House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., appointed eight subcommittee members to a bipartisan federal spectrum working group Wednesday. Walden said the group is tasked with identifying the most efficient way to use government spectrum. “As the largest single spectrum user, the federal government could save taxpayers money and provide its own agencies better technology tools while simultaneously making more frequencies available to meet America’s exploding demand for mobile broadband services,” he said. Walden and Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., will be ex-officio members of the working group. The group will be co-chaired by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and includes Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., Mike Rogers, R-Mich., Steve Scalise, R-La., Diana DeGette, D-Colo., John Barrow, D-Ga., and Donna Christensen and Del. D-Virgin Islands. CTIA commended the announcement and said it would work with the group to identify additional spectrum that can be brought to the commercial market.
GMV, a satellite ground systems firm, received a contract to provide the satellite control center for the Thaicom 6 communications satellite. Thaicom 6 is a Star 2 platform geostationary telecommunications spacecraft built by Orbital Sciences, GMV said. Its payload “will offer C-band and Ku-band services to the South and Southeast Asia and Southern Africa regions.” It will generate about 3.7 kilowatts of payload power from its location at 78.5 degrees east, GMV said.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority asked the FCC for more time to complete the narrowbanding of its communications system beyond the FCC’s Jan. 1, 2013, narrowbanding deadline. Metro filed a waiver request at the FCC elaborating on the tough path it has faced to narrowbanding its 1,600 square-mile system (http://xrl.us/bm4y5a). “It is expected a contract for implementation of the system will be issued in September 2012 and that the project will take 30 months to complete,” the authority said.
The Rural Utilities Service telecom and broadband loan programs remain essential to a healthy and growing rural economy, and contribute to the provision of universal communications services comparable to those found in urban areas, USTelecom President Walter McCormick told the chairman and ranking member of the House Rural Development Subcommittee in a letter Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm4y2u). Detractors’ claims that a 2009 Department of Agriculture review provided justification for termination of the Broadband Loan program are unjustified because that report reviewed the program before congressionally mandated changes in the 2008 Farm Bill, McCormick said. Other critics “have deliberately conflated” separate RUS programs, such as the Broadband Initiatives Program created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the Broadband Loan program required by Congress in the Farm Bill, he said. The Broadband Loan program complements the High-Cost Universal Service program, McCormick said, and each one is “an important element in deploying cutting edge communications services to rural America.” The subcommittee is scheduled to mark up the 2012 Farm Bill Wednesday.
Comcast hasn’t violated the neighborhooding condition of the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger order, its counsel said in a response to concerns raised earlier this month by Bloomberg (CD April 11 p9). “Bloomberg’s latest assertions are demonstrably false,” a letter submitted to the FCC Tuesday said. “The alleged channel relocations never took place,” it said. “After careful research, Comcast is unable to determine whether Bloomberg’s assertions are based upon flawed (or misrepresented) third-party data or some other error,” it said. “Even if Bloomberg’s assertions were accepted as correct, however, they would not amount to a violation of the Conditions because the groupings to which Bloomberg refers fall well short of the 10-15 channel groupings that constitute a news neighborhood within the meaning of the applicable condition,” it said.
CTIA is opposed to a California mobile privacy bill, SB 1434, which would require state law enforcement officials to get a warrant when seeking any cellphone location data. CTIA’s opposition is focused on the bill’s provision that would place reporting burdens on carriers rather than on the prosecutors who make these requests, said Jamie Hastings, vice president of external and state affairs with the wireless group. But the group’s opposition in no way should be considered as a degradation of the industry’s “commitment to its customers’ privacy,” she said. CTIA is also concerned about the warrant provisions in the bill because the definitions appear “overly broad,” she said. The group is seeking clarification within this section, she said. The bill, sponsored by Senator Mark Leno (D), is currently in the Senate Public Safety Committee. The American Civil Liberties Union scoffed at the industry’s claim that reporting requirements would be burdensome. It cited its study which claimed the practice of obtaining cellphone location data, without court warrants, is widespread across the country.
Various companies and groups concerned about AWS spectrum sales from SpectrumCo and Cox to Verizon Wireless supported the Communications Workers of America’s request that the FCC suspend its 180-day clock on its review of the transactions, to give opponents more time to review materials submitted thus far. “As parties have argued in Petitions, Comments, and Reply Comments filed in this proceeding, the transactions under review have the potential to forever change the competitive landscape in the wireless, broadband, and video markets,” said a letter from the group (http://xrl.us/bm4yvt). “The Commission has taken significant steps toward making its process transparent by allowing authorized personnel to review and analyze the documentation that it has required from the Applicants. Now, considering the delays in receiving data and the technical challenges involved, the Commission should take the further step of giving reviewers the additional time that is necessary to study the documents and data and respond to the Commission with cogent analysis.” The Rural Cellular Association, the Rural Telecommunications Group, Sprint Nextel, DirecTV and FairPoint signed the letter, as did Free Press, the Media Access Project, the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge. CWA filed a letter at the FCC last week asking that the clock be stopped on the review of the deals (http://xrl.us/bm4yw6), which were announced in December.
The FCC Media Bureau pushed back by 14 days the deadline for comments on a recent public notice seeking input on how it should interpret the terms “multichannel video programming distributor” and “channel” in the context of a program access dispute between Sky Angel and Discovery Communications. The NAB had asked for a 30-day extension from the initial April 30 deadline (CD April 2 p9). In a public notice released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm4yw4), the bureau said an extension will help develop a full record, but “due to a desire to conduct a prompt review of the record, we find that the requested 30-day extension is excessive.” The new deadline for comments is May 14, with replies due June 13. Meanwhile, Sky Angel told a federal appeals judge not to wait for the bureau to gather the input it sought before the court rules on a Sky Angel petition for a writ of mandamus. “The Public Notice does not assist with a timely resolution of the dispute,” the company said. “In fact, it will delay a decision indefinitely.” The bureau will probably be inundated with comments on the notice, Sky Angel said. Because the notice came from the bureau, not the full commission, it may take years before the matter is settled at the FCC, it said.
A proposal from Geo-Broadcast Solutions requesting the FCC to allow FM booster stations to originate programming on a single frequency network raises questions around audience targeting and technological concerns, said broadcast lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald. If the proposal “gets through the technical gate, then station owners will have to ponder the economics,” he said on the firm’s blog (http://xrl.us/bm4y4f). Geo’s technology wouldn’t eliminate some of the practical concerns in booster operation, he said. For example, “it would still be necessary to choose booster sites carefully.” For radio stations, providing micro-area advertising services would be entirely electronic, he said. Aside from the cost of obtaining hardware and software, “broadcasters’ expenses would be largely limited to ongoing personnel costs to sell and produce extra spots for target areas.” Before wading into that level of cost-benefit analysis, “we should wait to see what the engineering community thinks,” he said.
Correction: Tom Wacker works for NTCA (CD April 23 p8).