The FCC Wireless Bureau Friday rejected a motion by Public Knowledge and the Rural Telecommunications Group asking for an extended deadline for commenting on how a proposed license swap between Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile would affect the Verizon/SpectrumCo transaction (CD July 6 p12). Verizon and SpectrumCo had opposed the motion (http://xrl.us/bnfq54). “It is the Commission’s policy that extensions of time are not routinely granted,” the bureau said. “We are not persuaded, under the circumstances outlined in the Motion, that Public Knowledge and RTG have shown good cause that granting the Motion for an extension of time would serve the public interest. The Commission has an obligation to review the transactions proposed in the Verizon Wireless/SpectrumCo/Cox Applications as expeditiously as possible, consistent with the public interest."
Level 3 spoke with FCC Wireline Bureau officials Tuesday to answer questions the bureau had on the company’s concerns about the potential impact on intercarrier compensation should the agency grant VoIP providers direct access to phone numbers, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnfrk7). The bureau asked when a LEC or IXC would “be inclined to withhold payment” when a VoIP provider holds a number, rather than a LEC, Level 3 reported. Level 3 stated it was “already experiencing difficulty collecting intercarrier compensation from two large incumbent IXC’s for certain VoIP calls,” and separating the entities owning phone numbers “would give such carriers additional arguments to avoid making intercarrier compensation payments.” Considerable billing and payment disputes and complexities are “almost certain to ensue” if the commission grants numbering waivers to non-carrier VoIP providers without a comprehensive rulemaking, Level 3 said.
The FCC followed through on its promise to test online public files and demonstrate how TV stations can upload data from paper documents at main studios. The demonstration will be at 10 a.m. July 17 in the Commission Meeting Room, said a public notice released late Friday (http://xrl.us/bnfrkt). It “will inform broadcasters and others of the design and content of the online file, how stations will upload information to the file, how file sharing tools like Dropbox and Box can be used for uploading, and other ways in which the FCC is working to facilitate access to its public databases.” Some broadcast lawyers had said the Media Bureau was rushing to finish the online document upload system because of an Aug. 2 deadline. That’s under a public- and political-file order approved 2-1 in April for TV stations to begin uploading some documents (CD July 6 p1).
A telco didn’t violate FCC retransmission consent rules, the Media Bureau said Friday. It denied Allbritton’s retrans complaint (CD Jan 12 p18) that Shentel didn’t negotiate in good faith for the broadcaster’s WJLA Washington (ABC). An Allbritton executive had no comment. “The parties’ inability to reach a retransmission consent agreement was due to their failure to agree on price -- a fact acknowledged by Allbritton,” said an order signed by bureau Chief Bill Lake. “The record reflects that the parties actively engaged in negotiations, but ultimately did not come to an agreement regarding the rate for retransmission consent of WJLA. As we have stated previously, absent other factors, disagreement over the rates, terms, and conditions of retransmission consent -- even fundamental disagreement -- is not indicative of a lack of good faith.” As “even with good faith, impasse is possible,” Lake wrote later in the order. Of Allbritton’s allegation Shentel didn’t tell subscribers 30 days before dropping WJLA, as commission rules require, “we caution Shentel” that if that wasn’t followed, the telco would have violated the rules. That’s “notwithstanding the fact that it may not have enforced the notice requirements in all instances in which a station is deleted without notice, it reserves the right to do so in its discretion,” Lake wrote of the agency (http://xrl.us/bnfrkt).
The Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the constitutionality of the “individual mandate” in the Affordable Care Act, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, has potentially negative implications for whether the FCC can mandate 700 MHz handset interoperability, said Fred Campbell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Communications Liberty and Innovation Project, on the group’s blog. “The Court held that Congress lacked the authority to impose the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause, which is applicable only to the regulation of existing commercial activity,” Campbell said (http://xrl.us/bnfrii). “According to the Court, ‘Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.'” The court upheld the mandate, “but only as a tax, not as a regulation,” Campbell noted. The language in the decision could be bad news for advocates of an interoperability mandate, he said. “The interoperability mandate proposed by the FCC shares the characteristics of the individual mandate that the Court considered constitutionally objectionable,” wrote Campbell, former chief of the Wireless Bureau. “The FCC has proposed forcing AT&T (and similarly situated licensees) to buy equipment that operates on the 700 MHz A Block spectrum, which AT&T cannot legally use, in order to subsidize the costs of AT&T competitors, who are licensed to use that spectrum. That sounds remarkably similar to forcing healthy individuals to buy health insurance in order to subsidize the cost of insurance for the unhealthy."
GreenPeak Technologies, supplier of the ZigBee chip inside Comcast-issued set-top boxes, announced availability last week of its GP510 communication controller chip that supports communication between ZigBee RF4CE-enabled devices and a set-top or home gateway. The GP510 was developed to be a low-cost solution for next-generation ZigBee set-top boxes, CEO Cees Links told us. It’s rolling out in set-tops from Comcast in select markets, according to a schedule the cable provider announced at CES earlier this year. Comcast uses GreenPeak chips in all its set-top boxes, Links said. Comcast’s Xfinity home control system allows consumers to monitor lights, thermostats, security cameras and alarm systems remotely from a computer or smartphone. The GreenPeak-enabled set-tops serve as the hub for wirelessly connected ZigBee devices and a sensor network in the Comcast home control system, Links said. AT&T’s Digital Life platform, in contrast, uses the competing Z-Wave wireless standard. Links cited the growth of sensor-based control and Wi-Fi networks in homes and said momentum was building around ZigBee as the standard for data communication for sensor control networks. Future set-tops will have Wi-Fi for content and ZigBee for sensor control for temperature, lighting, appliances and security, Links said. A connected water heater could send a signal via the cloud by email or text that it has malfunctioned, according to the Xfinity website, or a tripped window sensor could trigger a video camera to record. Links predicts that in 10 years “everyone will be used to Zigbee in the same way people are used to Wi-Fi” today. It “takes a few years before a standard settles in and harmonizes with everything around it,” he said, which is happening with ZigBee now. His view of the environmentally aware smart home of the future takes consumers “in a completely new direction.” When sensors and devices are connected over the same standard they can communicate in a transparent way, he said. In the environmentally aware smart home of the future, when a window is opened it can trigger a security breach if the homeowner is away and the alarm is on. If the alarm isn’t on, the home knows it’s occupied and the sensor triggers the heat to go off to save energy, he said. “We think there’s a place for a second network in the home,” Links said, envisioning homes with both Wi-Fi and ZigBee-based networks. Cost has been a major barrier to home automation at the mainstream level but cost is “going down significantly,” he said. There’s been a “breakthrough in the thinking of cable operators” who want to offer more in a competitive market than just entertainment content and Internet service, he said, and an emerging market needs a major player like Comcast to “shake up the market like Apple did for Wi-Fi” with AirPlay, he said. When Apple adopted Wi-Fi, “everybody else was standing in line” wondering why they needed Wi-Fi, he said. “We see Comcast as somewhat equivalent to Apple in playing this role because of their clout and reach,” he said.
The FCC International Bureau granted Star One’s request to access the U.S. market with the Star One C3 satellite licensed by Brazil. The satellite is expected to be launched to 75 degrees west “to provide fixed satellite service using the 13.75-14 GHz and 10.95-11.2 GHz frequency bands,” the bureau’s Satellite Division said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnfrfq). The bureau also accepted Globecomm’s application to add a new 4.9-meter Ku-band earth station to the company’s license. The proposed station will be in Laurel, Md., and “will be used as a back-up to their AOT-26 earth station in Hauppauge, N.Y.,” the application said: “It will also provide digital audio, video and data services.”
South Carolina conditionally approved Allied Wireless Communications to be designated an eligible telecom carrier (ETC), in a Thursday order after nearly two years of proceedings (http://xrl.us/bnfrct). Allied applied for ETC status Nov. 24, 2010, but in July 2011, the South Carolina Public Service Commission “held Allied’s application in abeyance in anticipation of the FCC’s action” in reforming the USF, which happened in November. Allied requested the PSC grant continued abeyance in February 2012 (http://xrl.us/bnfree) as the FCC continued to work out its list of unserved areas and Mobility Fund eligibility requirements, which it concluded in May. Mobility Fund eligibility calls for ETC status and will be considered at the FCC’s phase 1 auction set for Sept. 27, with a filing deadline of July 11. Allied applied for expedited ETC consideration with the South Carolina PSC on June 7 (http://xrl.us/bnfrdf), and the PSC complied without opposition in granting conditional ETC status to let the carrier bid for Mobility Fund money, the state commission said, with the approval’s condition based on successful bidding. The PSC called the company “uniquely positioned” to “bring service to these unserved areas in South Carolina."
Surrey Satellite Technology plans to launch the highest detection performance automatic identification system satellite ever built. The exactView-1 satellite is scheduled to launch July 22 via a Soyuz launch vehicle in Kazakhstan, SST said. It features “an additional deployable solar panel providing extra power for the COM DEV Canada designed AIS receiver payload,” the company said. When launched, that satellite will oversee a two-month in-orbit commissioning campaign from its U.K. ground station, SST said.
Dish Network is no longer carrying WFMJ-TV, Youngstown, Ohio. The DBS provider hasn’t reached a retransmission consent deal with the NBC affiliate and the station was dropped Friday, Dish said. WFMJ “is insisting on an outrageous rate increase of more than 250 percent.” The network is “taking our customers hostage in these negotiations,” Dish said. WFMJ said it negotiated with Dish for several months and “agreed to extend the old agreement several times.” The station “made a last-ditch effort to avoid a service interruption … [Friday] morning by substantially revising our offer in Dish’s favor,” it said in a press release. The WFMJ-owned CW affiliate, WBCB, also was blacked out, it said. Dish didn’t make a counterproposal and let the old agreement expire, WFMJ said: The station will continue “to try to persuade Dish Network to carry WFMJ and WBCB, but we cannot predict if or when Dish will restore WFMJ."