Globalstar urged the FCC to incorporate ground-based systems and deployable aerial communications architecture into new rules for operating emergency networks. The company highlighted an emergency response interoperable communications system that utilizes Globalstar’s mobile satellite service network for backhaul to the public switched telephone network, it said in an ex parte filing in docket 11-15 (http://xrl.us/bnsbt8). Globalstar executives met with Public Safety Bureau staff last week, it said. This ground-based system “represents a rapid, cost-efficient means of deploying reliable and interoperable communications to areas where terrestrial communications are disabled following a catastrophic event,” it said. Globalstar also updated staff on the ongoing deployment of its second-generation big low earth orbit satellite network, it added.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau intends to grant FirstNet existing public safety broadband spectrum and the 700 MHz D Block “as expeditiously as possible,” the bureau said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnsbqg). FirstNet Chairman Sam Ginn formally requested the spectrum in a letter to the FCC last week.
U.S. governors launched an initiative to combat cyberattacks and increase cybersecurity awareness, the National Governors Association (NGA) said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnsbs9). The association created the Resource Center for State Cybersecurity and selected Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) to lead it. The initiative is to focus on “the role state policy can and should play in ensuring adequate cybersecurity for state-owned and state-based infrastructure including data and communication systems, financial records, banking systems, water systems, electrical grids and energy companies,” NGA said. It says the center is needed because of “rapidly evolving and expanding” technological threats. To help fight cyberthreats, the center will form a planning group, commission white papers, create a National Policy Council on State Cybersecurity, issue recommendations on state policy and offer “technical assistance” to different governors’ offices, according to NGA. The center will, as time progresses, identify specific states in which it'll help implement its recommendations, it said.
Bedford County now has access to Smart911, the third county in Tennessee to feature the emergency service, Rave Mobile Safety announced Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnsbcq). Smart911 allows people to create free profiles online as part of a national database, intended to be a “proactive” step in providing information to emergency dispatchers, according to the company. When a person calls 911, the dispatchers immediately can see all the personal information presented in the profiles, it said. Bedford County E911 Director Phillip Noel emphasized how 911 centers normally receive little personal information from callers in distress, “especially if [the call] is made on a mobile phone,” he said in a statement. The safety profiles can be created at www.smart911.com and include medical conditions, photos and a listing of relatives, and will “be kept confidential” until a 911 call, Rave Mobile Safety said. The Smart911 service is available in over 300 municipalities across 23 states, it said. The company has issued several announcements about new launches throughout September.
ComScore said its new validated Campaign Essentials online video ratings service will let clients “better align video campaign measurement with TV” by providing validated gross ratings points (GRPs). The service will provide traditional and validated audience metrics of an ad’s viewability, it said. That includes reach, frequency, GRPs, target ratings points (TRPs) and validated GRPs and TRPs. “Video campaign GRPs were a necessary first step to facilitate cross-media planning with TV, but viewability represents a giant leap forward in video’s quest for TV dollars,” Mark Trefgarne, CEO of LiveRail, said in a press release. “It introduces a new standard for validated views that begins to leverage the immense measurement capabilities of digital video for traditional TV buyers."
Communities are attempting to reconcile law, regulation and concerns as more carriers want to make use of the rights-of-way space due to rising data demands, NATOA panelists said in two sessions Friday and Saturday. “We are facing applications from wireless providers” that want to locate in the rights of way, said Fort Lauderdale, Fla., municipal telecom lawyer Gary Resnick, also part of the FCC’s Intergovernmental Advisory Committee since 2006. But concerns among communities include not only those of health and environment but aesthetic and property value, said Mary Beth Henry, deputy director of the Portland, Ore., Office of Cable Communications and Franchise Management and the Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission. “In Portland we really needed to involve everybody,” Henry said. She described elaborate neighborhood meetings to discuss what rights-of-way management entailed as more wireless companies seek out the space. There’s now “a need for wireless infrastructure in neighborhoods,” she said. Of the 1,007 cell sites in Portland, 76 are located in the public right-of-way space, she said. American Tower State & Local Government Affairs Director Liz Hill emphasized the importance of collocation on these sites. “The visual impact is already there,” she said. “It reduces citizen outcry.” Portland hasn’t added new towers since 2004, Henry said. Industry should be invited to the discussions, Hill said, suggesting several industry resources. Communities should update their ordinances if they're from the “pre-iPhone era” preceding 2007, she added, noting that industry doesn’t like dealing with “messy” litigation any more than communities. Federal law can’t keep up with the technological changes whereas local governments can, said Best Best’s Nicholas Miller, a municipal telecom lawyer who specializes in representing local governments. He advocated for ways local communities can still exert their powers on the rights of way and other public spaces. “Don’t abandon your police power authority,” he said. The law doesn’t keep up with regulation, Resnick said, calling wireless and other similar advances examples of “disruptive technologies.”
Applied Satellite Technology agreed to distribute Globalstar Europe Satellite Services’ suite of products to the defense, government and maritime sectors in the U.K. AST plans to enrich its portfolio of mobile satellite services products and offer more choice to its resellers by offering Globalstar’s voice call quality and enhanced duplex service, Globalstar said. Globalstar continues to roll out its second-generation satellite constellation to support its lineup of voice and machine-to-machine products and services, it said.
Bloomberg and Comcast each rebutted the other’s arguments in the two companies’ long-running channel lineup dispute. Both had asked the FCC to review parts of an earlier Media Bureau order calling for Comcast to include Bloomberg TV in more news “neighborhoods” on its channel lineups, pursuant to the conditions of the agency letting the cable operator buy control of NBCUniversal. “With Comcast delaying implementation of the FCC’s merger order for almost 2 years now, it’s essential that the FCC move swiftly to force Comcast, once and for all, to comply with the neighborhooding order immediately,” Greg Babyak, head of government affairs for Bloomberg, said in a statement emailed to reporters. Meanwhile, Comcast said the commission should not be swayed by Bloomberg’s arguments to lift a partial stay of the Media Bureau order (http://xrl.us/bnr7z8). “It is beyond dispute that the various applications for review in this proceeding present the Commission with its first opportunity to address the implementation of the Condition,” Comcast said. The outcome will determine not only how this dispute is resolved, but also how Comcast will have to handle similar requests from other independent programmers, it said. “Under these circumstances, a partial stay is reasonable and prudent.” Bloomberg argued that the standard definition and HD versions of its channel are different. “Comcast cannot treat SD and HD channels as the same for compliance purposes,” Bloomberg said (http://xrl.us/bnr7yr). “It is yet another attempt by Comcast to avoid the commitment it made when it accepted the news neighborhooding condition."
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on CenturyLink’s supplemental petition for a limited waiver of the call signaling rules, a public notice said (http://xrl.us/bnr7qe). The bureau already sought comment on CenturyLink’s original petition (CD Feb 1 p13), but the telco supplemented its request with “several additional scenarios where a waiver is appropriate” and which should “fall within the scope of its request for relief,” said the notice, quoting CenturyLink’s petition. Comments are due Oct. 31, replies Nov. 15.
Comcast is larger today than TCI was when Congress passed the Cable Act in 1992, attorneys for the Tennis Channel told Media Bureau officials and an official from the FCC’s Office of General Counsel, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnr7xq). They urged the officials not to drop a “per se prohibition on exclusive arrangements” between cable operators and the networks they own “without taking into account the challenges and disincentives associated with case-by-case enforcement,” the notice said. And if the commission allows the ban on exclusive contracts to expire, as it set to do this week, “it should make unmistakably clear ... that vertically-integrated MVPDs continue to have the incentive and ability to discriminate in favor of affiliated content and against unaffiliated content,” it said.