Responses to CenturyLink’s petition to release escrowed broadband deployment funds and eliminate future escrow payments were due to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission Friday afternoon (http://xrl.us/bngq9a). Commission staff supports much of the petition and wrote in its own July 12 response that it “supports releasing to CenturyLink the $30 million held in escrow” and “supports suspending future payments into the broadband escrow account.” The staff recommended suspension rather than outright elimination of escrow requirements to ensure CenturyLink continues to comply with the broadband rules of the state’s order 14, which requires the telco to set up a broadband deployment escrow account. CenturyLink made note of that in its March 30 petition (http://xrl.us/bngrkb). The company said it’s been active in broadband deployment without the need for escrowed funds, a contention the commission said staff support. “If CenturyLink were to fall out of compliance with its broadband commitments in the future, the escrow requirement would be reinstated,” the commission said staff sought.
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing to discuss the 1992 Cable Act on July 24, a committee spokesman said Friday. Details on the timing, witnesses and location of the hearing will be released early this week, the spokesman said. Mark Cooper, the research director for the Consumer Federation of America, told us he was invited to testify at the hearing. NAB President Gordon Smith will join him, the group’s spokesman said.
The House Communications Subcommittee got incorrect information during testimony by Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs at CTIA, the NAB said in a letter to him (http://xrl.us/bngn94). The NAB said that McCabe reported to Congress that Best Buy’s June 2012 buyers guide included 26 mobile devices capable of playing broadcast radio. NAB researchers found that only 12 of the 26 devices possessed the capability, the broadcaster association said. McCabe’s testimony demonstrates the difficulty of determining which devices have broadcast radio capabilities, NAB said. “Consumers have numerous opportunities to purchase wireless devices with FM radio capabilities,” Guttman-McCabe said in response. “While we are not in the business of defending the Best Buy catalog, NAB’s letter concedes that it does highlight multiple FM-capable phones, and the catalog is only one source of information on the availability and capabilities of wireless handsets."
The Gig.U initiative took a major step forward in Michigan Thursday as development organizations and Michigan State University joined forces. “This broad coalition is bringing the Greater Lansing area a strategic bandwidth advantage that will help drive economic growth and a new generation of opportunities,” Gig.U officials said in a written statement. “This coalition has developed creative approaches to improving the math for new investment that we know will accelerate new deployments in Lansing and elsewhere. This effort sets a outstanding example of how dedicated local leadership can spark an broadband upgrade.” Retailer DTN Management will work with provider Spartan Net to outfit “all of their residential complexes, totaling more than 8,500 customers, with gigabit-level broadband networks and services” and other Gig.U initiatives include a “Gigabit Certified” building program, the initiative said.
The FCC should not “too quickly concede to idealized industry agreements” in the basic-tier encryption proceeding, Stephen Schultze, associate director of Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, wrote the commission (http://xrl.us/bngn8x). The letter came in response to a letter from Comcast’s counsel disclosing an agreement between the cable operator and Boxee over how to deliver encrypted basic-tier signals to third-party devices that rely on ClearQAM tuners (CD July 11 p7). The FCC should be especially wary of such agreements when “those agreements are short on detail and when they echo failed MOUs of the past,” Schultze wrote. “The compromise approach would allow MVPDs to encrypt all channels before they enter the home in order to prevent signal theft, but would also require them to offer consumers true interoperability with third-party devices by leaving the set-top box outputs unencrypted,” he said. “Such an approach is easily implementable compared to the endless technical proceedings and difficult waivers of the past 15 years."
Reaction was mixed on CenturyLink’s petition for a waiver on how it can use Connect America Fund (CAF) money. The telco qualified for about $90 million in CAF support for broadband buildout (CD April 26 p1). It asked for permission to use $32.5 million of that to deploy broadband “to locations within specified areas that are shown on the National Broadband Map as served by fixed wireless providers that it contends those fixed wireless providers do not fully serve,” said a June public notice. In comments Wednesday, Montana Internet Corp. objected to the petition. “CenturyLink may elect to take the funds for which it is eligible and to use those monies to deploy broadband in unserved areas; it may elect to decline the funds. CenturyLink’s proposed ’third way’ of taking the money and using it where it wants eviscerates the goal of the Commission to ‘ensure that all areas get broadband-capable networks,'” MIC said (http://xrl.us/bngn8c). The Benton Rural Electric Association, a wireless Internet service provider (WISP) in one of the specified areas, also opposed the petition. “It is inappropriate for CAF grant funds to be used to compete with a non-profit private company that is already providing broadband to these rural areas,” Benton said (http://xrl.us/bngn8n). The Minnesota Department of Commerce supported the request, arguing it would give close to 6,000 households a wireline broadband option “at much more affordable rates and higher speeds than the WISP offering that may be available” (http://xrl.us/bngn9d). The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission also supports the petition, arguing that without a waiver, consumers in the areas served by WISPs “may not be able to receive broadband service at all” (http://xrl.us/bngn9j). The waiver “would allow CenturyLink to spend tens of millions of dollars to bring more broadband services to more rural and high-cost customers who do not have reasonable access to broadband service today,” a CenturyLink spokesman told us. “If the waiver application is approved, CenturyLink will build needed broadband services to thousands of homes in Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and several other states.”
The FCC Media Bureau gave New Mexico Highland University a waiver of the main studio requirement for a proposed noncommercial educational station in Milan, N.M. NMHU proposed to operate the station as a satellite of KEDP(FM) Las Vegas, N.M., the bureau said in an order (http://xrl.us/bngn98). The bureau said it’s persuaded “that NMHU will meet its local service obligations and thus, that grant of the requested waiver is consistent with the public interest.”
The FCC Media Bureau sought comments on a request to waive CableCARD rules so Enseo can sell certain set-top boxes to hotels and other commercial establishments, a public notice released late Wednesday said (http://xrl.us/bngn76). “Enseo claims that these compatibility and consumer protection measures should not be applicable to the HD4000 [device] because it will only be available to sell to sophisticated corporate and governmental purchasers.” Comments are due July 31, replies Aug. 10, in docket 12-188.
The FCC issued a citation and order to TD Spot, or Spy Spot Investigations, for marketing unauthorized radio frequency devices in the United States and its territories, an FCC order said (http://xrl.us/bngn6n). The devices, including GPS signal jammers, violate Section 302(b) of the Communications Act, it said. The FCC ordered Spy Spot to immediately comply with the act and to avoid the violation in the future, it said. Spy Spot was unavailable for comment.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission shouldn’t set rates when the FCC has exclusive authority, said the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision submitted Feb. 15 and filed Thursday (http://xrl.us/bngn5d). The Minnesota PUC had ordered Qwest “to submit for review and approval a price list and supporting rationale for certain telecommunication network facilities 47 U.S.C. Section 271 requires Qwest to provide to its Minnesota competitors.” The 8th Circuit said enforcement of that section falls to the province of the FCC exclusively. The idea that PUCs have the right to set rates for Section 271 elements has been “roundly rejected” in similar cases and “by definition, exclusive regulatory authority cannot be shared by two independent regulatory agencies,” which means the Minnesota PUC’s action “intrudes on federal authority to regulate rates” in Section 271, the court said. “We reverse the judgment of the district court [given June 27, 2011], and remand to the district court to enter relief and judgment consistent with this opinion,” the 8th Circuit said. The PUC declined to comment.