A California bill (SB 1160) that would ban public agencies from shutting down wireless services without judicial approval recently passed out of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Alex Padilla (D), was inspired by the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s decision to turn off wireless networks in its San Francisco stations last year in hopes the action would quell a planned protest (CD Aug 30 p9).
The FCC fined WVUV(AM) Leone, American Samoa, $18,000 for operating from an unauthorized site, being off-air without authorization and not responding to communications from the agency, said a Media Bureau forfeiture order released Friday to South Seas Broadcasting (http://xrl.us/bm4mjh).
Analog cable systems can’t technically carry TV stations guaranteed carriage in HD format within the meanings of Section 614(b)(4)(a) of the Communications Act and FCC rules, the American Cable Association said. “The requirement that cable systems carry HD must-carry signals in HD format should never apply to analog-only systems, and the Commission should make this clear by permanently exempting such systems from the requirement.” A filing Thursday in docket 98-120 responded to questions Media Bureau staff asked at a meeting earlier this month on the rulemaking (CD April 20 p17) about whether to extend viewability rules for cable distribution of must-carry stations (http://xrl.us/bm4miz).
Purple’s proposal for a new relay system rate structure “could save the Telecommunications Relay Service program more than $50 million annually through an expanded tier reimbursement model,” the provider of relay services told an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell (http://xrl.us/bm4mh8). The model would ultimately transition to a unitary rate for all providers when the video relay system is “quantifiably more competitive as measured in market share,” Purple said.
Attendance at this year’s NAB Show matched 2011’s total of about 92,000, with final figures still being tallied. The amount of square footage used by exhibitors rose about 5 percent to 825,000 square feet, an NAB spokesman said. The show that ended Thursday in Las Vegas had about 1,600 exhibitors, a slight increase from last year, he said.
Nunn Telephone Co., a rate-of-return carrier in Colorado, is the latest to notify the FCC Wireline Bureau that it will seek a waiver of rules limiting reimbursable capital and operating costs as outlined in the USF/intercarrier compensation order (http://xrl.us/bm4k4k). Using the same form letter used by several carriers last week (CD April 18 p6), Nunn spoke of a “flaw” in the quantile regression caps that “penalizes” companies that have invested in broadband. Nunn said it projects a funding loss of 172 percent of its net income in 2013.
Frontier supports Windstream’s proposal to reconsider the FCC’s decision to require broadband deployment to one location per $775 in Connect America Fund Phase I support, a Frontier executive told an adviser to Commissioner Robert McDowell (http://xrl.us/bm4k38). Allowing “increased flexibility,” as Windstream proposes, will allow carriers with very high-cost unserved areas to deploy broadband infrastructure “in line with the Commission’s broadband goals, creating better broadband for rural America,” Frontier said.
The FCC will soon send more documents about LightSquared to the House Commerce Committee, a committee spokeswoman told us Thursday. “The FCC has indicated we can expect additional documents in the coming weeks,” she said. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had complained that the FCC didn’t provide all the documents he wanted in the agency’s initial delivery to the committee. Grassley is blocking the confirmations of FCC nominees Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel until he gets those documents.
CTIA’s recent semi-annual survey contained some “scary” numbers for carriers, especially on what it had to say about the continuing growth in data, up 123 percent in just a year, CTIA President Steve Largent said Thursday on the group’s blog. “What’s scary about these numbers is that we don’t have time to wait for more spectrum, we keep moving now,” Largent said (http://xrl.us/bm4h9z). “Since spectrum is a finite resource, it must be used in the most efficient and effective means possible. With a number of license holders that are sitting on unused or underutilized spectrum, they must either become more efficient users or their spectrum should be auctioned so those who want to purchase and use it may do so."
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a tax fraud lawsuit against Sprint Nextel seeking more than $300 million, the attorney general’s office said. All of Sprint’s major wireless competitors, including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and MetroPCS, have followed the tax laws in the state, it said. New York tax law has required mobile phone companies to collect and pay sales taxes on the full amount of their monthly access charges for their calling plans. The lawsuit, filed at the New York Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil trial court, alleged that Sprint failed to collect and pay New York sales taxes on an arbitrarily set portion of its revenue from these fixed monthly access charges. It claimed that to carry out this plan, Sprint repeatedly and knowingly submitted false records and statements to New York State tax authorities. Brought under the New York False Claims Act, the lawsuit seeks to have Sprint to pay three times its alleged underpayment of over $100 million, plus penalties if found liable. The complaint is without merit and Sprint categorically denies the complaint’s allegations, a spokesman said. Sprint has collected and paid over to New York “every penny of sales taxes on mobile wireless services that we believe our customers owe under New York state law,” he said. “With this lawsuit, the Attorney General’s office is claiming New York consumers, who already pay some of the highest wireless taxes in the country, should pay even more,” he said: Sprint intends to “stand up for New York consumers’ rights and fight this suit.”