RCN gave the FCC information about the revenue and cost impact of the new intrastate access rate compensation rules, in response to a request by Wireline Bureau officials, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnk4vt). RCN had asserted at a July meeting that the new rules have “resulted in an anomaly where RCN’s intrastate access rates have proven to be significantly lower than Verizon’s.” RCN requested confidential treatment of the financial figures.
Alaska residents need sustained, predictable and adequate universal service support in order to enjoy telecom services that the rest of the country takes for granted, General Communications told an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnk4vc). GCI has tried to deploy rural wireless services, and expanded terrestrial middle mile networks, but it needs predictable support in order to invest private capital, it said. “The Commission must, at a minimum, preserve current funding levels for Remote Alaska and should seek to prioritize support in a way that yields infrastructure investment,” the telco said. GCI also emphasized the importance of “anchor tenants” participating in the Rural Health Care (RHC) and E-rate programs, which it said are “essential to the ability to repay the private capital and RUS loans.” It is important to maintain the primary RHC program, not just to provide needed health services in isolated parts of Alaska, but also to help support expansion of terrestrial middle mile networks that can be used to expand broadband throughout the state, GCI said.
The FCC’s broadband policy objectives can only be achieved through clear and well tested “business rules” that provide sufficient support and enable company managers to prospectively predict which investments and operations will be recoverable through USF support, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association told an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnk4u4). The necessary changes can be achieved quickly without affecting USF “budgetary” objectives, or creating any technical or administrative concerns, NTCA said.
The Free State Foundation blasted the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) as a dystopian “cautionary tale,” in a Friday blog post (http://xrl.us/bnk4uy). The free market think tank focuses on a recent state audit of the fiber project, spotlighting the $120 million in the negative it’s descended into (CD Aug 10 p7). “The cities that comprise the UTOPIA venture could do their citizens -- and perforce their taxpayers -- a favor by getting out of the telecom business,” Foundation President Randolph May wrote. “Indeed, they have an obligation to do so.” These telecom endeavors are “better left to the private sector,” he adds.
California’s VoIP deregulation bill suffered one more delay in the Assembly Thursday. The bill would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission from regulating VoIP through 2020. Assembly member Steven Bradford (D), a principal co-author of SB-1161, added clarifying language in an amendment to the bill (http://xrl.us/bnk4su) after it was ordered to a third reading. New language, among other provisions, preserves “the commission’s authority relative to access to support structures, including pole attachments, or to the construction and maintenance of facilities pursuant to commission General Order 95 and General Order 128,” as the California PUC had requested (CD Aug 10 p9). The Assembly approved amending the bill and again ordered the bill to a third reading, upon which it will face a full Assembly vote. “SB-1161 does not diminish important consumer safeguards for basic telephone service,” Bradford said as he presented the amended bill. It needs full Assembly approval and Senate approval of the amended version before going to the governor’s office for signature.
The FCC International Bureau adopted a final rule governing the use of satellite earth stations on board vessels (ESVs) in the 5925-6425 MHz/3700-4200 MHz bands and 14-14.5 GHz/11.7-12.2 GHz bands. In the rule, the FCC modifies its C-band and Ku-band licensing and services rules for ESVs “in order to promote greater ESV operational flexibility without causing harmful interference to the fixed satellite service operators,” the commission said in a notice to be published Aug. 20 in the Federal Register. The bureau adopted initial changes last month (CD July 20 p17).
A report that Apple has discussed the prospect of building a cable set-top box with cable operators including Time Warner Cable sparked a wave of Wall Street commentary. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that such talks took place this summer. A spokesman for Time Warner Cable declined to comment. That didn’t stop stock analysts from making the case for and against Apple’s entry into the cable set-top box business, which is largely dominated by Motorola and Cisco. For cable operators, letting Apple take control of the user-interface could reverse the industry’s declining share of the pay-TV market, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield wrote (http://xrl.us/bnkzc8). Consumers typically love Apple products but complain about their pay-TV provider, he said. Regulatory uncertainty could slow progress toward an Apple-cable box, he said. In light of the attention Comcast received for the way it handles Xfinity TV traffic to its subscribers Xbox’s, the cable industry and Apple probably won’t proceed along those lines “until they are near-certain that the managed service exception [to the FCC’s net neutrality principles] is legal,” he said. “It remains unclear how soon there will be definitive clear around managed services and net neutrality, especially heading into a Presidential election,” he said. “Caveat emptor”, Sanford Bernstein analysts warned in a note that discussed the implications of an Apple cable box for cable operators, content owners, Google, Amazon, Netflix and Apple itself. In giving up control of the user-interface “they would be opening the door to a Trojan Horse strategy where Apple would increasingly usurp the customer relationship,” they said. “Apple could later use that customer relationship as a way to upend the economic sharing model of any initial agreement, precisely as they have done in wireless.” Credit Suisse analyst Stefan Anninger also warned cable operators should proceed with caution.
The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency fiber project was defended in a Thursday Deseret News op-ed piece. “Comcast and CenturyLink want to focus attention on UTOPIA’s poor fiscal performance to distract from their own failings,” wrote Director Christopher Mitchell of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative (http://xrl.us/bnkyom). “The ferocity of UTOPIA’s opposition is puzzling” because “even in a time of high hostility to government, it is odd to see so many rooting against the home team,” wrote Mitchell, whose initiative is part of Minneapolis’s Institute for Local Self-Reliance. UTOPIA provides “an actual competitive market that allows local businesses to thrive,” he said, whereas fiber project critics CenturyLink and Comcast (CD Aug 10 p7) “consistently rank among the most disliked corporations in America, infamous for offering poor customer service,” he said. “There’s no truth to these allegations,” a Comcast spokesman said. CenturyLink declined to comment.
Comcast’s arguments for why a court should stay the FCC’s Tennis Channel carriage order rely on “snippets of the record” and ignore the bases for the agency’s decision, the channel said. In an opposition to Comcast’s stay request at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Tennis Channel argued the court should deny that request. Comcast will probably lose its broader appeal of the case therefore should not be granted a stay, the network said. Distributing the Tennis Channel under the terms of the FCC order wouldn’t hurt Comcast, the channel said. “Comcast was directed by the Commission nearly three months ago to be ready to comply immediately upon the release of the final decision,” it said. “Comcast has mandated and implemented nationwide tiering changes for its affiliated networks on very short time frames. On this record, Comcast has no legitimate claim of irreparable harm.” The FCC also urged the court to deny Comcast’s stay request. “Comcast represented to the Commission over six months ago,” that it was planning to comply with the order, the commission said in its brief. “Nonetheless, it now complains that it will face various administrative burdens,” it said. “These are hardly extraordinary burdens for a cable operator (much less the largest cable operator in the Nation); they are part of the day-to-day activities of its business."
Requiring AT&T to use Band 12, rather than Band 17, to offer LTE services using its 700 MHz spectrum would be “an unprecedented intervention in the marketplace,” AT&T Vice President Joan Marsh said in a meeting with Courtney Reinhard, aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. Such a mandate “would undermine the integrity and predictability of the wireless industry’s standards-setting process, retard broadband investment and deployment, threaten the reliability of existing LTE services, expose millions of consumers to additional interference risk, and yield none of the ‘interoperability’ benefits upon which the proposed regulatory mandate is falsely premised,” Marsh said, according to an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnkza8).