Cox Communications opposed a petition from MPS Media’s WNBW-TV Gainesville, Fla., to waive the significantly viewed status of WESH-TV Daytona Beach and WJXT-TV and WTLV-TV both of Jacksonville for the communities of Gainesville, Newberry, Alachua City and unincorporated Alachua County. The Nielsen data about those stations’ viewership fails to support grant of a waiver, Cox said (http://xrl.us/bnotbb). “The Petition and Survey ... are fundamentally deficient under the Commission’s rules and should be summarily rejected,” Cox said. “WNBW is prohibited from exercising syndicated exclusivity against” the two Jacksonville stations in unincorporated Alachua County because those stations signal contours cover parts of those communities, Cox said.
The U.S. should continue to make funding for information and communications technology (ICT) research a national priority, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) said in comments submitted Friday to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Federal research money for ICT research programs, especially the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program, are “critical to buffer and offset the decline of private research funding during periods of financial crisis,” TIA said. Any decrease in federal funding for such programs would compound damage already done to the ICT research ecosystem, TIA said. “While the U.S. still boasts the strongest research ecosystem in the world, we are beginning to see signs of erosion as competing nations take strong steps to attract ICT research to build innovation-based economies,” TIA said. Greater coordination among the different federal research programs will need to increase as ICT further integrates into different economic sectors, TIA said (http://xrl.us/bnotap).
Export control reform faces difficulty in balancing business and national security concerns, said Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank. It’s “important that our export control reform efforts don’t get in the way of our innovation efforts, and whenever possible, don’t get in the way of our production and export opportunities,” she said last week at a meeting of the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration. The Bureau of Industry and Security has seven proposed rules awaiting approval from the Office of Management and Budget, said Eric Hirschhorn, BIS undersecretary for industry and security. The interagency review process for the rules is done, but OMB has other agencies’ rules to review as well, he said. BIS hopes to have the unified USXPORTS IT platform in initial operability for the State Department and the Commerce Department sometime this fall, Hirschhorn said. The first required notification to Congress of movement of items from the U.S. munitions list (USML) to the commerce control list will hopefully occur this fall, but depends in part on how quickly the review of the specially designed definition progresses, he said. BIS also continues pushing to restore presidential authority to determine export controls on satellites, currently controlled on the USML per statutory mandate, but the House legislation to accomplish this goal still includes provisions that could “delay or cripple” the Export Control Reform initiative, Hirschhorn said. This year, the House passed the FY13 National Defense Authorization bill, which includes a provision that reduces the cost for U.S. manufacturers to export satellites and components (CD May 21 p3). BIS is pushing for constructive changes to these provisions before the national defense authorization bill, which contains the relevant provisions, reaches President Barack Obama’s desk, which will probably be late in this calendar year, Hirschhorn said.
The FCC should promptly grant the NCTA’s forbearance petition that would make it easier for cable operators to buy CLECs in the same local franchise area, Senior Vice President Rick Chessen and a representative from Time Warner Cable told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnos9f). “Even though such transactions are almost always pro-competitive, the Commission still has ample authority under Section 214 to assess the competitive and other public interest implications of any cable-CLEC transaction,” the notice said. State public utility commissions typically review such deals as well, the notice said. “Imposing additional regulatory hurdles for such transactions serves no valid purpose.” Independent Telephone & Telecommunications officials separately countered some of NCTA’s arguments during teleconferences with aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, according to an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnos9w). “Any argument that regulatory relief is necessary to allow cable companies to compete with ‘much larger’ incumbent wireline carriers -- represents a gross mischaracterization of the current domestic telecommunications environment,” the filing said. “The combined effect of cable’s increasing market share, the robust growth in VoIP service subscribership and the overall shrinkage of the wireline voice service market has had a dramatic impact on ILECs that NCTA completely ignores,” it said. “It takes enormous audacity for NCTA to argue that cable companies should be given a regulatory hand-out through a waiver or forbearance from Section 652(b) as a means to ‘rekindle’ competition for local exchange service,” the filing said. “The commission should refrain from taking action that would essentially provide wholesale approval of transactions that would eliminate a competitor from the market and create further disparities in regulatory treatment among service providers."
Blue Jay Wireless, which has applied to the FCC to be designated as an eligible telecommunications carrier to offer Lifeline service, is now open for business, the carrier said in a filing at the commission (http://xrl.us/bnos9d). “Blue Jay hereby informs the Commission that as of today it has launched non-Lifeline wireless services and begun signing up customers,” the filing said. “Blue Jay reiterates its request for expeditious approval of its Compliance Plan."
Verizon attorneys met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell to urge the FCC to retain in full its ban on exclusive contracts between pay-TV operators and the networks they own, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnos8a). “We emphasized, however, that at a minimum this protection should be retained with respect to must-have non-replicable programming, such as regional sports networks,” the notice said. Relying on the complaint process to address withholding of regional sports programming under Section 628(b) of the Communications Act would be “unduly burdensome,” the notice said. “As Verizon’s experience shows, the process of litigating such a complaint can allow cable incumbents to reap the rewards of their unfair withholding for months, if not years, while the litigation proceeds, thus denying consumers more meaningful competitive choices."
Ion’s WTPX-TV Antigo, Wis., withdrew its request for a waiver from the FCC’s Common Alerting Protocol rules, a filing shows (http://xrl.us/bnos7u).
An administrative law judge (ALJ) denied Glenn Baxter’s motions to compel the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to produce certain documents related to Baxter’s amateur radio service station K1MAN and to appoint a “special prosecutor” to look into the FCC’s handling of his application. “Mr. Baxter enters a theatre of the absurd when he moves the Commission for an appointment of a Special Prosecutor who would investigate and prosecute ‘all the alleged felonies committed directly related to this case,'” ALJ Richard Sippel wrote in the order (http://xrl.us/bnos7b). The order stems from a long-running dispute over Baxter’s compliance with the Enforcement Bureau actions. “Not only does the relief sought by Mr. Baxter completely lack any legal, equitable or historical support, but the very request is bold, brash and without precedent and cannot be judicially considered,” the order said. “Mr. Baxter’s request is denied and so that this case may proceed properly, it is strongly urged that Mr. Baxter review the Commission’s rules regarding hearing procedures, or retain an experienced attorney, so that he may proceed in this case with respect for parties, procedures and also avoid further foolish missteps.” Baxter didn’t immediately respond to our request for comment.
The Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) called on the FCC to revise its process for collecting regulatory fees. “This process has not been re-evaluated since originally implemented in 1994, almost twenty years ago, but light years away when considering the seismic changes in the regulatory landscape during that twenty-year period,” the group said in a comment filing (http://xrl.us/bnos63). “While a substantial percentage of the Alliance’s members also utilize spectrum regulated under other FCC rules, both licensed and unlicensed, the spectrum authorized under Part 90 typically represents the core of their communications facilities. For this reason, EWA and its members have a keen interest in the FCC’s investigation of its regulatory fee structure generally and, in particular, in the portion of the covered costs presumed to be attributable to the Part 90 Private Land Mobile Radio services."
The House Communications Subcommittee scheduled a hearing to examine federal spectrum for Thursday at 10:15 a.m. in Room 2123 Rayburn. Witnesses include: Oceus Networks CEO Douglas Smith; Government Accountability Office Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues Mark Goldstein; Karl Nebbia, associate administrator of the NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management; Steve Sharkey, T-Mobile’s chief of engineering and technology policy; Preston Marshall, University of Southern California’s deputy director of the Information Sciences Institute; and Maj. Gen. Robert Wheeler, deputy chief information officer for command, control, communications and computers and information infrastructure at the Department of Defense. Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a statement members will investigate how federal agencies and commercial wireless carriers could benefit from more efficient government use of spectrum. “As the single largest spectrum user, the federal government could save taxpayers money and make more frequencies available to meet American consumers’ growing demand for mobile broadband services, while improving its own capabilities,” he said.