T-Mobile’s recent arguments against Verizon Wireless’s buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox “contradict statements it made only months ago during its own proposed transaction with AT&T and should be given no credence,” SpectrumCo and Verizon said in a filing at the FCC. “T-Mobile’s advocacy in this proceeding cannot be reconciled with the positions it advanced in support of its own transaction.” While the AT&T/T-Mobile transaction was pending, “T-Mobile testified before Congress that ‘[t]he U.S. wireless marketplace is very competitive’ and that ‘plenty of other regional or large facility-based carriers such as Sprint and the regional ones’ produce ‘extensive competition in this market,'” SpectrumCo and Verizon said (http://xrl.us/bm5c37). “T-Mobile asserted that the merger would cause no competitive harm because ’the combined company will hold on average 134 MHz out of 424.5 MHz, which is still less than a third of the total’ included in the Commission’s spectrum screen,” the filing continues. “During the SpectrumCo/Verizon Wireless proceeding, T-Mobile now argues that Verizon Wireless’ aggregate spectrum position would somehow cause competitive harm, even though Verizon Wireless would hold 109 MHz of spectrum on a nationwide basis post-transaction, considerably less than the 134 MHz average spectrum depth AT&T/T-Mobile would have held.”
A test performed by Progeny of whether its Canopy network will cause harmful interference to Part 15 licensees “was defective” and “significant interference concerns remain,” the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association said in a filing at the commission (http://xrl.us/bm5cy4). “Progeny tested its equipment in a single area, Santa Clara County, California,” WISPA said. “This location is not representative of most American cities. Although Progeny claims that the need for their system is highest in areas with ‘urban canyons’ where signals from GPS satellites are more frequently blocked, the physical geography as well as the urban topography of the Santa Clara Valley is the opposite -- a flat valley of mostly single story stucco residences with some two-story ’tilt-up’ commercial buildings.” Progeny also tested “only one make and model of outdoor fixed broadband equipment,” WISPA said. “Even if all the other Progeny test conditions and assertions were consistent with real-world conditions -- which they most certainly were not -- the testing of only one single outdoor device is an utterly inadequate sample size for anyone to reasonably conclude that Progeny’s testing was complete and dispositive.” Progeny said in a March filing the test shows its Multilateration Location and Monitoring Service (M-LMS) “will not cause unacceptable levels of interference to Part 15 devices in the 902-928 MHz band.” “The filing of Progeny’s test report follows a lengthy development process, which included operating an experimental M-LMS network in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than two years without any complaints of harmful interference to Part 15 devices in the 902-928 MHz band,” Progeny said (http://xrl.us/bm5c2d). Progeny said the service it has developed will provide “critically-needed position location services” for wireless customers making E911 calls. “Progeny’s location technology produces high yield and accuracy (including elevation accuracy) even in urban canyons and deep indoors where existing position location services are severely challenged,” Progeny said.
SES introduced SAT-IP, an IP-based satellite reception technology for in-home distribution. The technology “demodulates and converts satellite signals to IP for further in-home distribution to any IP-enabled device,” SES said. In a SAT-IP environment, “consumers will be able to enjoy the benefits of watching TV programs on different devices and screens.” The most important lineup of high definition channels and other satellite offers will be accessible for consumers on IP-enabled devices “in highest and original satellite picture quality and without using Internet connectivity,” SES said.
An FCC notice of proposed rulemaking that would ease the limits on noncommercial educational broadcasters by allowing them to raise funds on-air for other nonprofit entities “adopts a very protective, almost paternalistic view of noncommercial stations,” a broadcast attorney said (http://xrl.us/bm5d2t). The commission began seeking comment on the NPRM Thursday (CD April 27 p8). It suggests that any liberalization of the prohibition should be approached cautiously and with significant limitations, said David Oxenford of Davis Wright on the firm’s blog. The commission asks many questions about limitations it thinks should remain in place “even if the absolute prohibition is lifted, seemingly not trusting stations to police themselves,” he said. Waivers that were granted to allow for relief efforts after major disasters have shown that such fundraising can be conducted without significant harm, he said: “Obviously, the FCC seems to, at best, be reluctantly moving into the approval of third-party fundraising by noncommercial stations."
Comcast no longer faces cable rate regulation in 26 Pennsylvania communities because of competition from the two U.S. DBS providers and/or because the operator serves fewer than 30 percent of households, the FCC said Friday. A Media Bureau effective competition order (http://xrl.us/bm5dam) approved a petition by the company that was unopposed for townships and boroughs including Springfield, with far fewer than 100,000 households combined.
The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a petition asking the FCC to determine whether Chicago’s satellite dish antenna installation ordinance is preempted by the commission’s over-the-air reception devices rule. The petition was filed by the Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association (http://xrl.us/bm5db3). The ordinance intends to limit installation of satellite dish antennas “that are visible from the street adjacent to the property and between the building facade and the street,” the bureau said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bm5c9x). Comments are due May 29, replies June 12.
The European Commission seeks views on how to lower the costs of rolling out high-speed Internet networks. It wants to explore how to reduce the costs associated with civil engineering, such as digging up roads to lay fiber, which can add up to 80 percent of the total cost, it said in a consultation begun Friday (http://xrl.us/bm5c5t). The EC believes it could cut the cost of broadband investment by 25 percent, it said. It wants input from interested public and private sector parties, including telecom and utility companies, investors, public authorities and consumers, it said. The inquiry seeks information on: (1) Obstacles to investing in broadband infrastructure. (2) How to improve the use of the current infrastructure. (3) Coordination of civil engineering works. (4) How to boost cooperation between relevant authorities and streamline permit procedures. (5) The “readiness” of new buildings for high-speed Internet infrastructure. Comments are due July 20 -- INFSO-CIVIL-WORKS@ec.europa.eu.
A law firm with Class A TV station clients took aim at the FCC for revoking that designation from two stations it doesn’t represent and removing their interference protection when the licensee was dead (CD April 27 p15). Separately Friday, the Media Bureau revoked the Class A status of four stations, making eight total it’s rendered regular low-power TV outlets. In Friday’s blog titled “Dead Men File No KidVid Reports,” Fletcher Heald broadcast lawyer Davina Sashkin said “the Commission’s seemingly all-consuming urge to free up as much TV spectrum as possible for ‘repurposing'” led the Media Bureau’s Video Division to take “Class A authorizations back from a dead guy” -- Humberto Lopez -- who didn’t keep kids’ programming reports for several years. Lopez was among the licensees for the four stations that lost Class A status on Friday. Unlike most such applications, a request of the estate to assign the two LPTV licensees to the executor, “routinely granted in a matter of days,” is pending five months after it was made, Sashkin wrote (http://xrl.us/bm5cy8). “Until that application is granted, Mr. Lopez technically remains the licensee, and his executor (who is not the licensee) is technically not in a position to respond to inquiries directed to the licensee.” A bureau spokeswoman reiterated that the estate’s executor was given a chance to respond to the FCC inquiries and did not. The stations losing interference protection in Friday’s bureau orders are KBBL Springfield, Mo. (http://xrl.us/bm5c82), WBGR Bangor/Dedham, Maine (http://xrl.us/bm5c88), and in Texas KXTM San Antonio (http://xrl.us/bm5c9a) licensed to Lopez and KWDT Corpus Christi (http://xrl.us/bm5c9g). All four stations didn’t keep kids’ programming reports and didn’t respond to repeated bureau requests for information, the orders said. Some clients of Fletcher Heald, and of other law firms, are responding to show-cause orders issued recently by the bureau saying the Class A’s faced the loss of interference protection, Sashkin told us.
"Given the role the Internet plays in modern life, making information publicly available in 2012 means making it available online,” the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law wrote FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on the eve of a vote on an order to put TV stations’ public inspection files online. (See report above.) “Congress has unambiguously required that the information contained in broadcasters’ political files be available to the public,” the center said in a filing in docket 11-189 (http://xrl.us/bm5cxn). It opposed what the center called broadcasters’ “attempts to water down its transparency rules” by excluding some information in stations’ paper political files from the online version.
USTelecom filed a petition for waiver of some of the Lifeline rules Wednesday, arguing that eligible telecom carriers have no control over whether states will meet their obligation to provide ETCs with notice of a subscriber’s eligibility, a prerequisite to an ETC’s ability to enroll new customers in compliance with three sections of the Commission’s rules (http://xrl.us/bm5ajm). USTelecom requested a waiver of those rules, to apply in a state where eligibility determinations reside with state officials, and where the state is unable to modify its Lifeline enrollment procedures to meet the June 1 deadline. Without the waiver, “some or all new low-income consumers will not receive Lifeline benefits to which they otherwise are entitled,” USTelecom said. In California, Florida, New York and Texas, more than 50,000 low-income subscribers would see their benefits denied -- “a draconian result that the Commission should make every effort to avoid,” the association said.