California’s proposed VoIP deregulation legislation may face loud consumer opposition Wednesday when the California Assembly returns to consider SB-1161 in the Appropriations Committee at 9 a.m. The bill has already passed the California State Senate. It would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission from regulating VoIP services for the next eight years. “Should SB 1161 pass, the entire phone system in California, and the carriers that maintain it, could be exempted from a number of important consumer protections,” wrote National Hispanic Media Coalition President Inez González in an Aug. 7 letter to the Appropriations Committee (http://xrl.us/bnjq45), “such as the obligation to prevent privacy breaches, to protect customers from unauthorized charges on their bills, to provide in-language contracts to non-English speakers, and to submit to CPUC’s jurisdiction over consumer complaints.” He joins representatives of many other consumer groups who spoke against the bill in recent months, all while industry representatives and the bill’s sponsor have defended it adamantly (CD June 25 p6). The passage of SB-1161 will have “a dramatic and devastating impact on consumers in California” and should be stopped, the media advocacy and civil rights-oriented coalition said Tuesday (http://conta.cc/MqV3ah), and González expressed concern about what she called a “concerted nationwide efforts of the large telecommunications companies” to pass the bill. The coalition expects several consumer groups to testify in opposition on Wednesday, it said.
CenturyLink deems “unfortunate” Monday’s 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that upheld an FCC decision not to grant a telco that’s now owned by the company rate forbearance in Phoenix, Senior Vice President Steve Davis said. The 10th Circuit deferred to the commission’s judgment in Qwest v. FCC on the agency’s order from 2007, a few years before CenturyLink acquired the telco (CD Aug 7 p13). “Although we understand the court’s reluctance to second guess the FCC on matters that are within its area of expertise, it is unfortunate that the court allowed to stand the FCC’s curious conclusion that wireless and wireline services do not compete in Phoenix,” Davis said by email Tuesday. “Without this clearly flawed determination, the FCC could not have found that telecom services in Phoenix are not competitive, and its decision could not stand."
The commercial satellite market is expected to have nearly $7 billion in new revenue by 2021, Northern Sky Research said in a satellite supply and demand report. Tuesday’s report found that commercial operators “grew capacity leasing revenues by $635 million between 2010 and 2011 and are aggressively targeting new markets,” like mobility and other services to sustain sales expansion. The Ku-band market will continue as the main growth engine for the market over the next 10 years, NSR added. “Solid Ku-band revenue gains are also expected from the video distribution, enterprise data, commercial mobility and gov/mil verticals.” All high throughput satellite markets combined could add nearly $1.9 billion in net new revenue over the next 10 years, “which is the second biggest gain after the Ku-band market,” the report said.
Government agencies are demanding cloud computing resources, said IDC Government Insights (http://xrl.us/bnjnjj). The study is based on a recent survey of 400 government employees. Ninety percent said cloud computing “will have an impact on computing infrastructure,” a Monday news release said. “Survey data indicates that significant progress already has been made for cloud services, but overall progress will only accelerate once several important issues have been addressed,” Research Director Shawn McCarthy said. “These issues include lack of knowledge by some participants on the level of funding available to them to spend on cloud solutions as well as the needed enterprise architecture changes that can help agencies move more aggressively into cloud. By focusing on greater outreach efforts to bring all IT employees in line with enterprise cloud plans, government agencies can begin to benefit from cloud computing services."
The FCC Media Bureau denied a must-carry complaint involving WFBD Destin, Fla. The bureau granted Comcast’s petition to modify the station’s designated market area to exclude Chickasaw, Mobile, Prichard, Saraland and Dauphin Island, in the Mobile, Ala.,-Pensacola-Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., DMA (http://xrl.us/bnjnh4). “WFBD has no history of carriage despite being on the air for seven years, and no discernible viewership in the communities at issue,” the order said. “In addition, WFBD has failed to demonstrate that it provides any local programming to the communities at issue.” The station is geographically far from those communities and doesn’t cover them with a Grade-B signal, according to standard engineering analysis, the order said.
A March FCC order setting up a way to reduce (CD March 21 p11) the number of pending FM translator applications stemming from a 2003 filing window got Office of Management and Budget approval, said a notice in Monday’s Federal Register (http://xrl.us/bnjm8n). Broadcasters should expect a public notice soon setting up deadlines for moving forward with the process, designed to preserve the opportunity for low-power FM applicants to start new services, said Fletcher Heald’s blog (http://xrl.us/bnjm8r). “The Commission has been under considerable pressure to move things along on the LPFM front, and clearing the FM translator backlog is an essential first step,” the broadcast law firm said. “We won’t be surprised if things start to happen pretty fast at this point."
The FCC should broaden the range of companies paying into the USF so the fund will remain sustainable in the long term, said the NTCA, OPASTCO and Western Telecommunications Alliance in an FCC filing Monday. The groups filed in response to an FCC request for comment on its proposed rule on USF contribution reform (CD April 30 p4). The groups said they support assessing USF fees on text messaging, one-way VoIP calls, retail broadband Internet access and any enterprise communications service that utilizes a telecom component. The FCC should also adopt a “bright line” contributions rule that would determine service-specific designations, the groups said. The commission should continue to levy USF fees based on revenue, and should adopt contributions reform in stages, the groups said. “The Commission should first expeditiously resolve basic approaches and certain major issues that are ripe for action, and do so in the manner as discussed herein,” the groups said. “Following that, it should deal with more complex and less ripe issues at a later date in an ongoing further rulemaking and/or separate clarification orders as the consequences and unresolved issues of the initial reform become more apparent” (http://xrl.us/bnjnf2).
Boxee CEO Avner Ronen urged FCC officials to make sure a “comparable successor to ClearQAM” and a hardware-free long-term solution for third-party devices is incorporated into any order allowing digital cable systems to encrypt their basic service tier, en ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnjndq. Ronen spoke with Deputy Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey and aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski during one call and with several Media Bureau officials and an attorney from the Office of General Counsel on another. If the FCC adopts an order that reflects the commitments the six largest cable operators made in the proceeding (CD July 26 p13), it should make it clear that the order is meant to give consumers access to encrypted basic tier on non-operator provided devices, the notice said. It also expressed the hope that “should consumers or third-party device makers notify the commission that the options adopted by the operators subject to the order do not reasonably achieve that goal, the Commission will promptly consider taking action in response to such notice,” it said.
The Telecommunications Industry Association urged the FCC to launch a rulemaking on allowing electronic labeling on cellphones and other devices licensed by the agency. “We particularly believe that because the Commission is currently planning to undertake future rulemakings aiming to improve the equipment authorization process, as noted when the Commission adopted its recent rulemaking which allowed five-digit grantee codes, that the time to consider a broad rule change to allow for the option of electronic labeling is now,” TIA said in a petition filed at the commission. “We note at the outset that this e-labeling must be optional, as there will be cases where keeping the existing physical label will be necessary, such as for non-display products and radios.” FCC regulations require most wireless devices to be permanently affixed with a label that provides identifying information including a device-specific FCC number and other regulatory symbols. TIA said the rules, first standardized in 1973, “have become an aging relic of the pre-digital world.” “The purpose of the FCC’s label requirement is to enable the FCC and consumers to readily determine whether a device has been properly certified and to obtain additional information about a device from the FCC’s equipment authorization database,” TIA said. “Because of the challenges faced by manufacturers and increased benefits to end users that would be experienced, TIA believes that this goal can be accomplished more efficiently and effectively by allowing an electronic labeling option for wireless devices.” “Technology has once again outpaced regulatory requirements designed for rotary dialed phones,” said Danielle Coffey, TIA vice president of government affairs. “The FCC has shown great flexibility in recognizing the phenomenon of rapid technological change. Electronic labeling is the natural evolution of device labeling. TIA is asking the FCC to move forward with making electronic labeling for all wireless devices a default option. Not only does it more effectively meet end-user expectations while continuing the FCC’s comprehensive device labeling framework, it also will streamline manufacturing processes, lower costs, reduce prices, and encourage innovation.” With electronic labeling, instead of a physical label on the device itself, a user can access product information from a device’s software interface.
Motorola Solutions upgraded its computer-aided dispatch system at the York-Poquoson-Williamsburg Emergency Communications Center in Virginia, the company said Monday (http://xrl.us/bnjm9y). The new dispatch system is known as PremierOne CAD. It comes with an “intuitive user interface,” flexibility that allows multiple agencies to use it, “geographic information system (GIS)-driven” sensibilities and “integrates with the Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) phone system, ASTRO 25 radio system and mobile data terminals in the field, the company said. That leverages assets and technologies in use by York and Poquoson Counties and Williamsburg first responders, the company said. The emergency communications center oversees a region of about 90,000 residents, it said.