Three FCC members had voted to approve an order clearing Verizon Wireless’s buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox (CD Aug 17 p1) as of late Tuesday, agency officials said. Chairman Julius Genachowski voted for the order, as have Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai. The order also approves Verizon’s proposed spectrum swaps with T-Mobile and Leap. The unofficial deadline for FCC action on the Verizon/SpectrumCo deal was Tuesday. Former Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan, who remained at the agency at Genachowski’s request to oversee work on the order, is expected to leave the agency after the order is approved.
RCN again told the FCC it’s concerned about the commercial arrangements between Verizon Wireless and several top cable operators (http://xrl.us/bnmo3m) that accompany those parties’ proposed spectrum deal. The Justice Department’s proposed final judgment (CD Aug 17 p1) on the deal falls short of preventing competitive harm from those agreements, RCN said. The FCC should prohibit Verizon Wireless from selling the cable companies’ services in any designated market area (DMA) where FiOS is “authorized to be offered to at least 10 percent of the residences” or at least in any Zip Code adjacent to another where FiOS is offered or authorized to be offered, it said. The commission should bar Verizon from regional advertising of cable services in those DMAs, RCN said. In those DMAs, Verizon Wireless stores should be prohibited from providing any information about the cable companies’ services “apart from referring customers to Internet sites or providing toll-free numbers,” the cable operator said. The FCC should clarify the definition of “FiOS Footprint” so that a franchise agreement to build FiOS in the District of Columbia is not a statewide franchise agreement, RCN said. It said Verizon Wireless and the cable companies should be required to license technology developed by the joint operating entity (JOE) set up by the deal on commercially reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates within six months of when JOE members can access the technology.
Executives from AT&T and Sirius XM urged the FCC to adopt their proposed changes on shared use of the 2.3 GHz band for the wireless communications service (WCS) and the satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS). The companies filed the proposal this year (CD June 19 p1). They reiterated that WCS and SDARS “have been burdened with technical limitations and regulatory uncertainty,” they said in an ex parte filing about a meeting with Louis Peraertz, aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (http://xrl.us/bnmoz4). Adopting the parties’ proposed changes “will permit deployment of innovative mobile broadband services in the WCS band and will help to achieve the commission’s goal of making additional spectrum available for mobile broadband service,” they said. Doing so also will ensure that SDARS customers continue receiving desired programming “while removing the uncertainty Sirius XM has faced concerning the future technical rules under which it must operate,” they added.
The FCC and Silicondust USA signed a consent decree (http://xrl.us/bnmo2p) resolving an Enforcement Bureau investigation into possible violations of “unintentional radiator” rules. The agency was looking into a TV antenna and tuner sold by Silicondust that did not include required language under the FCC’s Part 15 rules, the consent decree said. “Silicondust subsequently submitted an affidavit certifying that as of April 14, 2010, its HD HomeRun television tuner devices were labeled in accordance” with FCC rules, the consent decree said. It called for a voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury by Silicondust of $2,800 and certain compliance measures. Silicondust didn’t immediately comment.
Amateur radio can play a major role during disasters and could prove even more valuable if there were more cooperation on training protocols among the federal government, public safety, emergency management officials and amateur radio emergency communications associations and groups, the FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus said in a new report to Congress (http://xrl.us/bnmo2t). The report recommended that the Department of Homeland Security “work with state, local, and tribal authorities to develop disaster area access policies and qualifications for trained amateur operators who provide emergency communications support.” The report cited news reports and various case studies of how amateur radio operators have already been important to sustained communications when disaster strikes. Responses to an FCC public notice “indicate agreement between the amateur radio community and public safety community as to the utility of amateur radio in emergency response situations,” the report said. “Amateur radio communications are suited to disaster response in a way that many more advanced forms of communication today are not, thereby allowing it to supplement other emergency communications activities during disasters.” Because amateur networks are generally spread across wide geographical areas “they have the ability to spread critical disaster-related information to areas far from the disaster area,” the report found. “Because they can utilize different frequency bands and emission types, amateur radio networks can operate under a wide variety of conditions. The flexibility and geographical dispersion of amateur radio networks provide advantages for relaying information out of localized disaster zones and into outside jurisdictions coordinating recovery efforts."
The FCC is seeking comments on potential changes to its Connect America fund rules, it said in a filing released Tuesday and issued July 25. Windstream Communications had asked the FCC for a waiver of portions of section 54.312(b) of the Commission’s rules, which says a recipient of Connect America Fund Phase I incremental support must deploy broadband to one unserved location, as shown on the then-current National Broadband Map, for every $775 of incremental support the recipient accepts, the Wireline Bureau said. “First, Windstream seeks a waiver of the requirement to connect to one unserved location for every $775 in incremental support it receives. Second, Windstream seeks a waiver so that it might use Connect America Fund Phase I incremental support to deploy second-mile fiber.” The comment due date is Friday and reply date is Sept. 10.
The National Religious Broadcasters association asked the FCC to adopt rule changes to allow noncommercial educational (NCE) stations to raise funds on air for other non-profit organizations. In docket 12-106, NRB opposed comments from New England Public Radio and REC Networks, a low-power broadcasting services company. REC claimed that allowing this change would open doors for organizations to raise funds that directly benefit their parent organizations (http://xrl.us/bnmoxf). REC fails to demonstrate “how that would be harmful to the public interest, or would defeat the purposes behind the noncommercial educational classification,” NRB said (http://xrl.us/bnmoxm). NRB supports requiring clear disclosures to be made by the station indicating the identity of the organization for which the on-air fundraising efforts are being made, it said. “This could also include identifying whether the organization is a ‘parent organization’ of the station.” Through the change, “the listening or viewing audience would be reminded that the NCE station is about the business of public interest, as evidenced by the non-profit status of the groups for which it raises funds,” NRB said in response to NEPR’s comments (http://xrl.us/bnmox8). NEPR also argued that the proposed regulation “could weaken the public’s confidence in the editorial independence and balanced reporting of noncommercial stations and that if the public were to question whether news or interviews favor an entity for which the station is fundraising, then trust is broken,” NRB said. This concern is unfounded, “given the fact that current commission rules permit an NCE station to accept short sponsorship and underwriting mentions on the air, not only from non-profit groups, but from commercial businesses as well,” NRB added.
Google Offers and Boingo Wireless are making free wireless Internet available in more places across the country, they said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnmozb). By expanding its sponsorship of Boingo Wireless, Google Offers is making the wireless Internet free at eight shopping malls and discounted at 16 airports starting Tuesday. Additionally, Google Offers is sponsoring Boingo wireless Internet at six subway stations and over 200 “hotzones” in Manhattan until early September.
"Google has failed to comply” with a court order that the company provide a list of individuals that are paid by Google and have publicly commented on the patent infringement case between the search engine giant and Oracle, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said Monday. “[T]he order was designed to bring to light authors whose statements about the issues in the case might have been influenced by the receipt of money from Google or Oracle,” Judge William Alsup wrote, not individuals who had been paid by the companies specifically to comment publicly on the case (https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/doc1/03519679024). “Google suggests that it has paid so many commenters that it will be impossible to list them all,” Alsup wrote. “Please simply do your best but the impossible is not required. Oracle managed to do it.” He clarified that he wanted a list of “all commenters known by Google to have received payments as consultants, contractors, vendors, or employees ... that can be identified after a reasonably diligent search” by 12 p.m. on Friday. A Google spokesman told us the company will comply with the order. “We asked the court for clarification on the order in our filing last Friday, and that clarification has been provided,” he said in an email.
The House Communications Subcommittee plans a hearing next month to discuss making more federal spectrum available for commercial use, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Tuesday. “Following a series of highly informative Federal Spectrum Working Group meetings, we have decided to move forward with a subcommittee hearing in September,” Walden said. “The subcommittee will continue to examine how both federal agencies and commercial wireless carriers might 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."