The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association filed suit in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, asking for a stay of the FCC’s “flawed” regression analysis-based caps on USF support (http://xrl.us/bndbn6). NTCA is seeking an immediate stay of implementation of the new caps, which are set to be phased in starting Sunday. “The methodology for limiting rural carriers’ cost reimbursements through the USF’s high-cost program is, among other things, riddled with data errors and fails to provide predictable support,” a spokeswoman said. Specifically, NTCA took issue with a capping methodology it said would violate the commission’s statutory mandate to deploy predictable and sufficient mechanisms to advance universal service; inaccuracies in the data set used to designate geographic boundary areas and to compute the formulas’ coefficients’ and retroactive application to limit reimbursements for expenses incurred in past years. “NTCA recognizes the need for modernization of the universal service and intercarrier compensation regimes, which is why we made significant efforts last year to reach a consensus with other industry sectors on suggested updates to those programs,” said Shirley Bloomfield, NTCA’s CEO. “But these specific caps don’t achieve the purpose of modernization. To the contrary, the unpredictable, ever-changing and retroactive nature of these caps are already frustrating routine business planning, setting back investment in rural broadband, and will lead to declining service quality and higher prices for rural Americans.” NTCA has already filed for commission-level review of the regression caps, in a joint May filing with OPASTCO, the National Exchange Carrier Association and the Western Telecommunications Alliance (CD May 29 p7).
Wireless carrier NTCH filed an amended petition at the FCC seeking designation as an eligible telecom carrier in North Carolina and Tennessee. “NTCH believes that this additional information should enable the Commission to promptly grant the Amended Petition,” the company said (http://xrl.us/bndbn2).
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., introduced a bill Friday to deter the online sharing and possession of child pornography. The Child Protection Act (HR-6063) aims to increase penalties for those possessing child pornography and increases funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Smith and Wasserman Schultz are also sponsors of HR-1981, which aims to prevent the spread of child pornography on the Internet by compelling ISPs to submit to enhanced data retention requirements. A spokeswoman for the chairman told us that HR-6063 differs from HR-1981 by omitting the data retention provision in the bill. HR-1981, the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, passed a subcommittee markup nearly a year ago despite bipartisan furor over the bill’s potential impact on consumer privacy and cybersecurity.
ERF Wireless has developed a GPS-based E911 solution for use in the oil and gas industry, the company said Friday. “The majority of the Company’s revenue is derived from providing terrestrial wireless broadband communications, including VoiP telephone service, to oil and gas rigs operated in remote areas of the United States,” ERF said. “These rigs operate in areas that many times do not have marked roads, highways or streets with the only access being a pathway across open ranch land or at best a road newly scraped out of the rocks and sagebrush.” The system “uses GPS coordinates, associated with the VoIP telephones [at] the drilling site, to locate the appropriate 911 call center and to dispatch emergency personnel who are suitably GPS equipped to specific geographic locations rather than physical street addresses,” ERF said.
The White House issued a veto threat on the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2013 (HR-6020). The threat came in an OMB statement released last week (http://xrl.us/bndbji). In particular the White House said it did not approve of the bill’s proposed 5 percent cut in FCC funding. “Funding for FCC is budget neutral and without the proper amount of resources the agency would find it increasingly difficult to manage its responsibilities, such as supporting the build-out of public safety communications networks, overseeing mergers and spectrum transactions, and reforming the Universal Service Fund,” the statement said.
The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel wants a one month delay, until July 28, to respond to Comcast’s petition for the FCC Media Bureau to relieve it of video rate regulation in North Arlington and Rutherford (CD June 8 p16). Comcast agreed to the delay, to “enable Rate Counsel to submit an appropriate filing so that the Commission can proceed,” the state agency representing consumers said in a filing last week (http://xrl.us/bndbjk). The cable operator made a separate effective competition petition for 18 local franchise areas in Illinois including East and West Peoria and Peoria City (http://xrl.us/bndbjt).
The FCC’s consistently said for 42 years that radio has a “limited role” in “original newsgathering and dissemination, particularly with respect to local news,” said representatives of companies seeking an end to newspaper/radio cross-ownership limits. “A number of commenters in addition to Bonneville/Scranton also have submitted serious, analytical arguments for lifting the newspaper/radio rule,” those two companies said in docket 09-182. “Those who apparently oppose any changes to the regulation have provided no specific discussion concerning newspaper/radio combinations.” There'd be “factual inconsistencies that would plague any effort to establish a ’top 20 market’ threshold for granting newspaper/radio regulatory relief,” lawyers for Bonneville International and Scranton Times LP reported telling Commissioner Ajit Pai (http://xrl.us/bndbh3). A rulemaking notice proposed ending limits on how many radio and TV stations can be jointly owned within a market, while allowing cross-ownership of daily papers and broadcasters in top markets under certain scenarios (CD Jan 20 p4).
DirecTV and Diversified Communications said they ended a blackout of the broadcaster’s WABI-TV (CBS) Bangor, Maine, and WCJB-TV (ABC) Gainesville, Fla., on the DBS company’s service (CD June 7 p18). The companies reached “an extended agreement” for retransmission consent, WABI said on its website (http://xrl.us/bndbgq). WCJB said similar (http://xrl.us/bndbgu). “We regret our customers ... had to endure more than three weeks of needless frustration when Diversified Communications could have simply left its channels on while we worked out a resolution,” DirecTV said in a news release. “All local stations should take responsibility for putting an end to these unnecessary disruptions."
AT&T’s Board of Directors approved a quarterly dividend of 44 cents a share on the company’s common stock. The dividend is payable to stockholders of record at the close of business on July 10.
The FCC dismissed Cebridge Acquisition’s request to register a new fixed C-band receive-only earth station, because the application didn’t follow frequency coordination requirements, said an International Bureau order Friday. It said the “incomplete” application from February can be resubmitted with the correct information (http://xrl.us/bndbaj). Cebridge is a cable operator doing business as Suddenlink.