Standard & Poor’s raised its corporate credit rating on Barrington Broadcasting to B+ from B, the ratings firm said. “We expect credit metrics to improve in 2012, a presidential election year,” Standard & Poor’s said.
The California VoIP legislation (SB-1161), as amended, wouldn’t eliminate any existing regulation or prohibit any future state regulation of traditional telephone service through a landline connection, said a letter by state Sen. Alex Padilla to supporters of the bill Friday. The bill, which would ban regulation over VoIP in the state, had spurred concerns over consumer protection of basic services (CD April 18 p6). The amendments also made clear that the bill would make no change to state USF and carrier-of-last-resort laws and regulations. It wouldn’t change the right of any customer to choose to subscribe to basic landline voice service, which comes with all the state consumer protections. Additionally, for consumers who choose to get voice service through a broadband connection, the bill wouldn’t eliminate any of the federal and state consumer protections that apply to those services, which include the requirement to provide 911 service, the letter said. The bill will be next heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Beasley Q1 sales gained 1.1 percent to $23.3 million from a year earlier. Profit rose 55 percent to $2.4 million on lower interest, depreciation and amortization expenses. “Our debt and leverage reduction initiatives over the last few years are delivering strong benefits to our income statement,” Chairman George Beasley said. “We currently intend to continue using cash from operations to further lower debt as well as other initiatives that can enhance shareholder value."
The first round of the $144 million BTOP Golden Leaf Rural Broadband Initiative is complete, said North Carolina’s Research and Education Network (NCREN)’s operator MCNC. All broadband fiber associated with this phase of the project is now active and serving Community Anchor Institutions (CAIs) including K-12 schools, universities, community colleges, health care facilities, public health facilities, libraries, research institutions, and other sectors of CAIs in western and southeastern North Carolina. Once complete through two phases, the initiative would expand the capacity of NCREN in the state, MCNC said. MCNC received federal approval to begin the second phase of the initiative in June 2011. All construction for the initiative is expected to be complete by 2013. Since the project began, all North Carolina Community Colleges have been connected to NCREN, MCNC said. East Carolina University received a 10 Gbps network upgrade and now serves as a hub for most of eastern North Carolina, it said. The National Climatic Data Center in Asheville now has a 10 Gbps connection, it said.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is asking Verizon to respond to consumer complaints about its landline services in the state. In a petition filed with the state’s Public Service Commission, Schneiderman said an increasing number of Verizon landline customers have experienced service outages of more than 24 hours. The state commission just received the AG’s petition and it will be reviewed, a spokeswoman said. She noted the commission’s ongoing review of Verizon’s service quality issues and that the company recently agreed to pay a $400,000 settlement to the commission for service quality violations. “The goals of Verizon and the attorney general are the same” -- to provide reliable service for New Yorkers, a Verizon spokesman said. Verizon will file comments with the commission after reviewing the AG’s petition, he said. He claimed the AG’s filing focused on the fall of 2011 and the $400,000 penalty. But that was after a two-week labor strike, Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and other storms, he said. He claimed on average, 98 percent Verizon landline customers in the state don’t experience service issues in any given month. The AG’s petition cited a reduction in Verizon’s workforce. The state commission also accused the carrier of reducing its repair workforce in 2011 in its investigation. The company has lost over 50 percent of its landline accounts over the past 10 years, the spokesman said. Additionally, the company removed the “state of emergency” classification last fall after the storms because trouble levels were being reduced. The decision was incorrectly interpreted by the AG as a reduction in force, he said.
AT&T shareholders voted down a wireless net neutrality measure at the company’s annual investor meeting Friday. The measure asks the carrier to commit to operating its wireless network without the ability to privilege, degrade or prioritize any traffic. Service providers are generally against the principle. AT&T’s vote came after the SEC asked wireless carriers to let shareholders vote on net neutrality. Similar proposals related to net neutrality are scheduled for votes at Verizon Communications’ annual meeting May 3 and Sprint Nextel’s meeting on May 15. A proposal asking AT&T to issue a semi-annual report on political contributions and the policies and procedures for making such contributions was defeated by a vote of 61.4 percent against to 38.6 percent in favor, AT&T said. Another proposal asking that AT&T adopt a policy that the chairman of the board be an independent director was also defeated by a vote of 56.2 percent against to 43.8 percent in favor.
The FCC is very focused on Internet governance heading into a conference later this year on whether to revise the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) in a way that would give the ITU greater control of the Internet, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Friday. “This is a serious matter,” Genachowski said during a news conference following an FCC meeting. “We were very engaged at the FCC with the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] communique last year, which set out a set of principles which are consistent with the U.S. position” based on “multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet, not a new international regulatory body, he said. “Just last week the FCC had a team in Geneva working to promote U.S. interests on this. It’s very important that we promote a multi-stakeholder governance model for the Internet internationally.” U.S. officials have said that while the probability the ITU would assume a role in overseeing the Internet is low, the consequences would be high, so the issue demands continuing U.S. attention (CD April 23 p4). “This isn’t just about a new international regulatory body being created,” FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said after the meeting. “The biggest danger is that seemingly small changes will be made to the ITRs in the name of addressing some ‘minor’ issue. The problem is, before long, those tiny seeds of jurisdictional expansion could grow into a Jack’s beanstalk of international Internet regulation. Advocates of Internet freedom should draw a bright line across which no new expansions whatsoever of ITU or UN authority should cross. Go ahead and reform the multi-stakeholder umbrella as necessary, but don’t allow any expansion of intergovernmental powers over the Internet."
April 30 FCBA Access to Government Committee brown bag with FCC New Media team, 12:30 p.m.,FCC Meeting Room -- www.fcba.org
The FCC International Bureau accepted applications from Intelsat and Hughes to construct, launch and operate satellites. Hughes requested authority for its EchoStar XVII satellite to be operated at 107.1 degrees west, the Satellite Division said Friday in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bm5do5). Intelsat intends to operate Intelsat 21 at 58 degrees west, the notice said.
Verizon Wireless’s announcement it plans to sell off 700 MHz A- and B-block spectrum, should it get AWS spectrum from SpectrumCo and Cox, “should be taken as a clear admission that Verizon has more spectrum than it needs to provide its existing and proposed services,” MetroPCS said in a meeting at the FCC. Verizon’s sale of its A-block spectrum could also be seen as a negative development, MetroPCS said (http://xrl.us/bm5c5n). “MetroPCS itself holds a 700 MHz A Block license for the Boston market and its experience indicates that resolving a Channel 51 interference problem by voluntary agreement is difficult if not impossible,” MetroPCS said. “This means that the sale proposed by Verizon will not provide meaningful near term spectrum relief for third parties. In addition, the departure of Verizon from the 700 MHz A block would remove a powerful player who might have sufficient market power to help drive a solution to the Channel 51 incumbency problem.” The A- and B-blocks also face pending buildout deadlines, the carrier noted. “Even assuming a best case timetable, the pre-conditions being imposed by Verizon result in a timetable where the buying carrier will likely only have a few months to meet the construction deadlines in June 2013. This will be especially difficult in certain areas which present severe zoning challenges, like California, that will add additional time-consuming burdens to meeting the construction deadline.” Free Press officials also reported on meetings at the FCC last week to discuss the Verizon/cable deals. “We presented arguments and evidence that suggest Verizon’s claims of need for additional spectrum are vastly overstated,” Free Press said (http://xrl.us/bm5c59). “We also presented arguments and evidence that indicate Verizon is vastly overstating its need for these specific AWS licenses, particularly those in the eastern 2/3 of the U.S. where Verizon already holds AWS spectrum. We discussed evidence supporting our prior arguments that Verizon has numerous other methods to handle future traffic increases in a manner that would not foreclose a future of increased competition in the wireless market.” Verizon Wireless fired back. “Our filings have made it clear that Verizon Wireless requires the additional AWS spectrum to meet the needs of consumers on our 4G LTE network, and our track record as an efficient user of spectrum is also well established and documented,” a spokesman said in response. “Our proposed sale of A and B block spectrum, should the SpectrumCo license transfer be approved, is not an admission of anything other than a belief that a well-functioning secondary marketplace plays an important role by putting spectrum into the hands of the entities that can best use it to serve the needs of consumers, and that we believe it is important to get that spectrum into the marketplace.”