The new NFL Network was to make its debut Tues. night with a show titled NFL Total Access featuring interviews with NFL Comr. Paul Tagliabue and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green, among others. The channel is on basic by DirecTV and Voom, but so far there are no carriage deals on the cable side, although network executives say deals are in the works. The network, a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week channel, is focused entirely on the NFL and football. Executives said the network would feature original programming, a 100- million-foot film library of NFL films and preseason games beginning next summer.
Country of origin cases
Four rural carriers said they planned to file an appeal with the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., of an FCC wireless-to- wireless local number portability (LNP) order issued last month (CD Oct 8 p1). Central Tex. Telephone Co-op, Kaplan Telephone Co., Leaco Rural Telephone Coop and Valley Telephone Co-op filed with the FCC for an emergency motion for stay of the order, pending resolution in the D.C. Circuit. In the order on wireless-to-wireless LNP, the FCC held that such porting didn’t require a carrier receiving the number to be directly interconnected with the wireless carrier that gave up the number or to have numbering resources in the rate center associated with the ported number. Some rural carriers had argued that for one wireless carrier to request LNP from another, the requestor needed a local point of presence, local numbering resources and local interconnection with the original carrier. The 4 rural carriers filing a stay motion Tues. said: “By requiring wireless carriers to port numbers across rate center boundaries and in the absence of local interconnection arrangements, the order effectively imposes a location portability requirement for wireless carriers without consideration and resolution of the customer confusion and other problems stemming from such a requirement.” The rural carriers said they should receive a stay because they would suffer “irreparable harm” if they didn’t receive one and they were likely to succeed on the merits of their appeal. Under the wireless-to-wireless LNP order, they said they would suffer irreparable harm “because calls from rural carriers’ service areas can only be completed by being transported on the toll network. Customers, however, will not be able to determine whether they are initiating local or toll network.”
Telecom services that traditionally have been subject to taxation wouldn’t be exempt from taxes under a permanent Internet tax moratorium, the bill’s key sponsor insisted Mon. Sen. Allen (R-Va.) took to the Senate floor during a debate on appropriations for Iraq to address what he called “misinformation” from state and local officials -- and some senators -- on the impact of his moratorium bill. Allen’s spokesman said the senator felt compelled to carry the issue to the floor because in the last few weeks “the campaign of misinformation and confusion has intensified.”
The FCC asked for comment by Dec. 15 on Alascom’s latest tariff for interstate switching and transport services. Alascom’s tariff has been under investigation since 1995 and each yearly tariff it files is added to the overall investigation. The FCC said it was inviting comment now because parties that originally challenged the tariff had changed ownership and Commission regulations had changed since the investigation began. “Therefore, we request each interested party to prepare a complete statement of its position with respect to all issues that it contends demonstrate that Alascom’s Tariff FCC No. 11 is unlawful.” The agency emphasized that the comments should address only issues of lawfulness, not whether there was a need for a tariff due to changes in competitive conditions in Alaska. The latter issue has been raised by Alascom in a separate petition and will be addressed in that proceeding, the FCC said. Replies are due Jan. 9.
The federal LOCAL TV Program, established by the LOCAL TV Act of 2000 to provide loans to improve local TV access to households with limited local TV resources, hasn’t lived up to its mandate, the General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded Fri. The program was established to provide loan guarantees totaling up to $1.25 billion. Federal money was first appropriated in Nov. 2001 and the program was supposed to be operational by March 2002, but because of funding and administrative delays lending has been delayed, GAO said. LOCAL TV board officials told GAO the program was plagued by initial funding uncertainties, inadequate staff and the rulemaking process. GAO recommended the board and the program’s administrator ensure that program rules were issued “expeditiously” and that loan application and loan guarantee origination fees were set high enough to cover, but not exceed, the cost of administering the program. GAO prepared the report at the request of Sen. Shelby (R-Ala.), who at the time was ranking member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
State regulators are awaiting information from incumbent telcos and CLECs on which market areas they want the state agencies to review under the FCC’s Triennial Review Order (TRO) presumptions on the competitive need for UNEs.
The Utah PSC wrapped up hearings on a Qwest petition for rate deregulation of its business and residential local services in the state’s largest metro areas along the Wasatch Front. If granted, the petition would deregulate local rates for 90% of business customers and 50% of residential customers. Expert witnesses testifying for Qwest told the PSC that landline and wireless competition in those markets was strong enough to substitute for regulation in protecting local exchange customers from market abuses or inferior service. But witnesses for the Utah Div. of Public Utilities and Utah Committee of Consumer Services said the bulk of competitors still relied on Qwest facilities for origination and completion of the calls their customers made, and Qwest still enjoyed a dominant retail position in the marketplace. They urged the PSC to allow Qwest full flexibility below a cap level set by the state in order to prevent the carrier from abusing its dominant position by boosting its prices. They said there had been scant evidence of Qwest’s lowering its prices in response to competition.
The Wireless Consumers Alliance asked the FCC to reconsider a letter ruling last month on 911 call completion methods for Sony/Ericsson multimode wireless handsets. The alliance is pursuing multidistrict litigation in U.S. Dist. Court, Chicago. The suit charges that certain cellphone makers and carriers, including Sony/Ericsson, haven’t met FCC requirements to protect the ability of subscribers to make 911 calls. The court last month referred certain questions on those requirements to the FCC, including what it meant by “call completion” and “delivery of the call to the landline carrier.” The FCC Wireless Bureau issued a letter saying Sony/Ericsson’s call processing method met the FCC’s 911 rules. The alliance argued that a core remaining issue was exactly what the FCC granted when it approved the company’s call-processing method. A 1999 order on Sony/Ericsson’s 911 call completion method for its multimode products granted the company’s request with several stipulations, including a caveat that 911 access attempts be deemed unsuccessful if the handset didn’t receive a channel assignment within 17 sec. The wireless equipment makers and carriers involved in the litigation have argued that the original FCC order required handsets only to assign a voice channel within 17 sec. However, the consumer group contends that the receipt of the call at the base station and its delivery to the landline carrier must be accomplished in that time frame.
In what amounted to a proverbial public flogging of the entertainment industry, representatives of various parent groups Wed. called on the federal govt. to impose mandatory labeling requirements on makers of movies, TV shows, music and videogames. The verbal ruckus came in an FTC workshop titled, “Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children.”
The Rural Broadband Coalition (RBC) and the Wireless Communications Assn. (WCA) are feuding over the effects that the Senate and House agriculture appropriations bills would have on Rural Utility Service (RUS) broadband loan program. RBC said the bills (HR-2673, S-1427) would have plenty of funding for rural broadband loans and loan guarantees, while WCA said a provision in the legislation would prevent loan applications from being processed and would cut significantly into the program established under the Farm Bill of 2002. The House already has passed its agriculture appropriations bill. It’s still unclear whether the Senate will consider agriculture funding as a standalone measure or as part of an omnibus appropriations package. “The current language of the Agriculture Appropriations bill attempts to replace the $20 million in funding scheduled for this year with less than half the amount in discretionary funding,” WCA Pres. Andrew Kreig said. “No matter how you look at it, that is a cut -- and a terrible precedent for future years.” RBC said the bills provided $336 million for RUS loans, which would be in addition to $500 million carried over from the 2003 RUS budget. “Despite claims to the contrary, current legislative and administrative efforts are consistent with the commitment made in the 2002 farm bill to provide $2 billion over 6 years in broadband program funding for rural communities and rural broadband Internet service providers,” RBC said. Both RBC and WCA said the bills would cut funding for RUS administrative functions and staff, including processing of loan requests. WCA said that while RBC claimed there was $500 million in unused loans, the elimination of the staff funding would stop the process of applications and prevent access to any unobligated funds. RBC said Senate appropriations staff had said that funds to cover the administrative requirements would be in the Dept. of Agriculture Rural Development budget. WCA said the original farm bill was expected to generate $3.5 billion over 5 years. It said there were concerns that there wouldn’t be meaningful constituent input into the bill because “an end-of-the-year- rush to enact a massive omnibus appropriations bill is a high-risk environment.” WCA said the Senate had an opportunity to eliminate Metropolitan Statistical Areas and to “press the RUS to adopt common sense policies related to consideration of revenues, regional and multi-state applications and the expeditious processing of pending applications.”