The FCC Public Safety Bureau is prioritizing the “reliability and resilience” concerns at the heart of the agency’s post-derecho investigation as well next-generation 911, said Chief David Turetsky at a Wednesday FCBA lunch event. The FCC’s eventual derecho report, set for release before the year’s end and with both confidential and public versions, is being “done in a larger context” than the mid-Atlantic 911 outages and will not be “exclusive to any one carrier,” he said. The report will include analysis of carrier backup power, but Turetsky cautioned that’s “not a yes to any decision about a policy approach that the commission may have at one point taken in the past.” The FCC also owes Congress a report in February on the regulatory framework on the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, and the FCC will invite comments on that topic “soon,” he said. These issues encompass state laws and legal obstacles relevant in implementing NG-911 initiatives, he said. Text-to-911 is “very much on our agenda,” he said. The FCC has a “limited role with respect to FirstNet,” Turetsky said. The transition of spectrum licenses to the FirstNet board is under way, he said, saying the FCC will handle the state opt-out process. The bureau will “soon” standardize the name for the commercial mobile alert system, Turetsky said. “Three names for the same thing is just too much,” he said. “We can do better than that.” Other bureau priorities include narrowbanding, which has an FCC “deadline at year’s end that’s going to remain a deadline,” he said. The commission has “significantly reduced our backlog of older items,” he added. The FCC is monitoring natural disasters and conducting post-incident reports to collect lessons learned, he said. “Hurricane Isaac was the last storm that we fully engaged with.”
Through Sept. 30, about $1.33 billion was spent on political TV ads during the current election cycle, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker wrote investors, citing data from Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. That includes local and national network ad sales. Funds raised among federal candidates during the current cycle reached $4.1 billion by Aug. 31, up 7.7 percent from July 31, she wrote Wednesday. TV stations in the Washington, D.C., market have seen the largest amount of political ad revenue of any market in the top 30, she said. Cleveland, Las Vegas, and in Florida Tampa-St. Petersburg and Orlando-Daytona Beach round out the top five on her list. In smaller markets, political ad sale are making up a much larger share of overall station revenue, she said.
Lingering regulatory uncertainty is frustrating telcos’ efforts to deliver quality broadband services, NTCA told FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in separate meetings Monday (http://xrl.us/bnupq8). Representatives of Wheat State telco and Wilson Communications said their plans to upgrade their networks to deliver faster broadband speeds were “on hold pending greater transparency and visibility into the effects of the regression analysis-based caps,” and the possibility of further changes to the rules, an NTCA ex parte filing said. The companies supported updating the USF mechanisms, but asked the commission to “build upon the best aspects of those mechanisms” rather than “replacing proven systems altogether,” the filing said. The commission should provide universal service support in high-cost areas where consumers want broadband without “being required to take legacy services as well,” it said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau denied two requests for review of Universal Service Administrative Co. decisions. Bestel sought review of a decision upholding late fees assessed for failure to pay into the USF on time. Bestel argued it didn’t receive invoices until months after the due date, but the commission has “consistently stated that carriers must pay their USF obligations even if they do not receive a USAC invoice,” the bureau said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnuppa). Baltimore-Washington Telephone Co. (BWTel) sought review of a USAC decision assessing late fees for failing to timely file the Form 499-A annual telecom reporting worksheets from 2008-10. BWTel said the employee responsible for filing the form had been fired, and so USAC’s multiple invoice statements didn’t reach the right person. This didn’t sway the bureau, which said USAC is “under no obligation to notify filers of delinquent filings” (http://xrl.us/bnupqh). The bureau also denied a request by Digital Compass Telecom for a waiver of USF contribution obligations until December. Digital said it “inadvertently overstated projected revenues” on its Form 499-A, but the bureau found that the company made only “merely cursory” statements and did not explain in specific terms why the waiver would be appropriate and in the public interest (http://xrl.us/bnupqq).
One quarter of small business owners answering a survey at the National Association of Women Business Owners’ conference earlier this month are not confident in their company’s cybersecurity protection. The attendees were questioned about the amount of protection their businesses have from cyberattacks, according to a survey by insurance firm The Travelers Companies (http://xrl.us/bnup6b). The findings, based on a survey of 254 small business owners done at the meeting, show that more than 50 percent of those polled either don’t have or are unaware of a written company business continuity or document recovery plan, according to the release. Small business owners need to understand the threat of cybersecurity risks, said Marc Schmittlein, CEO of Small Commercial at Travelers, because “40 percent of cyberattacks are against organizations with fewer than 500 employees."
Political ad sales and retransmission consent revenue helped Media General’s Q3, the company said Wednesday. Having sold its newspapers, Media General is now focused on higher margin broadcast and digital media businesses, Chief Operating Officer George Mahoney said during a teleconference. He is to succeed CEO Marshall Morton, who is retiring Jan. 1. The company brought in nearly $20 million in political ad revenue during the quarter and $9.4 million from retrans, Morton said. Because of the influx of political ads, Media General’s sales managers have been coordinating with local advertisers about bringing their business back after the election, he said. “The thing they've been wrestling with for the past several weeks is the crowding out issue.” He was referring to the tendency of political spots to leave little ad inventory available for traditional local advertisers. In 2010, Media General succeeded in getting advertisers to plan for placing their spots in November and December, “and I believe we'll be successful in doing that again,” Morton said. “Managing the available time and inventory when you have candidate money and PAC money coming in at the last minute, all looking for a home they like, is a trick,” he said. “But it’s a high-class problem.” Having rid itself of its publishing assets, Media General hopes it will be more attractive to bond and equity investors down the road, Mahoney said. An opportunity to refinance some debt will come up in early 2014, he said. “We are actively monitoring the market, working with our advisers to make sure take advantage of that opportunity to lower our debt costs,” he said. “Being transparent and having fewer broadcast expenses in 2013 will give everyone in the market … a better picture of what we're capable of.” TV station revenue increased 41 percent from a year earlier to $93 million. The company’s net loss widened 1.6 percent from a year earlier on higher interest expenses and other debt-related costs.
Time Warner Cable Business Class started Cloud Services, a software as a service product meant to give small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) access to reliable, easy-to-use communication and collaboration solutions. Cloud Services gives businesses cloud access to services like Hosted Microsoft Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010 and Outlook, the Time Warner Cable subsidiary said Wednesday. The offering will result in lower costs, is flexible to adapt to changing business needs and provides “anywhere access” to email and other essentials, Time Warner Cable Business Class said. “With Time Warner Cable Business Class Cloud Services, SMBs have affordable and reliable access to communications technology that was typically only available to larger enterprises,” Greg King, Time Warner Cable senior vice president-business services product and strategy, said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bnupki).
The Eutelsat 70B satellite arrived in Long Beach, Calif., and was transported to the Sea Launch “Home Port” facility to prepare for a December launch. The satellite will be handed over to Sea Launch’s prime contractor, Energia Logistics, “to be mated with the payload support structure and integrated with the Zenit-3SL launch vehicle before departure to the launch site in November,” Eutelsat said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bnrdkk). The high-capacity Ku-band satellite will be at 70.5 degrees east and be used “for a range of professional applications that include government services, broadband access, GSM backhauling and professional video exchanges in Europe, Africa and Central and South-East Asia,” it said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is giving $550,000 to Connecticut and Massachusetts to help plan and conduct anti-texting-while-driving campaigns. Each will receive $275,000 to train police to improve spotting of drivers who are texting and to develop anti-texting media campaigns, NHTSA said Tuesday. Currently, 39 states ban texting while driving and 10 ban handheld cellphone use while driving. Prior demonstration programs in Hartford, Conn., and Syracuse, N.Y., found it is more difficult to detect texting than it is to detect people talking on their cellphones -- only about 5 percent of the tickets issued through the programs were for texting violations, NHTSA said. “These two new demonstration programs will help identify real-world protocols and practices to better detect if a person is texting while driving,” NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said in the news release. The demonstration programs funded by the grants will last 24 months, and their results will help inform other states facing similar issues, NHTSA said (http://xrl.us/bnupb8).
Great Lakes Data Systems (GLDS) is partnering with Huawei to provide a combined billing and subscriber management solution for Wananchi Group, a Kenya-based broadband service provider. The combined solution “will offer complete service delivery control of voice, video and data services, directly from the billing system,” GLDS said in a news release. GLDS said Wednesday that it completed integration between its WinCable subscriber management and billing system and Huawei’s U2000 Unified Network Management System. The system integration will help minimize revenue loss and ensure better customer satisfaction, GLDS said. “This will help reduce operational cost significantly allowing fast and easy deployment of Huawei FTTx GPON solution for fixed broadband services in Kenya, through which customer user experience can be enhanced by up to 100 [Mbps] to [the] home speeds on fiber access networks,” Huawei Kenya CEO Wind Li said in the GLDS news release (http://xrl.us/bnuo34).