Intelsat 21 was successfully launched by a Sea Launch Zenit 3SL launch vehicle at 11:55 p.m. PDT Saturday. The satellite “will serve the leading direct-to-home and cable programmers in Latin America,” Intelsat said. It features a Ku-band mobility beam, “providing coverage across the South Atlantic to Intelsat’s maritime and aeronautical customers,” Intelsat said. The satellite is to replace Intelsat 9.
The FCC must address Internet Protocol-to-IP interconnection for facilities-based services in the context of Section 251 of the Communications Act, CompTel told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnk5kw). The service, provided over private, closed or managed networks, doesn’t transverse the public Internet, CompTel said. It’s a telecom service, and Section 251(c)(2) applies to interconnection with an ILEC for provisioning purposes, CompTel said. Its officials also met with a Wireline Bureau staffer to note that CLECs might not be able to provide certain information, such as type of facility -- hybrid or copper -- if they have to report on unbundled network elements they had leased from the ILEC (http://xrl.us/bnk5me).
Going dark on Cablevision’s systems last week were Tribune’s WPIX-TV New York, WPHL-TV Philadelphia, WCCT-TV Hartford and KWGN-TV Denver, the companies said. Tribune blamed Cablevision for dropping its stations’ signals during retransmission consent negotiations. “Tribune was willing to provide Cablevision subscribers access to the valuable programming on these stations while working toward a new agreement,” the broadcaster said. “Tribune never made any threat to withdraw these stations or demand that Cablevision remove them.” But Cablevision said Tribune was at fault. “A major barrier to an agreement is Cablevision’s strongly-held view that Tribune is attempting to illegally tie the carriage of its Fox affiliate in Hartford to WPIX and other less popular Tribune-owned channels,” a Cablevision spokesman said. “We are pursuing both legal and regulatory options to stop Tribune’s illegal tying and will continue to hold the line on increasing programming costs."
Eighty-four percent of people in a new TIME poll said they could not go a single day without their mobile device in hand, with 20 percent saying they check their mobile device every 10 minutes. The poll, produced in cooperation with Qualcomm, surveyed 5,000 people in the U.S., the U.K. China, India, South Korea, South Africa and Brazil, TIME said. The poll results were featured in TIME’s latest issue, which went on sale Friday. “It is hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones,” TIME Deputy Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs wrote Thursday. “Not the knife or match, the pen or page. Only money comes close -- always at hand, don’t leave home without it. But most of us don’t take a wallet to bed with us, don’t reach for it and check it every few minutes, and however useful money is in pursuit of fame, romance, revolution, it is inert compared with a smart phone -- which can replace your wallet now anyway” (http://xrl.us/bnk5kb).
Chinese ISPs spent $715 million on Gigabit Passive Optical Network equipment last year, Infonetics Research said in a new report. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Infonetics Research analyst Jeff Heynen said in a news release. “This market holds massive potential for fiber-to-the-home, with around 300 million Chinese citizens expected to migrate to urban areas over the next 15 years, definitely making China the dominant region for FTTH deployments.” BRIC countries represented half of all global GPON equipment revenue in 2011, with Russia’s GPON equipment spending rising 79 percent over 2010, Infonetics Research said. Brazil was another bright spot, Heynen said. “We expect long-term strength there driven by a solid economy, increased competition from cable operators, and the upcoming World Cup and Olympics events,” he said (http://xrl.us/bnk5if).
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is pleased the FCC and Justice Department moved to approve Verizon Wireless’s spectrum deal with cable operators. “The world’s largest economy should have access to the world’s best telecommunications systems,” he said in a news release Friday. “This decision, as well as the spectrum auction legislation passed as part of the payroll tax extension, help ensure this.” The agencies disclosed guidelines Thursday to govern Verizon Wireless’s purchase of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox (CD Aug 17 p1). Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said he didn’t think Justice and the FCC had “gone far enough,” in a separate statement. “The FCC needs to stand up for consumers and address the lack of competition for high-speed broadband before it votes to approve this deal,” he said. “Without meaningful competition for broadband, the cable companies will be able to charge whatever they want -— and drive consumers to purchase expensive bundles of services they don’t want or need in order to get Internet service.”
The Educational Media Foundation urged the FCC Media Bureau to dismiss a petition from Percy Squire to deny EMF’s application for the license of WRBP(FM) Hubbard, Ohio. EMF seeks to acquire the station from Bernard Ohio LLC, and have it considered as a noncommercial educational station, the foundation said in its opposition to the petition (http://xrl.us/bnk5a6). The petition is “entirely focused on the qualifications of Bernard to sell the station to EMF, issues which have already been raised in connection with the pending assignment application,” EMF said. “As the issues raised by petitioner have nothing to do with the above-referenced application, the bureau must dismiss the petition with prejudice."
Technology-neutral state regulation proposed by California consumer groups “improperly would insert a new issue into this proceeding at the eleventh hour and should be dismissed as procedurally improper and beyond the scope of this proceeding,” the California Cable & Telecommunications Association told the California Public Utilities Commission. The association slammed a joint proposal from California consumer groups including The Utility Reform Network, The Center for Accessible Technology, The Greenlining Institute and the National Consumer Law Center. The consumer advocates encouraged the California PUC to impose technology-neutral authority, including over VoIP. “This Commission has continuously recognized that the FCC has asserted its role in defining the regulatory framework of VoIP services and that it should not exercise jurisdiction unless expressly provided by the FCC,” the association said in a filing released online Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnk44j). “Any attempt to impose such telecommunications regulations on providers of VoIP services -- where the provider is not a COLR or LifeLine provider -- is flatly contrary to the law, would invite substantial litigation, and result in significant regulatory confusion and uncertainty.” CCTA asked the PUC to reject the consumers’ proposal.
Assessing USF contributions on special access services bought by competitive LECs and used as an input to downstream retail broadband Internet access services violates the principle of competitive neutrality, tw telecom told an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnk4x7). That’s because no USF contribution is assessed where a firm provides broadband Internet access using its own facilities or unbundled network elements, the telco said. The commission could fix this discriminatory treatment by permitting wholesalers to rely on certifications from their wholesale customers on a company-by-company basis, tw telecom said.
The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) is “actively monitoring" the investigations of Verizon’s 911 outages during the June 29 derecho storm in northern Virginia, the association said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnk4xc). NENA “will issue a full, formal statement when more information is available,” it said. Investigations are under way by the FCC, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the Maryland Public Service Commission and the Virginia governor’s office. NENA spotlighted the recent Verizon report (CD Aug 15 p1) and press coverage on its site. In a Friday editorial, The Roanoke Times of Virginia noted the “1,603 calls flooding E-911 in the first 12 hours,” underscoring 911’s importance during the derecho (http://xrl.us/bnk4x5).