In a possible sign of the influence of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau in proposals for the World Conference on International Telecommunications, the SAMENA Telecommunications Council canceled a June 14 roundtable on the International Telecommunication Regulations because an ITU official couldn’t attend. The ITU representative canceled at the “last minute” due to an upcoming meeting of the ITU Council working group, a SAMENA spokesman said. SAMENA is a telecom consortium of 45 operators and dozens of members from 25 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Officials and executives from national regulatory authorities, GSMA, Wiley Rein, AT&T, Turk Telecom, and others were either invited to attend or scheduled to speak, the program said. The roundtable was scheduled to be at the Turk Telecom headquarters. The December ITU conference will revise the treaty. Tom Wilson, the SAMENA chief, in April had said the treaty revision is “an opportunity for change” (CD April 20 p7). Wilson didn’t clarify his remarks despite several email queries. Richard Hill, who is the ITU counselor to the December conference, and for the ITU-T study group dealing with economic matters, was scheduled to represent the intergovernmental organization during the SAMENA roundtable talk, according to a program we obtained. The SAMENA spokesman said Hill was not the official who canceled. ITU officials didn’t immediately respond to queries about who was scheduled to speak. Hill was slated for retirement before the December conference, but was retained beyond his term because of his specialized knowledge, officials had told us. Following a similar workshop in April at the European Network Telecommunication Operators Association (ETNO), Hill in an email, reiterated the views of ETNO officials who supported new business models to boost revenue assurance but were not cited in stories (CD April 20 p7). The ETNO officials made “comments to the effect that today’s Internet business models are becoming unsustainable in the face of an exponential growth in data traffic and that there is a need to address the current disconnect between sources of revenue and sources of costs,” Hill told us by email. The views, and others, were reported the following day because of time constraints (CD April 23 p4). ETNO, in a submission to the ITU Council working group this month had called for new business models for interconnection policies that would be based on the “value” of traffic, not just its volume (CD June 11 p10).
Tribune asked the FCC to “take all steps to act expeditiously” on the company’s applications “to allow Tribune to exit bankruptcy as soon as possible.” The agency’s non-binding 180-day clock remains at day 74 on the request to transfer station licenses as part of exiting Chapter 11 (http://xrl.us/bmf3e6). The plan is the only one before a U.S. bankruptcy court judge, and “the Company believes the plan is clearly confirmable” and the court will OK it, said a filing posted Monday to docket 10-104 (http://xrl.us/bnbkjj): “This would provide the Commission with the necessary court authorization to proceed with its final review and action.” Those meeting with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau included Chief Restructuring Officer Don Liebentritt, Tribune Broadcasting President Nils Larsen, former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley, representing creditor JPMorgan Chase, and another lawyer for the station owner and daily newspaper publisher’s unsecured creditor committee.
Trimble Navigation, an advanced location-based solutions provider, urged the FCC to adopt proposals to revoke LightSquared’s ancillary terrestrial component license. Action on these proposals “should not and need not be delayed while the commission considered broader prospective issues such as LightSquared’s proposal for a spectrum swap” or whether the FCC can adopt interference protection criteria or standards, Trimble said in an ex parte filing in docket 11-109 (http://xrl.us/bnbknc). The filing reflects issues discussed at meetings with FCC staff, including Charles Mathias, Special Counsel to Chairman Julius Genachowski and with Commissioner Ajit Pai, it said.
The Supreme Court likely will hold off deciding whether to take up FCC v. CBS until ruling this term on the agency’s indecency case against Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox broadcast-TV networks, a lawyer who’s sided with broadcasters on the issue predicted. The high court didn’t act Monday on whether to grant writ of certiorari on the commission’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling throwing out a $550,000 fine against CBS over Janet Jackson’s split-second 2004 Super Bowl halftime breast-barring incident (CD April 19 p20). “Presumably, they'll hold it until the Fox case is decided,” said communications lawyer Andrew Schwartzman. “The cert petition was on the calendar."
Bandwidth.com has been experiencing difficulties with Level 3 when it comes to “project porting,” a lawyer for the first company told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Thursday, according to an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnbke9). Because Level 3 only allows 5,000 port outs a day, for larger projects it often runs afoul of a 15-day best practice proposed by the North America Numbering Council, the ISP said. It urged rapid adoption of the 15-day number porting rule, with the clarification that the old service provider “shall not have any right to dictate the porting schedule of project port requests” from a new provider. Bandwidth also argued that numbering waivers are “inappropriate for resolution of far reaching and critical industry matters that are also already raised in the Commission’s on-going work to transition to a Broadband IP market.” Level 3 had no comment.
The FCC wants comment on Time Warner Cable’s request to end the remaining condition on the company contained in a 2001 order approving AOL’s purchase of Time Warner Inc., then TWC’s parent. The curb barred the cable operator from discriminating on the basis of affiliation against other ISPs seeking to sell Internet service on Time Warner Cable’s systems. “This condition remains in place,” a public notice Tuesday said (http://xrl.us/bnbkgg). In January the commission freed Time Warner Inc. of other conditions, and invited Time Warner Cable to likewise request that the Web condition be killed, which the operator did two months later (CD March 12 p12). “Time Warner, AOL, and TWC are three separate, independent companies given the corporate restructuring,” according to the operator, the notice said. “TWC has no ability to favor AOL over unaffiliated broadband ISPs since AOL does not operate as a broadband ISP.” Comments are due July 12, replies July 27 in docket 00-30.
No one has challenged AT&T’s showing that it has met the applicable triggers for special access pricing flexibility in the San Antonio and San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan statistical areas, the telco’s executives told FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Thursday, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnbkc9). A Sprint Nextel opposition filed May 23 should be stricken because it was submitted two and a half months after the opposition deadline, and did not contest that AT&T had met the triggers, the telco said. Until the commission finds, based on an “adequate evidentiary record,” that the existing pricing flexibility rules and triggers are inadequate, “its review of pricing flexibility petitions is properly confined to determining whether the applicable triggers are met,” AT&T said. A draft order circulating on the eighth floor would suspend all pending pricing flexibility petitions while the commission contemplates changing the special access rules (CD June 5 p3).
The FCC seeks comment on Canada’s request for coordination with U.S. terrestrial fixed stations. Canada requested frequency coordination for Canadian earth stations operating in the 3700-4200 MHz and 5925-6425 MHz bands, the International Bureau said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnbkdw). Comments are due July 12, and if no adverse comments are received by then, “these earth stations will be considered satisfactorily coordinated with the USA and Canada,” the bureau said.
Gilat was selected by Harris CapRock to supply end-to-end very-small-aperture terminal antenna systems on board maritime vessels including cruise ships. Gilat said it will provide its Ku-band solid state power amplifiers. The amplifiers will help Harris’ maritime customers “to improve communications performance and to ensure constant connectivity services for both passengers and crew,” Harris said.
The FTC assessed an $800,000 penalty on data broker Spokeo to settle charges that it violated provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), in what the agency called its first case addressing sale of Internet and social media data (http://xrl.us/bnbjzj). The commission said Spokeo marketed consumer profiles to human resources, background screening and recruiting companies “without taking steps to protect consumers” required under FCRA. The agency alleged that the company, which collects personal information about consumers from hundreds of online and offline data sources, “operated as a consumer reporting agency and violated the FCRA by failing to make sure the information it sold would be used only for legally permissible purposes; failing to ensure the information was accurate; and failing to tell users of its consumer reports about their obligations under FCRA.” The commission’s settlement order bars Spokeo from future violations of FCRA and prohibits it from “making misrepresentations about its endorsements or failing to disclose a material connection with endorsers.” The order is subject to approval by U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the commission said. Spokeo’s settlement will “allow for a continued open dialogue regarding our business practices,” President Harrison Tang said in a blog post (http://xrl.us/bnbkhj). The FTC had focused on a “prior version” of the company’s website and “believes that our targeted marketing at that time implicated” FCRA, he said. “It has never been our intention to act as a consumer reporting agency,” he said. “We have made changes to our site and our internal business practices in order to ensure we don’t infringe upon the FCRA’s important consumer protections.” Spokeo will “continue to provide one of the easiest opt-out functions in the people search industry” and is reviewing its privacy practices, Tang said.