Google said it started its fiber project in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., (http://xrl.us/bniao3). Google Fiber will install Internet connections in Kansas City communities that express enough interest by individuals pre-registering at google.com/fiber and paying $10 by Sept. 9, said a company blog post Thursday (http://xrl.us/bniam7). The company had hung more than 100 miles of fiber in Kansas City, Google Fiber said April 4 (http://xrl.us/bnianf). “Today’s announcement by Google, the Gig.U projects across the country, and similar continued advances by providers and municipalities are important and welcome developments that are pushing frontiers in speed and bandwidth, while also enhancing consumer choice,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a written statement (http://xrl.us/bniasx).
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. opposed proposals by AT&T and Sirius XM on the carrier and satellite radio company’s services in the 2.3 GHz band. The two filed the joint proposal to the FCC last month (CD June 19 p1). Radically changing WCS technical rules based on a coordination agreement between two of the many WCS licensees “would be arbitrary and capricious agency action,” SDG&E said in an ex parte filing in docket 07-293 (http://xrl.us/bniapw). The submission between the two companies “raises novel technical and legal issues that would require the commission to initiate a new rulemaking proceeding in which all interested parties could properly consider the issues in the context of a fully developed record,” it said. SDG&E opposed the condition stating that “installation of fixed CPE [customer premises equipment] be prohibited within 20 meters from a roadway unless the WCS licensee can demonstrate compliance with the new ground power level thresholds proposed by AT&T and Sirius XM.” To the extent that CPE can be understood to include fixed end points in a smart grid system, SDG&E objects to this rule, it said. “A theoretical concern about the potential for harmful interference by a single 2.3 GHz licensee hardly provides a reasonable basis for commission action to adopt new rules for the entire WCS industry.” The company opposed suggested coordination requirements, requirements to prohibit mobile and portable transmitters in the WCS C and D blocks, and the proposed definition of harmful interference to satellite digital radio service operation. The utility said it objects to the proposed definition “because it would have a catastrophic effect on the SDG&E smart grid build-out."
The FCC’s work on the TV white spaces may prove in the end more important for its role in spurring sharing of federal spectrum than for making frequencies available for broadband in the TV band, said Michael Calabrese, director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project. Many questions remain about the use of the TV band for “super Wi-Fi,” since TV spectrum will be reconfigured as a result of the pending incentive auction, he said at the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies conference late Wednesday. “The relevance and, really, importance of the TV band white spaces is the TV bands database, more than the actual spectrum, which right now there’s a cloud of uncertainty, to be honest, over how much TV white space capacity there will be after these incentive auctions,” Calabrese said. “There’s still tremendous policy importance because this can be the platform and the proving ground for governance and control mechanisms for other white space, for federal white space, for fallow bands in other areas.” Calabrese noted that the amount of spectrum that will be available for unlicensed use varies widely by market. In Wilmington, N.C., the site of a white spaces test, 25 white spaces channels and 150 MHz were available, he said. At the University of Kentucky, 28 nonadjacent and 15 contiguous channels were available, for 90 MHz of white spaces spectrum, he said. In big cities including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, there are almost no unused channels in the TV band, he said. How the TV band is reconfigured by the FCC will be critical to future use of the white spaces, he said. “There'll be a duplex gap, presumably in the middle, between the uplink and downlink channels, and possibly a guardband between the bottom and broadcasting” that could be used by white spaces devices, Calabrese said. “But the width, how much contiguous, unlicensed spectrum is available nationwide has to be technically reasonable [under the February spectrum law]. So we have to figure out what that means. That’s very important … you have very little white space in markets like, New York, Washington, and so a contiguous nationwide band will at least allow nationwide markets for equipment.” No questions remain about “technical feasibility” of using the white spaces for broadband, he said. “It’s been tested … since 2008 for rural broadband, smart grid, mobile health, the smart city deployment in Wilmington.” Calabrese noted that 80 percent of the automated meter infrastructure in the U.S. uses unlicensed spectrum, mainly in the 900 MHz band, compared to Europe, where utilities use licensed cellular spectrum. “Two-thirds currently is Wi-Fi or Bluetooth,” he said. The same is true for machine-to-machine communications, including “smarthome, mobile payments, inventory, that’s mostly unlicensed in the U.S.,” Calabrese said. The white spaces also offer a “a cautionary tale of how it can take a decade” to bring more spectrum online, he said.
The U.S. will remain the world’s LTE subscription leader in five years, said a new Pyramid Research report. It said that in 2017, 25.2 percent of all LTE subscribers will be from the U.S. “By 2017, LTE will be the most prevalent form of mobile cellular connectivity in the U.S., with 41.3 percent of subscriptions,” analyst Emily Smith said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bniak6).
The FCC Wireline Bureau denied a NASUCA request for a 30-day extension to file reply comments on USF contribution reform (http://xrl.us/bniajp). The association had sought the extension “to review and study initial comments and potentially to formulate thoughtful reply comments.” The bureau said the circumstances presented don’t warrant a delay.
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on a petition by Windstream for a waiver of certain Connect America Fund Phase 1 rules. The rules say a support recipient must deploy broadband to one unserved location, as shown on the National Broadband Map, for every $775 of incremental support the recipient accepts. Windstream seeks a waiver of the requirement to connect to one unserved location for each $775 received, and a waiver to let it use funds to deploy second-mile fiber. The telco only accepted about 1 percent of the $60 million the FCC offered it to deploy broadband (CD July 25 p3). Comments are due Aug. 24 in docket 10-90, replies Sept. 10.
The FCC will no longer provide a courtesy notice to delinquent debtors who owe money to the USF before transferring the accounts to collection, a public notice said (http://xrl.us/bniais). The change will result in a “more efficient and effective method for the collection of debts owed to the commission,” the notice said.
The FCC seeks comment on a proposed survey of urban rates for fixed voice and fixed broadband residential services, a Wireline Bureau public notice said (http://xrl.us/bniah5). The bureau also seeks comment about how to determine the local voice rate floor and the reasonable comparability benchmarks for fixed voice and fixed broadband services using data from the urban rate survey. The annual rate survey, established in the USF/intercarrier compensation order, will be used to establish a rate floor carriers receiving high-cost loop support or high-cost model support must meet in order to receive full support amounts, starting in 2014. The survey will also be used to develop reasonable comparability benchmarks for voice and broadband rates that carriers must annually certify the rates do not exceed, starting next July. Comments in docket 10-90 will be due 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Verizon completed its acquisition of Hughes Telematics. The previously announced move will help the company expand Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ portfolios in automotive telematics, as well as health care and other industrial machine-to-machine services, the company said in a news release Thursday. “This powerful combination will create a springboard for our clients to expand their business models and strengthen their customer relationships by creating new opportunities for connected services that address the increasingly sophisticated consumer and enterprise,” said Verizon Enterprise Solutions President John Stratton (http://xrl.us/bniag6).
Netflix received weaker grades among 15,277 ConsumerReports.org subscribers who were recently polled than rival streaming video services did, Consumer Reports said Thursday. Although 81 percent of the subscribers who used a streaming video service in the month prior to the March poll used Netflix, the publication said Vudu, iTunes and Amazon Instant Video all scored higher for overall satisfaction in its first comprehensive ratings of video services. Netflix received a total reader score of 69 for its streaming service, while Vudu fared best among streaming services with a grade of 76, iTunes got a grade of 75, Amazon Instant Video was graded 74, and Amazon Prime and Hulu each were graded 70. Amazon Prime and Netflix each received the worst possible rating for movie selection. Amazon Prime and Hulu each received the highest possible rating for price. The best grade that Netflix received was for convenience, with the second-highest possible rating. Streaming video content from the Internet is emerging as the preferred choice for video viewing, Consumer Reports said. Fifty-two percent of those polled said they used a streaming video service in the previous month, compared to 47 percent who saw a movie at a theater, 43 percent who rented a DVD or Blu-ray disc and 32 percent who used their cable provider’s video-on-demand service. The “biggest gripe” with Netflix’s streaming service was the limited selection of movies, especially the newest releases, Consumer Reports said. That’s “a common problem with all-you-can-watch streaming services,” a category that also includes Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus, it said. Fewer than one in five respondents said they were highly satisfied with the choice of titles from those services, it said. But it said the selection of titles available on pay-per-view streaming services including Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu received high grades from more than 60 percent of users. The advantages of discs were clear in the survey. Netflix’s disc-by-mail service and independent video stores were judged to have a more satisfying selection of titles, including current ones, than even the best streaming services, Consumer Reports said. Redbox kiosks were “neck-and-neck” with Netflix and independent stores in overall satisfaction, but fell short on selection, it said. Respondents “were not as impressed” with Blockbuster stores, Blockbuster Express kiosks or Blockbuster Total Access disc-by-mail, it said. Most respondents didn’t drop their TV service and used streaming as a supplement to regular TV, it said. Only 10 percent had dropped their TV service completely as a result of using streaming services, while 72 percent made no change to their TV service, it said. Netflix didn’t immediately comment. It received the best total grade from respondents on disc rental services, with 78. Independent stores and Redbox followed, each with 77. Blockbuster trailed with 71, while its Blockbuster Express service followed with 69 and its Blockbuster Total Access service came in last with 68.