Top U.S. ISPs added the fewest number of net new broadband subscribers ever recorded in Q2, Leichtman Research Group said in a report Tuesday. The top 17 ISPs, which represent 93 percent of the nation’s broadband market, added a net 260,000 new broadband subscribers during the quarter -- the fewest since Leichtman began to track the industry 11 years ago, the research group said. Much of those gains came from cable ISPs, which added 330,000 net subscribers during the quarter; top telephone ISPs lost a net 70,000 subscribers over the same period, Leichtman said. The research firm said top cable ISPs now have a 57 percent share of the U.S. broadband market, with almost 11 million more subscribers than telephone ISPs -- up from a 9-million subscriber lead at the same time last year (http://xrl.us/bnkpwa).
CenturyLink filed its Special Access Metrics report for Q2 2012 (http://xrl.us/bnkps7). The report contains the metrics required in a 2007 FCC order, CenturyLink said, including the percentage of installation appointments met, failure rate, and mean time to repair.
The Navajo Nation Telecommunications Regulatory Commission needs to acquire data about Lifeline subscribers on the Navajo Nation to determine whether efforts to recertify them are proving successful, NNTRC Executive Director Brian Tagaban told officials from the FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Native Affairs and Policy on Monday (http://xrl.us/bnkpsk). NNTRC also asked for access to any reports produced by Smith Bagley Inc. as part of the company’s request for a waiver of the Lifeline Order’s recertification requirements.
The FCC International Bureau granted special temporary authority to Intelsat, EchoStar and XM Radio regarding operation of their satellites. Intelsat was granted such authority for 30 days to do in-orbit testing of the Intelsat 23 satellite at 51.5 degrees west, the Satellite Division said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnkpr4). EchoStar was granted special temporary authority of 60 days to provide direct broadcast satellite service through the EchoStar 6 satellite at 76.95 degrees west, the notice said. XM Radio got authority for 30 days “to activate the communications payload of its Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service” satellite XM-5 at 85.15 degrees west, it said. The division also gave authority to Hughes Network Systems to construct, launch and operate its proposed Ka- and V-band geostationary satellite Jupiter 77W at 77.3 degrees west, the notice said.
Demand Progress launched an online campaign to encourage the Republican and Democratic parties to include pro-Internet freedom language in their platforms, the civil liberties-focused group said Tuesday. “It should be obvious to lawmakers in both parties that internet freedom needs to be a priority,” said Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal in a statement. “Strong platform statements in support of internet freedom will create a clear baseline of acceptable behavior and make it less likely that we'll face another situation where dozens of lawmakers sign on in support of internet-obliterating bills like” the PROTECT IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act. The petition at VotefortheNet.com asks the officials who will draft each party’s platform at the upcoming convention to include the language, “The Democratic/Republican Party stands for a free and open Internet, unfettered by censorship and undue violations of privacy.” The website, where individuals can electronically sign the petition by entering their name, email address and ZIP code, says that between the defeat of the “Internet Blacklist Bills” earlier this year and the Senate failing to pass “heavy-handed cybersnooping” Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act earlier this month, “2012 has been a landmark year for those who believe in the right of Americans to share information and communicate with each other free from censorship and surveillance."
A federal court of appeals denied the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association’s request to stay implementation of the new reimbursement limits on certain capital and operating expenses in its USF order. In its order Monday in Case No. 11-9900, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was “not convinced that petitioner has carried its burden of showing that the circumstances justify an exercise of the court’s discretion to enter a stay in this matter.” The court also declined to order the FCC to rule on NTCA’s pending application for review before implementing the new reimbursement limits. NTCA had argued the new capping methodology would violate the commission’s statutory mandate to deploy predictable and sufficient mechanisms to advance universal service (CD July 2 p12). NTCA had also argued that inaccuracies in the data set used to designate geographic boundary areas and to compute the formulas’ coefficients’ and retroactive application to limit reimbursements for expenses incurred in past years. In a statement Tuesday, NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano said the association had recognized the “high procedural hurdle” to obtaining a stay, but the “pervasive and paralyzing uncertainty” of the caps justified the effort. “We anticipate that once the court has the full opportunity to consider how the FCC’s caps retroactively cut support for past investments and are undermining incentives to invest in broadband moving forward, the court will find that these caps are contrary to the fundamental statutory requirements of universal service,” he said.
The introduction of a new intellectual property rights policy generated heated discussions at the Certification Authority Browser Forum (CA/Browser Forum), a membership body working on certification guidelines and standards. One of the founding members, Entrust, left the CA/Browser Forum, arguing it could not accept the new “mandatory” IPR policy, “which requires member organizations to provide other members a royalty-free (RF) license of their patents that touch on proposed standards.” Entrust was one of the primary holders of patents, the company wrote, warning against further fragmentation of the CA industry, which already was the target of a growing number of sophisticated attacks. But Eddy Nigg, chief technology officer and chief operating officer of StarCom, challenged the Entrust statement, saying on a mailing list of the browser forum that the new IPR policy does allow exemptions for patents. Nigg also questioned Entrust’s allegations that 17 more of the 47 members had left the forum for the same or similar reasons. Entrust, in a more-detailed statement to members of the Browser Forum, said the administrative process to have patents exempted is “tot burdensome for a small company with a large relevant portfolio.” Entrust also said “the provision in the IPR requiring us to bind our related companies would require us to bind portfolio companies of our owner in unrelated business.” T-Systems, another Browser Forum member, confirmed that it would be a lot of work to sign up all subsidiaries to the IPR policy. T-Systems has 69 subsidiaries and therefore wasn’t able to sign the new policy in time, a spokesman said, so the company has at least temporarily switched to observer status.
Mountain View Baptist Church submitted a petition to deny an application from JKJ Educational Foundation for a new noncommercial educational FM station at Jackson, Wyo. The FCC Media Bureau dismissed MVBC’s application “for failure to provide the requisite first and/or second local NCE service to the proposed community of license,” MVBC said in its petition (http://xrl.us/bnkpn2). JKJ’s application “suffers from the same deficiency,” MVBC said. JKJ would provide a new first NCE service to about 600 people and a second service to 685 people, “which falls well below the minimum 2,000 person requirement under the Commission’s rules,” it added.
Community Voice Line provided its free content distribution service to radio broadcasters. Niche radio broadcasters will use the service “to provide their listeners and followers with a dial-up number using any type of phone without having to rely on the Internet or television access,” CVL said. The service allows people with special interests to use their mobile or landline phone as another form of access to their favorite radio stations, it said.
The Sea Launch and Energia Logistics teams have initiated launch operations for the Intelsat 21 satellite. The launch is scheduled for Aug. 17, Sea Launch said. “Launch operations are now underway at the Equator, at 154 degrees West,” it said. A day before liftoff, the Zenit-3SL rocket will be erected on the launch pad for final tests of the launch system and spacecraft, Sea Launch said.