Cox Media Group said it agreed to buy four TV stations from Newport TV and will sell 25 radio stations in five markets and four TV station in four other markets (http://xrl.us/bnhku4). “This simplified structure will enable CMG to capitalize on continued growth ... while retaining its size financially,” President Doug Franklin said. The four stations it agreed to acquire are WAWS-TV and WTEV-TV Jacksonville, Fla., and KOKI-TV and KMYT-TV Tulsa, Okla. Meanwhile, Cox plans to sell its KFOX-TV El Paso, WJAC-TV Johnstown, Pa., KRXI-TV Reno and WTOV-TV Steubenville, Ohio stations. It also plans to sell its option and other contract rights for KAME-TV Reno, it said.
The FCC will continue to weigh the same four factors when deciding whether to give exemptions to captioning requirements, despite new statutory language enacted with the 21st Century Video Accessibility Act, it said in a report and order released Friday (http://xrl.us/bnhkp3). Additionally, it amended that part of its rules to replace all references to “undue burden” with “economically burdensome” to correspond to the new law, it said. The four factors are the nature and cost of closed captions, the impact on operation on the provider or program owner, the financial resources of the provider or program owner and the type of operations of the provider or program owner. “We conclude that Congress did not intend any substantive change to the criteria that the Commission has consistently used for individual closed captioning petitions,” the order said. “We therefore will interpret the term ‘economically burdensome’ ... as synonymous with the term ‘undue burden,'” it said.
The city of Shawano, Wis., is one step closer to being able to sell its video, VoIP and Internet assets to Bertram Communications, due to a Wisconsin Public Service Commission ruling in a notice to proceed filing Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnhknt). The town of just over 9,000 residents has operated a municipal network providing video, VoIP and Internet starting a half decade ago and now provides interconnected VoIP telephone service for 298 customers and cable and Internet for more than 500 customers, Shawano said in a June 4 request (http://xrl.us/bnhkk9). The government-run service “failed to reach its performance goals in terms of the quality of service offerings, reliability of its service and size of its customer base” and suffered from higher-than-expected costs and lower-than-expected revenue, the city said. Shawano had to draw $712,700 in credit from a local bank in 2011 and is “currently operating at minimal service levels with limited new customer connection,” according to its petition. The city said Bertram Communications has 14,000 customers throughout the region and would expand the fiber network the city has begun. If the sale is allowed to proceed, Shawano will sell its video, Internet and certain VoIP facilities immediately and sell the dedicated VoIP equipment once Bertram “places in service the equipment necessary for it to provide VoIP services to Shawano’s existing customers,” Shawano said. Staff has had “a fair amount of conversation” on this, said Wisconsin Commissioner Eric Callisto at Thursday’s meeting. The commissioners agreed that deeper analysis of the situation is needed, while endorsing the notice to proceed for now. The PSC asks for comments by July 31 and if there isn’t any opposition, it “will proceed with granting the request for a declaratory ruling” to Shawano, the commission said Thursday.
DirecTV urged the FCC to dismiss Spectrum Five’s application for review of an order on Spectrum Five’s request for authority to serve the U.S. market from a 17/24 GHz broadcast satellite service satellite at the 103 degrees west location. The International Bureau denied the application last month (CD June 4 p17). Spectrum Five “failed to raise any basis for overturning the bureau’s straightforward application of binding commission policy,” DirecTV said in its opposition (http://xrl.us/bnhkpi).
The FCC should not press the wireless industry to include FM radio receivers more broadly in mobile devices, as the NAB has asked, said the CTIA and a group of phone makers in a letter to the commission (http://bit.ly/NEifWy). “Consumers already can chose among numerous FM-capable devices from national and regional carriers,” said the letter, signed by Apple, CTIA, HTC America, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Personal Communications Devices, Research in Motion and Samsung Telecommunications America: “The fact is, demand for FM-enabled handsets in the U.S. has been underwhelming. The market should drive feature decisions, rather than a separate, self-interested industry."
The FCC Wireless Bureau approved a one-year waiver for the Arizona Water Co. to meet the FCC’s VHF/UHF Jan. 13 narrowbanding deadline. “Based on the record before us, we conclude that Arizona Water Company has presented sufficient facts to meet the high standard for grant of the requested waiver,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bnhkga). “First, the record shows that the Company has been diligently preparing for the transition to narrowbanding by inspecting every piece of its radio equipment, securing contractors to perform reprogramming of designated equipment, and preparing a detailed schedule for the transition. The Company has already committed most of the necessary funds for the narrowbanding implementation, with the remaining funds to be allocated in 2013.” The bureau also noted that the company has replaced its entire system and the “replacement of the equipment will require securing qualified technicians, who are of limited availability in the Company’s service areas. Strict application of the narrowbanding rules could result in interruption of the Company’s communications, which could put the public health and safety at risk."
Level 3, CompTel and Bandwidth.com have “urgent concerns” with the petitions of Vonage and others for limited waiver of the rules regarding direct access to number resources, they told the FCC Wireline Bureau chief and staff Tuesday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnhke7). Granting any of the waivers would be “discriminatory vis à vis carriers that continue to comply with both federal and state rules,” they said. Granting special ad hoc treatment for individual providers that give them competitive advantages would be “arbitrary and capricious and a violation of due process”; the bureau should implement a rulemaking to deal with the complex issues in the waivers, they said. A rulemaking could also look at other concerns that have been raised, such as the lack of requirements for porting numbers from a carrier to a non-carrier, they said.
A first round of comments on cramming “provide evidence for further action against cramming on wireline, wireless, and VoIP services,” a coalition of consumer groups said in a filing at the FCC Friday (http://xrl.us/bnhktx). “History has shown that reliance on industry efforts have not succeeded in protecting consumers, and the Commission must act swiftly to protect consumers from this predatory practice; the recent rules should not prevent further action since any additional protections will complement the recently adopted disclosure rules.” “Despite talk about putting an end to cramming for nearly fourteen years, consumers are still being taken advantage of by cramming to the tune of nearly $2 billion each year,” said Parul Desai, Consumers Union policy counsel, in a news release. “There is no reason to protect one type of consumer over another. The same cramming abuses that happen on landlines can easily happen to wireless and VoIP customers and we urge the FCC to protect these consumers equally.” The Center for Media Justice, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumer Law Center and the National Consumers League signed on to the filing. Comments filed at the FCC last month found wide disagreement on the need to expand cramming rules (CD June 28 p9).
The “rumor” is that the FCC is considering granting Vonage’s waiver request and then opening a rulemaking on access to numbering, NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay reported telling an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai on Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnhkca). That’s neither “efficient nor logical,” and a rulemaking is the proper way to proceed, NARUC said. The FCC must also protect funding streams for state programs as it reforms the contribution side of the USF, the association said. “The FCC should not increase pressure on the State programs and at the same time undercut -- inadvertently or otherwise -- funding sources for these crucial State programs,” NARUC wrote in an ex parte filing.
The FCC should stop using “broken special access pricing flexibility triggers” and should quickly issue its pending mandatory data request, counsel for Sprint Nextel told advisers to Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel on Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnhkb4). DS-1 and DS-3 services remain “vital to the national economy” and shouldn’t be subject to “anticompetitive terms and conditions,” they said.