New York City launched its ConnectNYC competition Friday, which promises to install $12 million worth of free fiber for winning small and medium-sized businesses, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg (http://xrl.us/bnvhna). “We need to make sure New York City’s wiring is competitive with other cities,” Bloomberg said in a statement. The $12 million cost for these two years of free connection will be provided by Time Warner Cable Business Class and Cablevision, according to the city. The funding is committed as “part of their recent cable television franchise renewals,” the mayor added. The competition’s application process started Friday and continues through Nov. 27 and winners will be announced in early 2013, the mayor said. The New York Economic Development Corp. and the start-up ChallengePost are running the competition, according to the city. “Contestants demonstrating the highest potential impact of fiber connectivity -- on their own business, nearby businesses, and underserved areas -- will become finalists,” Economic Development Corp. said on an official blog (http://bit.ly/Rptv8W). “Potential winners will be required to sign a one-year service contract with a participating ISP at negotiated market rates before they are eligible to receive a free fiber build-out.” The city expects to connect 100 businesses in the next year and 240 over the next two, it said.
A draft report by the European Conference of Postal and Telecom Administrations, known as CEPT, confirmed Monday that EU governments agreed preliminarily to reject a proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association to add a “sending-network-pays” provision to the ITU’s International Telecom Regulations (ITRs) (CD Oct 22 p7). The agreed response was that CEPT “agrees that the concerns raised by the ETNO proposal are very relevant for the future of the sector and should be addressed,” but CEPT “is of the opinion however that these cannot be solved through modification of the ITRs.” Administrations do not support the inclusion of any provision on those issues in the ITRs, the draft says, but are committed to addressing them within the ITU and/or in other relevant fora. If that text isn’t approved by the CEPT Working Group ITU plenary, alternative wording will say that “[for the moment,] CEPT does not agree with the inclusion of any provision regarding [Internet Protocol] interconnection in the ITRs.” The organization met last week in Istanbul to arrive at a common EU position before December’s ITU World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai.
Europe’s policy framework for investment in high-speed broadband should ensure equal opportunities for challenger investors, chief financial officers from the European Competitive Telecommunications Association told EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes Monday. But policies should preserve the investments alternative operators have made since they entered the market and their ability to act as a catalyst for competitive consumer offers and funding of super-fast broadband networks, it said. The European Commission, which is working on rules to last until 2020, must recognize that new players have been the main drivers of fiber investment and the take-up of advanced broadband by consumers, said ECTA Chairman Tom Ruhan. More than 10 years after the telecom sector was liberalized, alternative operators are still seriously affected by discrimination in access conditions and pricing abuses from dominant operators, ECTA said. They're forced to spend large amounts of their cash flows on overpriced access charges to legacy copper networks, making it hard to compete and invest, it said. ECTA urged Kroes to tighten nondiscrimination rules guaranteeing equivalent inputs at the wholesale level and preventing price abuses at the wholesale and retail levels.
Intelsat requested special temporary authority of 30 days to use its Ku-band earth station in Hagerstown, Md. The company is seeking an STA from Nov. 9 through Dec. 7, to provide launch and early orbit phase services for the Eutelsat 21B satellite that is expected to launch Nov. 9, it said in an application to the International Bureau (http://xrl.us/bnvhyb).
The Florida Public Service Commission plans to hear Qwest’s complaint against other telcos about intrastate switched access services in multiple sessions this week, it said Friday (http://xrl.us/bnvhfm). The complaint “alleges that certain companies entered into agreements outside existing tariffs and failed to offer [Qwest] equal opportunity, as required by Florida Statutes,” according to the PSC. The first hearing will start Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. in Tallahassee, and will resume at that time Wednesday and Thursday, according to the PSC. A prehearing order released Wednesday said the proceeding dates back to December 2009 and notes 15 parties have been “voluntarily dismissed” in the last two years (http://xrl.us/bnvhho).
Gannett said it bought Rovion, a digital ad business, from Local Corp. The acquired company’s main product, Ad Composer, lets advertisers develop “rich-media and mobile HTML5 ads” without needing experience in computer programming, Gannett said.
The Edward W. Scripps Trust ended Thursday with the death of Robert P. Scripps, E.W. Scripps Co. said Friday. The trust’s assets, which include a 43 economic percent stake in the company, will be distributed to “certain descendants,” Scripps Co. said (http://xrl.us/bnu3xx). “We anticipate a smooth transition in the control of the company and will rely on the support of our founders’ great-grandchildren to help us fulfill the company’s mission and strategic objectives,” said Rich Boehne, the company’s CEO.
The FCC should make several changes to mitigate “regression analysis issues” inherent in the commission’s new USF model for determining reimbursable capital and operating expenditures, NTCA told the Wireline Bureau chief and advisers to Chairman Julius Genachowski and commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai (http://xrl.us/bnu3vv). NTCA wants the commission to extend the phase-in associated with the regression analysis caps; maintain current 2012 model cost limits but add together the capital and operating expenditure values for 2013 support calculations “pending consideration of a single regression model”; and adopt a rule that keeps the caps constant over a period of several years starting in 2014, as opposed to shifting year by year, its ex parte filing said. Further testing and analysis over the next year will help the commission identify “potential alternatives” to improve predictability, accuracy and transparency of the model, NTCA said.
Connected Nation discussed the process for challenging broadband mapping data used by the FCC “leveraged” by the agency “to inform public policy,” the nonprofit said in an ex parte filing Friday (http://xrl.us/bnu3va). Connected Nation conducts provider service change detection testing on a systematic basis, it said, and verifies public announcements of changes in service territory. For example, when a telco announces replacement of copper with fiber, Connected Nation sometimes dispatches an engineer into the field to “verify” such data, it reported telling Wireline Bureau officials.
Clearwire representatives told FCC officials they're offering some modifications to a Wireless Communications Association proposal for rules governing out-of-band-emission limits for mobile digital stations in the 2.5 GHz band to accommodate the use of the wider channel bandwidths. The modifications address concerns raised on the petition, the company said (http://xrl.us/bnu3t9). “Clearwire explained that its proposed modification addresses and resolves the concerns expressed by Globalstar Corporation and the Engineers for the Integrity of Broadcast Auxiliary Services Spectrum in their comments to this proceeding while also providing significant benefits to Clearwire and other licensees in the 2.5 GHz band as they seek to deploy advanced mobile devices using larger bandwidths and achieving higher data rates."