Alaska Communications System Group is concerned about the modeling efforts associated with support for price-cap carriers in Phase II of the FCC Connect America Fund, it said in meetings last week with Wireline Bureau officials and an adviser to Chairman Julius Genachowski (http://xrl.us/bm5tcn). A high proportion of customers in Alaska are served by lines costing more than $256 per month, and the CostQuest Associates Broadband Analysis tool model “does not adequately capture Alaska costs, nor are its data inputs and mechanisms accessible to third parties,” ACS said in an ex parte filing.
The U.S. and Japan agreed on the need to deepen bilateral cooperation on cyber issues, and develop a framework for “deepening whole-of-government engagement,” the White House said. That was among cooperation initiatives announced after a meeting Monday between President Barack Obama and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. The framework will “leverage existing dialogues to ensure the involvement” of all relevant ministries and agencies on priority issues including common threats, expansion of public-private partnerships, critical infrastructure and control systems security and cybersecurity awareness, a White House statement said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau granted an application for domestic section 214 transfer of indirect control of AriaLink Telecom to Zayo Group effective April 29, it said in a public notice Monday (http://xrl.us/bm5tce). “Grant of this application serves the public interest,” the notice said.
The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority renewed a five-year relay service contract with Sprint Nextel, the agency said. The contract comes with a new offering of optional wireless devices, the carrier said, noting additional services are possible. Sprint has been the telecom relay service provider in the state from 2007, with the previous deal ending June 30, 2012. As part of the agreement, Sprint will upgrade its call centers to accommodate all of the state’s relay traffic. It will also expand its facilities when needed to accommodate any system changes necessary to maintain its required service standards, the company said.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., scolded Sidley Austin for lobbying on behalf of the Chinese mobile device manufacturer Huawei, in a letter sent Monday. Wolf, the co-chair of the House human rights caucus, has been an ardent critic of the company (CD March 21 p14) and said “there should be no question that the national security community actively considers Huawei a serious concern.” In particular Wolf accused the company of supporting “America’s greatest adversaries,” the Taliban, Iraq and Iran, and asked Sidley Austin Managing Partner Carter Phillips how he could represent a company “that has provided our enemies with equipment?” Huawei Vice President-External Affairs Bill Plummer said the company “appreciates Rep. Wolf’s geopolitical concerns, but objects to misrepresentations of Huawei, an independent multinational with well-respected and trusted global operations.”
Cumulus Media agreed to sell 55 radio stations in 11 markets that it called “non-strategic” to Townsquare Media, which is giving it in return 10 Illinois stations total in the Bloomington and Peoria areas and $116 million cash. “The transaction is part of Cumulus’s ongoing plan to focus on radio stations in top markets and geographically strategic regional clusters,” that company said Monday (http://xrl.us/bm5tbs). Markets where Cumulus is selling stations include Augusta, Bangor and Presque Isle, Maine; Binghamton, N.Y.; Grand Junction, Colo.; and Killeen-Temple and Odessa-Midland in Texas. Mergers and acquisitions were a top topic at the NAB Show last month (CD April 20 p16).
Many of the concerns raised in response to a 2010 notice of proposed rulemaking on channel sharing “stem from the apprehension that channel sharing would not be a voluntary process,” said the channel sharing report and order posted online by the FCC. The order makes clear that any sharing, prior to an eventual auction of broadcast spectrum, will be entirely voluntary. The order used the word voluntary 27 times (http://xrl.us/bm5sih). “The rules we adopt will not require any licensees to operate on a shared channel under any circumstances,” the order said. “Nor will the rules we adopt authorize the Commission to choose channel sharing partners.” Commissioners approved the order Friday (CD April 30 p6), but it was not released until after our deadline. A news release from the commission contained all the key details. “These new channel sharing rules will facilitate the recovery of underutilized television channels for flexible use in a manner that meets consumer and business needs by enabling broadcasters to relinquish spectrum while continuing to maintain broadcast television service,” the order said. “As we begin this effort to repurpose spectrum in the U/V [UHF/VHF] bands, we continue to recognize the vital role played by broadcast television. To this end, we intend to provide for an orderly transition of a portion of the U/V bands to flexible use in a manner cognizant of the impact on consumers of television programming viewed over-the-air and through multichannel video program distributors."
The Public Safety Spectrum Trust Operator Advisory Committee sought a waiver of a requirement that the 700 MHz waiver recipients use the services of a clearinghouse vendor. The requirement was imposed in a January order from the Public Safety Bureau prior to the late February approval of key spectrum legislation by Congress, the committee notes (http://xrl.us/bm5sht). The committee is made up of government groups that plan to build local public safety networks in the 700 MHz band, ahead of FirstNet, the national network partly funded by the spectrum legislation. “The Spectrum Act assigns responsibility to FirstNet to enter into roaming agreements with commercial network providers,” the committee said in a waiver request filed at the FCC. “It may frustrate the intention of Congress, in establishing FirstNet, if the Petitioners attempt to enter into roaming agreements or obtain the services of a clearinghouse entity, whose sole purpose is to ‘manage the relationships with commercial roaming partners.'” As a result of the spectrum law, the waiver recipients “believe the requirement for clearinghouse services no longer serves the Bureau’s intended purposes,” they said.
Current FCC support levels allocated for Phase II of the USF Mobility Fund are “inadequate to achieve vital universal service goals,” and the agency should use a further rulemaking notice “to make additional funding available to competitive wireless providers,” the Rural Cellular Association said in a filing. The commission could reallocate “support foregone by price cap carriers that decline to exercise their statewide right of first refusal” to the Mobility Fund, RCA suggested (http://xrl.us/bm5sbp). “RCA further argued that the Commission should free up additional funds to support mobile wireless services by eliminating excessive support flowing to rural incumbent LECs, including by lowering the prescribed rate of return and limiting permissible recovery levels for capital and operating expenses."
The Senate Privacy Subcommittee should grant immunity to the unidentified Google engineer at the core of the company’s so-called “Wi-Spy” scandal involving the collection of unencrypted communications by its Street View cars, a group told Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn. Immunity for testimony from “Engineer Doe” would be “a small price to pay so the American people can finally understand what actually transpired,” John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog privacy project director, said in the letter to Franken Monday (http://xrl.us/bm5s54). The engineer has invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence in the matter and Google has not identified him. Simpson also said the subcommittee should subpoena Google CEO Larry Page and “ask him to explain the corporate culture that allowed Wi-Spy to happen.” On Saturday Google released a largely unredacted version of the FCC’s report into the Street View matter (http://xrl.us/bm5s6k), which revealed that contrary to the company’s earlier characterization of the “payload data” collection as an accident, several other engineers were privy to Doe’s project, including one who reviewed its code “line by line” and a senior manager who knew about the payload data collection. The FCC report “shows a troubling portrait of a company where an engineer could run wild with software code that violates the privacy of tens of millions of people worldwide, but the corporate culture of ‘Engineers First’ prevented corporate counsel or other engineers from stopping the privacy violations,” Simpson told Franken. A Google spokeswoman told us the company made the report available in unredacted form, “except for the names of individuals,” because: “While we disagree with some of the statements made in the document, we agree with the FCC’s conclusion that we did not break the law. We hope that we can now put this matter behind us."