Arqiva and Eutelsat signed a new contract for additional satellite capacity to meet the demand for professional video services across Europe and the Middle East. The agreement allows Arqiva to take up 36 MHz on Eutelsat 7A, giving Arqiva “excellent overall coverage of Europe and specific coverage of the Middle East, Turkey and Russia,” Arqiva said.
LightSquared stressed the company’s continuing desire and intention to deploy a nationwide 4G wireless broadband network, in an ex parte filing in FCC docket 11-109 (http://xrl.us/bm8azh). The filing recounted a meeting with company executives, FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick, Deputy General Counsel Sean Lev and members of the Administrative Law Division and the International Bureau. The commission has a number of legal and policy responses it can take to address the inability of a limited number of GPS receivers “to operate properly in spectrum that has not been allocated for GPS use,” it said. The company is ready to continue working with federal government stakeholders and the GPS community “to find a solution that will placate all affected constituencies.” LightSquared filed for bankruptcy on Monday (CD May 16 p7).
Verizon’s decision to discontinue standalone DSL continues a pattern of “abandoning initiatives that would compete with cable” and can only be explained in the context of Verizon Wireless’s proposed acquisition of spectrum from the nation’s largest cable operators, DirecTV told the FCC Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm8au7). “If the Commission knew nothing else” about the cable spectrum deals, “this evidence alone would be sufficient to raise concerns that they will lead to a diminution in competition by creating incentives for the signatories not to compete with each other,” DirecTV said. DirecTV has long opposed Verizon Wireless’s cable spectrum transactions, mainly concerned with the potential future arrangements they may make possible. In its letter, the company referred to a former joint project in which Verizon Wireless had been working with DirecTV to develop a next-generation fixed wireless broadband project to be marketed jointly with DirecTV’s video service in a bundle that would compete directly with cable operators. Verizon Wireless abandoned those efforts “almost immediately” upon the cable spectrum deals, “in favor of working with its new cable partners,” DirecTV said. “Verizon’s behavior offers direct evidence of ways in which the proposed transaction will alter the market to the detriment of competition and consumers."
House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., asked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Wednesday to act “expeditiously” and “decisively” on special access reform. The commission is expected to initiate another round of data requests in an upcoming special access rulemaking. “More than fifteen years after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 tasked the FCC with ensuring that special access rates and contracts are just and reasonable, the special access market continues to be dominated by just three incumbent telephone companies,” she said in a letter. “The FCC’s history of deregulating the special access market … has preserved this market concentration, contributing to a history of rate increases and little competition.” The letter was also signed by House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif. Last December the FCC completed its second round of data collection in the special access proceeding, docket 05-25 (CD Dec 8 p1).
Sinclair said it signed a long-term affiliation agreement with Fox that also gives it the option to buy a Fox-owned station in Baltimore. The affiliation agreement covers 19 stations that Sinclair owns or programs, it said. The deal runs Jan. 1, 2013 to Dec. 31, 2017 and continues “monthly programming fee payments at rates and increases consistent with the marketplace for Fox stations,” Sinclair said. It also gives Sinclair the option to buy WUTB-TV Baltimore between July 1, 2012, and March 31, 2013, while giving Fox the option to buy up to three of Sinclair’s stations in Raleigh, Las Vegas, Cincinnati and Norfolk during the same period. The deal caps at $52.7 million the price of the Fox Baltimore station; that amount “decreases by $25 million should FOX exercise its option to purchase any of the” Sinclair stations, it said. Shedding those stations would reduce Sinclair’s count of MyNetworkTV and CW affiliates especially in markets where it does not operate another station, CEO David Smith said. He said he expects Sinclair’s retransmission consent fees to rise enough to cover the licensing fees it agreed to pay the network. “We believe the best and quickest strategy to achieving that goal is by having our broadcast network partners’ and our interests aligned,” he said.
A Chicago public, educational and government station reached a cable renewal agreement with RCN. Under the 10-year renewal term, Chicago Access Network Television “will roll out video on demand services and high definition channels,” the Alliance for Community Media said. The agreement is expected to dramatically expand local community access to new media technologies, it said.
The Puerto Rico Broadband Taskforce (PRBT), working with Connect Puerto Rico, a subsidiary of Connected Nation, released the Puerto Rico Broadband Strategic Plan aimed to assess and close the digital divide across the island, the groups said. The plan seeks to make broadband at speeds of 4 Mbps downlink and 1 Mbps uplink available to 98 percent of the island’s population by 2015. Additionally, all urban locations and 50 percent of all rural and remote areas should have access to broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up at affordable prices, said Juan Rodríguez, chief information officer of the government of Puerto Rico and president of the PRBT. Some 14 percent of the island’s households remained unserved by any form of fixed broadband at the end of 2011, the plan said. The plan asks the regulators to streamline the regulatory process to promote fair competition and market entry, lower cost barriers to improve the business case for broadband deployment and reduce uncertainty of future costs by encouraging implementation of tax and fee policies by state and municipal government. It also urged establishing low and uniform pole attachment rates and efficient processes. Additionally, the plan proposed passing legislation for the establishment of public-private partnerships for the exclusive purpose of designing, building, and operating fiber networks in unserved areas.
Q1 sales at Spanish Broadcasting System increased 4 percent from a year earlier to $23 million. Radio sales gained 5 percent to $27.8 million while TV sales of $4.3 million were about the same as a year earlier. It swung to a $3.6 million net loss from a $310,000 profit a year earlier on higher interest expense.
Comments on CEA and Entertainment Software Association requests for FCC waivers, across classes of products, of advanced communications services (ACS) disabilities rules are due June 14, replies June 25, in docket 10-213, commission public notices said. The CEA wants a waiver for Web-enabled TVs and DVRs. The ESA wants one for videogames. Groups representing the deaf have said the petitions cover too broad an array of products and services (CD March 27 p4). “CEA’s petition states that although both types of equipment allow consumers to access and use ACS, they are designed primarily to display video content rather than to provide access to ACS, and therefore qualify for a waiver,” a notice said of IPTVs and Web-enabled DVRs. ESA says “ACS-type features, where they exist in game industry products and services are subordinate to, and typically used to enhance and support the primary purpose of game play rather than ACS, and therefore qualify for a waiver,” another notice said.
The Global Alliance of the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials and the TETRA Critical Communications Association will join forces to support LTE-based public safety technology at the Public Safety Communications Research Labs, a joint program between the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology and the NTIA, the groups said. It’s critical to ensure “a coordinated global approach” by standards bodies regarding the development of LTE-based real-time multimedia communications capabilities, the groups said.