a modification of the scope of its waiver,” it said. “Accipiter is a rapidly growing company so the Commission’s use of outdated, historical line counts for determining Accipiter’s universal service support is inaccurate,” it said.
The Texas Public Utility Commission is pleased with how its state USF fund has operated in the last year, according to a report submitted to the Texas Legislature Thursday. The USF fund is “fulfilling the fund’s purposes” and “the Commission’s rulemakings and contested cases being conducted regarding the Large and Small Company High Cost programs will result in continued decreased costs for those programs,” the PUC said (http://xrl.us/bnxn8e). The Thursday report discusses the 11 programs the fund supports as well as talks about the process of determination eligible telecom providers and gives a history surrounding the fund, it said. A 2011 Texas Senate bill requires the PUC to evaluate the USF fund, it said. Programs that receive funding include Texas’s high-cost universal service initiative for big companies as well as for small and rural ILECs, Lifeline, Relay Texas and IntraLATA. Its disbursement in fiscal year 2011 was $426 million, a decline over the past half decade, according to a chart in the report. In fiscal year 2011, “disbursements from the Large Company Area High Cost Program accounted for 63 percent of the fund’s total disbursements,” the report said. “Disbursements from the Small Company Area High Cost Program to providers serving the small ILEC study areas accounted for 19 percent of the fund’s total.” The nine remaining programs comprise 17 percent, or $77 million, of disbursements, it said.
It would take “significant manual efforts” to obtain and prepare certain information sought by the FCC in its upcoming special access data request, Cox Communications told Wireline Bureau officials, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnxnwt). Bureau staff asked about Cox’s ability to provide its facility locations by latitude and longitude as of Dec. 31, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2012, as well as billing and other details for locations where Cox provisions at least 1.5 Mbps of dedicated service, the company said. Because Cox does not maintain a single centralized source for the requested information, it would be difficult to compile, Cox said. Cox would have to convert street addresses of its customers to the desired coordinate format, and combine information from one database that tracks its coaxial cable assets, and another that tracks its fiber assets, it said. Cox also said its pricing information was “highly confidential and very difficult for Cox to capture,” especially given the changes in its system structure since 2010. “We urged Bureau staff to narrow the request, possibly to areas that were deemed uncompetitive based on some proxy, such as market share,” Cox said.
Unbundled network elements have been a topic of a discussion between FCC Wireline Bureau staff and telecom companies as the commission readies its special access data request. In response to a bureau question, relayed through a CompTel representative, about tw telecom’s use of unbundled network elements as inputs to the services it provides to end users, tw telecom said it only serves business customers, and therefore uses UNEs only as inputs to the services that it provides to those business customers. Tw telecom also does not use UNEs to provision standalone information services or special access services for toll traffic, but only as inputs to various bundled services, it said (http://xrl.us/bnxn58). TDS Metrocom met with Wireline Bureau officials Wednesday to discuss its percentage of unbundled network elements used for business customers, and for special access services. The discussion focused on the extent to which TDS uses DS-1 and DS-3 UNE loops in combination with its own transport facilities, compared to its use of “on net” loop facilities to provide dedicated private line services to customers or other carriers, its ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnxnwi). TDS also discussed how much work it would require to provide detailed location and billing information for dedicated private line services.