Liberty-Bell Telecom will now be known as dishNET Wireline LLC in Iowa, the Iowa Utilities Board ordered Tuesday (http://bit.ly/PhzsFE). “Neither the ownership structure of the company nor its principals will be affected by the name change,” the carrier told the board in its May 14 application, according to Tuesday’s ruling. The utilities board also effected as of Tuesday the proposed replacement tariff identified as TF-2012-0248, “reflecting the corporate name change and accurately reflecting the exchanges in which dishNET intends to provide local service,” the board said.
Massachusetts officials defended technology-neutral cramming rules, third-party blocking and the creation of a Do-Not-Cram registry, in a July 13 meeting with FCC representatives, according to an FCC notice released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnha9a). The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable Commissioner Geoffrey Why and Deputy General Counsel Kalun Lee also discussed Lifeline, with the commissioner encouraging “revision of FCC Form 499 to obtain more granular data regarding state contributions, which would allow the states to determine whether all stakeholders were fairly contributing to the USF,” and asking “the FCC to prohibit all Lifeline eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) from passing along to their Lifeline consumers the obligation to contribute to the USF,” according to the FCC’s notice. Also of concern were Massachusetts’ Lifeline broadband pilot program and the service quality of 911, both of which the state officials are reviewing and may return to in the coming months, the filing said.
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) will release a report Friday recommending greatly increased spectrum sharing between government and commercial users, industry officials said. PCAST approved the report in late May (CD May 29 p1). The report recommends that President Barack Obama issue a memorandum saying it is U.S. government policy to share underutilized government spectrum and ordering agencies to identify 1,000 MHz of spectrum that could be shared with the private sector.
China Mobile and Clearwire signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU), laying the foundation for international roaming between China and the U.S. using TD-LTE. “Under the MOU, China Mobile International Limited and Clearwire plan to collaborate on business and technical aspects of their respective operations to define and institute the process necessary to support international roaming and to ensure the operators’ systems and devices are able to support roaming,” the companies said in a news release. “The companies also expect this agreement to serve as a blueprint for future roaming agreements with other members of the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) of which China Mobile and Clearwire are founding members.” The two “recently demonstrated the roaming capability between Hong Kong FDD LTE and Hang Zhou TD-LTE,” said Tiger Lin, chairman of China Mobile International. “With the commercial launches of TD-LTE networks in major markets, these networks shall enable international roaming to create a ubiquitous user experience and a unified market,” said Lin. “Our goal is to make a converged LTE TDD/FDD market in which our subscribers roam between a TD-LTE network and a LTE FDD network at affordable cost and enjoy the benefit of LTE service globally."
WealthTV’s 3D TV programming will be available via 3D content distribution portal Yabazam, the companies said last week. New 3D episodes from WealthTV will be released on Yabazam “on a regular basis,” from series including Wonders of the World, Take Off, Private Islands and Boys Toys, the companies said. The struggling 3D video content world will see a further bump in offerings later this month when Yabazam starts its pay-per-view 3D video service with roughly 50 titles, a spokeswoman said. Yabazam positions its 3D library as content “beyond the 3D features released by the major studios.” Prices for titles will range from $1.99 to $4.99, she said.
The 800 MHz Transition Administrator has billed more than $232 million for overseeing the transition, through Dec. 31, 2011, said an audit submitted to the FCC (http://xrl.us/bng75o). The total costs of the transition through that date was set at $1.3 billion. The two lead partners forming the administrator are consulting firm Deloitte and law firm Squire Sanders.
Credit Suisse increased its Sprint Nextel 2012 EBITDA estimates from $4.1 billion to $4.3 billion. That’s based on additional data on the carrier’s Network Vision, reclassification of Network Vision expenses and analysis of device cost impact, the analysts wrote investors Tuesday.
The Direct Marketing Association will continue to focus on privacy at the state and federal government levels. Choice and transparency for consumers and self-regulation are part of that effort, DMA State Affairs Vice President Ron Barnes told members during a webinar. The association also plans to direct its efforts toward safeguarding ethical use of consumer data for marketing purposes and advocating on behalf of remote sellers in the state sales tax collection debate, he said. “Remote sales tax collection morphed into more of a national issue at the federal level this year.” The association is monitoring about 730 state bills that were carried over from last year, he said. DMA wants to ensure that proposals don’t give customers the impression that information collected or shared by a company “is going to be harmful to them at some point,” he said. “A legislative framework is not the way to allow a product to grow and respond in the marketplace.” DMA also plans to support and provide input around initiatives to be introduced by Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, the new president of the National Association of Attorneys General, he added. Gansler plans to explore topics like privacy rules in media and how to regulate Internet privacy, Barnes said. The association plans to help him understand the complexity in a lot of these issues, he said.
Lawyers for the NCTA and Time Warner Cable discussed with FCC officials potential solutions for letting customers with Clear-QAM capable devices continue receiving basic-tier signals should certain cable operators be allowed to encrypt them, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bng7xo). “We also discussed the relationship of potential equipment-based technical solutions, such as digital transport adapters or set-top boxes with home-networking capability, to the consumer protection measures proposed in the rulemaking, including offering free equipment to certain basic tier customers for a transitional period,” said the notice, which disclosed a meeting with Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, Lyle Elder, an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski, and other Media Bureau officials.
Lawyers for CEA and some of its member companies met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to push for action on the association’s petition for a waiver from some advanced communications service accessibility rules, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bng7wg). They also discussed CEA’s petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s Internet Protocol captioning order and urged the commission to deny reconsideration petitions from Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and from TVGuardian.