American Public Communications Council, GCB Communications and Lake Country Communications will get an extension to respond to U.S. South’s application for full commission review of an FCC Wireline Bureau declaratory ruling, the bureau said in an order Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnj7ia). The bureau ruled in June that a completing carrier’s obligation to pay per-call payphone compensation is not contingent on whether it receives payphone-specific coding digits (http://xrl.us/bnj7n7). The application for review involves “complex matters, and there is no indication that any harm to a party would result from extending the time for filing a response in this case because the request is unopposed,” Thursday’s order said.
A California bill targeting wrongful jamming of cell signals moved forward with full Assembly approval. SB-1160, sponsored by Sen. Alex Padilla (D), would prevent government or entities acting on its behalf from “intentionally interrupting communication service for the purpose of protecting public safety or preventing use of the service for an illegal purpose except pursuant to a court order based on a finding of probable cause,” according to California Assembly analysis (http://xrl.us/bnj7ig). It says the bill’s goal is to preserve access to 911 emergency services and preserve a free, open communications system for all consumers regardless of technology. It applies to “any communications service that interconnects with the public switched telecommunications network and is required by FCC to provide users 911 access to emergency services,” the analysis said. The Assembly voted 76-0 in favor of the bill Thursday. The California Senate approved SB-1160 in May and will have to do so again due to amendments added in the Assembly committee process. It’s a partial response to the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit decision to cut off service at one of its transit stations last August to fend off an expected riot.
Comments on Bandwidth.com’s request for a waiver giving it direct access to telephone numbers for provision of IP-enabled services are due Aug. 23 in CC docket 99-20, a public notice said (http://xrl.us/bnj7g9). Bandwidth wants a waiver comparable to the one granted to SBC Internet Services, the notice said. Replies are due Aug. 30.
ThedaCare wants the FCC Wireline Bureau to reverse a Universal Service Administrative Co. decision denying a request to recalculate its 2010 rural healthcare support based on corrected rural and urban rates, a public notice said (http://xrl.us/bnj7gz). ThedaCare argued it could not submit corrected rates by the close of the funding year because it had not yet received this information from its service provider, Wisconsin Bell. Comments in docket 02-60 are due Aug. 23, replies Aug. 30.
VoIP providers just received a new way to meet their 911 requirements. 911 Enable, a division of Connexon Telecom Inc., announced Thursday what it’s calling “the industry’s most comprehensive E911 solutions to address the specific challenges faced by UCaaS [Unified Communications as a Service] providers” (http://xrl.us/bnj7b6). The new package of solutions includes a “carrier-grade” emergency response service that “delivers emergency calls and caller-location information to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) across the US and Canada -- a critical functionality required by state and federal E911 regulations,” the Canada-based company said. The second new feature is what the company’s calling an emergency gateway. The gateway is an E911 management appliance, which “provides UCaaS customers with robust E911 features previously limited to enterprises with on-premises PBXs,” the company said. “It automatically discovers the locations of IP endpoints and provides a complete suite of advanced security notification features.” These new offerings should specifically help providers in “complying with state and federal E911 regulations, delivering E911 support for multiple voice platforms and providing customers with the same E911 functionality that they would receive from an on-premises solution,” the company said.
T-Mobile’s Q2 profit was little changed year-over-year at $207 million. The U.S.’s fourth-largest...
T-Mobile’s Q2 profit was little changed year-over-year at $207 million. The U.S.’s fourth-largest wireless carrier, a part of Deutsche Telekom, lost a net 205,000 subscribers total in Q2. T-Mobile also lost 557,000 contract-based subscribers during the quarter, a loss that was up from the 536,000 contract subscriber loss during the same period last year. Unlike Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile’s revenue from monthly fees on contract subscriptions fell year-over-year during the quarter, dropping 9 percent. “Looking ahead, T-Mobile USA will continue to invest in a number of key areas including the modernization of our network as we pave the way for LTE service in 2013, retail expansion, as well as an increased investment in promoting our brand,” T-Mobile Interim CEO Jim Alling said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bnj37n).
At least three House Democrats asked the FCC to examine how the proposed Verizon Wireless/SpectrumCo deal could affect market competition, in separate letters made public Thursday. Rep. Mark Critz, D-Pa., said rural Americans should not be excluded from the low prices and “constantly improving” telecommunications services in urban areas, in his letter to the commission. “Any telecommunications deal must embody true competitiveness to properly serve the community,” he wrote. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., urged the FCC to carefully scrutinize the deal “to ensure that they will not in fact reduce competition and result in higher prices and few choices for consumers,” in his letter to the commission. Rep. Mike Capuano, D-Mass., asked the commissioners to consider how the deal would impact the “health of competition in the market and to be certain that such an agreement will not harm the goals of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,” in a separate letter.
AMC Networks’ loss of Dish Network’s carriage fees cut its total subscribers by 13 percent in Q2 and the impact of cash flow and operating income will be “materially higher” if the impasse continues, the company said Thursday, releasing earnings. Dish dropped AMC, home of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, July 1 in a dispute over carriage fees and in a bid to gain leverage in an unrelated suit, CEO Josh Sapan said in a written statement Thursday. AMC, along with former parent Cablevision, sued Dish several years ago for $2.5 billion, claiming it improperly ended a 15-year contract to carry the Voom HD satellite service. Cablevision shut down Voom HD in 2005, a little over a year after the service began. Voom later signed a carriage agreement with Dish, then known as EchoStar. Cablevision’s Rainbow Media, which included AMC at the time, gained distribution for Voom with Dish and British Sky Broadcasting. Dish stopped carrying Voom in May 2008 and Cablevision sued a short time later. The case, which had been scheduled for trial in April 2010, now is expected to start Sept. 18 in New York Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil trial court. AMC’s Q2 net income rose to $41.4 million from $27.1 million as revenue rose 12 percent to $328 million. Advertising sales rose 13.4 percent to $130 million. The improved earnings were driven by AMC’s renewal of distribution agreements, including one with AT&T, AMC said.
Telcos, the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, and the office of the state consumer advocate worked out a confidentiality agreement to allow a proceeding on Lifeline credit to move forward. The authority approved a schedule and protective order in a ruling released Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnj36d). “A Protective Order, substantially identical to that proposed by the Consumer Advocate and Protection Division of the Office of the Attorney General, shall be entered contemporaneously with this order,” the authority said. The protective order will have “full force and effect” upon entry, it added. The order establishes practices surrounding confidentiality of proceeding documents (http://xrl.us/bnj35z). An industry coalition of several telcos had submitted its own protective order draft at a Tuesday meeting with the authority, the filing said. “Each [version] has certain advantages,” the authority said, noting the consumer advocate had said the industry version had “relatively minor differences” from its own. The authority provided a partial schedule for proceedings. It established Aug. 24 as a deadline for the consumer advocate to provide anticipated discovery requests and Sept. 7 for the filing of a proposed agreed procedural schedule. The Tennessee Telecommunications Association has submitted a signed affidavit agreeing to a protective order, a Thursday filing noted, as did Level 3 Communications on Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged the FCC to “immediately approve” a waiver request to preserve funding for Nevada’s inter-operable public safety wireless communications network, in a letter made public Thursday. He asked the commission to grant the waiver request in order to mitigate the “grave threats” to citizens from natural disasters like wildfires. The critical funding timelines and program implementation schedules are at risk which therefore puts the public at risk, Reid wrote.