Faced with the challenge of raising funds to fill an expanded number of channels that come with digital conversion, some of the public TV duopolies are opting to sell their 2nd stations, and national public broadcasting leaders are worried over religious broadcasters’ moving in. “There is definitely a trend toward some sort of restructuring of public television,” Assn. of Public TV Stations (APTS) Pres. John Lawson told us. But, he said, the trend that would be “most positive for the country would be some sort of consolidation that results in public television licenses staying in public hands.”
Country of origin cases
Military units in Iraq will have access to satellite broadband, Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) and wireless local area networks to communicate with their families through a service being organized by SkyFrames and the Broadband Wireless Exchange. The program is expected to be operational just before Thanksgiving, they said. The program was announced Mon. after one unit stationed in Iraq corresponded with SkyFrames Vp Edward Bukstel for nearly a month.
The Ariz. Corporation Commission approved a settlement that will allow Qwest to complete Phase 2 of its sale of its Qwest Dex directory publishing unit to an investor group. Ariz. was the final state whose approval was needed for closing the sale. Under the settlement, Qwest is to impute $72 million in directory revenue in any rate case or other price or earnings review for the next 40 years. That’s far longer than the 15-year imputation originally proposed in the settlement. The imputed amount is substantially larger than the $43 million imputation set in a 1988 order allowing transfer of directory assets from the operating company to a separate directory affiliate. The higher imputation amount will kick in with Qwest’s next rate cap adjustment filing in July. The 2nd phase of the Dex sale covers operations in Ariz., Ida., Mont., Ore., Utah, Wash., Wyo. The first phase, involving the other 7 Qwest states and a satellite directory operation in El Paso closed last winter. In another matter, the Corporation Commission will meet Sept. 19 to make its final decision on whether to support Qwest’s Sec. 271 application to the FCC for interLATA long distance entry. The agency will consider whether Qwest’s entry is in the public interest. Qwest filed at the FCC Sept. 4, and the state comments are due by Sept. 24.
The FCC at its agenda meeting Wed. is to take up proposed changes in Part 2 and Part 15 rules to provide flexibility in the design and authorization of unlicensed devices, including factors aiding rural deployment. One part will examine how to better accommodate an antenna technology called adaptive antenna arrays, said Office of Engineering & Technology Deputy Chief Julius Knapp. Existing FCC rules provide for omnidirectional and point-to-point antennas, he said. One proposed change would cover antennas that could transmit multiple narrow beams of signals in different directions at the same time, he told us last week. “What we are trying to do is establish a set of rules that encourage the development of that technology because it’s very effective and particularly useful for rural areas,” Knapp said. Companies such as Navini and Vivato have been developing applications of that technology using unlicensed spectrum, and the FCC has certified several systems through an interpretation of existing rules, he said: “What we are trying to do is provide more certainty as to how the rules work.” Knapp said other proposed changes included: (1) More flexibility in rules for equipment authorization that now require approval of a complete system, including the radio source. A developer of a system with an amplifier and a specific antenna who wanted to substitute a different antenna with similar characteristics would have to get new authorization from the FCC under current rules. That can pose a challenge for developers configuring systems that must be customized for rural areas because each change can entail new equipment authorizations, he said. The proposal would let systems substitute antennas without going through the authorization process again as long as they didn’t transmit more energy than originally authorized for the system. (2) Changes in the spacing requirements between hopping channels in technical rules for unlicensed devices involving Bluetooth standards. The proposal would accommodate the next generation of Bluetooth, which now operates at 1-2 Mbps. Knapp said industry standards developers had been working on the next iteration of Bluetooth, with plans to introduce it early next year, increase rates to 3-4 Mbps. The proposed change would allow the 2 generations of systems to be backward compatible. (3) Accommodation of modular transmitter designs. The proposed rulemaking was initiated by the agency itself and grew out of informal discussions with feedback on changes seen as needed , Knapp said.
Wireless developers and others last week generally lauded an FCC proposal for making spectrum available for unlicensed use at 5 GHz, with some suggesting fine-tuning to allow for more high-powered operations and transition periods for new rules to take effect in some sub-band.
USTA and the Bells filed a joint opposition to a request by 10 data CLECs for an FCC stay of the line-sharing part of the Triennial UNE Review Order (CD Aug 28 p7). In the Sept. 3 filing, USTA and the Bells said the FCC couldn’t grant the relief the data CLECs wanted because there no longer were any old rules to replace the new ones in the FCC order. That’s because the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., vacated the original line-sharing rules: “The only regulatory obligation that incumbent LECs have to add new line-sharing customers (or to maintain existing ones) is imposed by the transition rules adopted in the [UNE] Order. If the Commission were to stay those transitional line-sharing rules, then incumbents would have no obligation under the Commission’s rules to engage in any form of line sharing.” The FCC also can’t stay the requirement that requesting carriers must pay 25% of the cost of an unbundled loop for new line-sharing customers in the first year, the filing said: “The transitional rules require incumbents to provision new line-sharing orders only at the price mandated by the Commission; to require incumbents to provision new line-sharing orders at pre-existing prices would be to restore the line-sharing rule that the D.C. Circuit -- and the Commission itself -- rejected.” The rules in question call for a 3-year transition of line-sharing after which it no longer would available as a UNE to new customers.
The Senate could vote on a “legislative veto” of the FCC’s controversial media ownership rules as early as today (Sept. 8), although there was some dispute Fri. on when it would be scheduled. A source said the vote would be scheduled Mon. and predicted the measure would pass. However, a spokesman for Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) said the vote still hadn’t been scheduled and could come up later in the week or next week. A Dorgan spokesman said discussion Fri. between Dorgan and Senate leadership were leaning toward a Mon. vote, but one wasn’t scheduled.
As petitions for reconsideration came tumbling in to the FCC Thurs., the agency was awash in questions over how it would handle pending broadcast transactions now that a court had ordered the agency to put its new rules on hold (CD Sept 4 p1). The stay order by the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, said the decision by the 3-judge panel was predicated on the fact that “the magnitude of this matter and the public’s interest in reaching the proper resolution” warranted a stay pending a “thorough and efficient judicial review.” The judges said a temporary stay would cause little harm to the agency, but the decision immediately touched off confusion about a set of new broadcast transaction forms the agency just recently said were ready for use (CD Aug 15 p9).
After just 2-1/2 months, James Yager, CEO of Barrington Bcstg., resigned Tues. as joint board chmn. of the NAB after learning that his wife Patsy had cancer. Yager was a compromise selection last June after the TV board couldn’t decide on another broadcaster for the position. Under the NAB’s unofficial rotation system, it was TV’s turn to pick a successor to David Kennedy of Susquehanna Radio, who had served the maximum 2 consecutive years as chmn. Yager, when he was pres. of Benedek Bcstg., was NAB chmn. for the 2 years before Kennedy. We're told the NAB originally had expected to name a successor Wed. (Sept. 3), but following a conference call meeting of the Exec. Committee the full board was told late the same day that a new chmn. wouldn’t be named until next week.
The FCC turned down an SBC challenge to a 2001 letter by its Wireless Bureau and what was then its Common Carrier Bureau providing Sprint PCS with clarification of reciprocal compensation requirements. In 2000, Sprint PCS sought clarification on the entitlement of commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) providers to reciprocal compensation for the additional costs of switching or delivering to mobile customers local traffic that originated on other networks. The FCC order issued Wed. reaffirmed that under current rules, “a CMRS carrier can seek a compensation rate that includes the traffic-sensitive costs associated with its network elements.” The Commission upheld the joint letter’s response to Sprint’s clarification request, saying it: (1) Correctly reflected the part of the FCC’s Local Competition Order that said carriers could recover all their additional forward-looking costs of terminating traffic to the extent they could demonstrate such costs. It said Commission rules specifically allowed connecting carriers, such as CMRS operators, to prove their additional costs justified a rate higher than that charged by the ILEC. Such additional costs must be laid out through a cost study using a forward-looking cost model. (2) Correctly explained that determination of additional costs of terminating traffic over a wireless network element didn’t raise a question on whether that wireless network element was “equivalent” to a recoverable wireline network element. The agency reaffirmed that the term “equivalent facility” wasn’t meant to preclude CMRS carriers’ recovery of the additional costs of wireless components that might be functionally equivalent to wireline elements that didn’t have recoverable costs, such as a wireline LEC’s local loop. The Commission said “switch or equivalent facility” was used with the idea that a carrier might use a switching mechanism other than a traditional LEC switch to terminate calls and to ensure the costs of non-LEC facilities would be included in transport and termination rates, even if such facilities didn’t exactly reflect a LEC’s network architecture. SBC had argued that allowing wireless recovery of the cost of “loop-equivalent” components would establish an “additional cost” standard that would apply uniquely to wireless carriers, giving them a greater right to reciprocal compensation than LECs had. The FCC concluded that its interpretation in that area didn’t apply a standard of additional cost to CMRS carriers different from that applied to LECs. It said the FCC’s Local Competition Order found loop costs weren’t recoverable because their associated costs didn’t vary on the basis of the number of calls terminated over local loops or line ports associated with local switches. However, the agency said it was considering changes in its interpretation of “additional costs” in the pending proceeding on a unified intercarrier compensation regime.