Cablevision said it began offering high-definition programming on demand to digital cable customers. The offering features popular films, including those originally seen in IMAX theaters that haven’t been licensed for TV, it said.
Country of origin cases
AT&T filed a lawsuit against MCI/WorldCom and Onvoy in U.S. Dist. Court, Alexandria, Va., Tues. seeking damages for what it charged were violations of the civil provisions of the federal Racketeering Influenced & Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act and other laws. It also filed an objection to the MCI/WorldCom Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors’ request for discovery in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Manhattan. AT&T said it sought post-(bankruptcy) petition damages resulting from MCI/WorldCom’s continuing business operations.
In yet more back-and-forth on wireless local number portability (LNP), CTIA took aim this week at what it called an attempt by Qwest to “avoid the LECs’ existing obligation to port telephone numbers with wireless carriers.” In a filing last month, Qwest had focused on intermodal porting from a wireline provider to a wireless carrier, which it said would “result in a telephone number no longer being associated with a specific location.” Qwest said if that number subsequently were ported from a wireless provider back to a wireline carrier, the number must go back to the rate center from which it originally was assigned. Otherwise, it said that would comprise an “inappropriate location port.” Qwest contended that it wasn’t good public policy to expand the existing LNP rules to require location portability outside of a rate center. It urged the FCC, even if the wireless LNP deadline remained in effect for Nov. 24, to defer intermodal portability between wireline and wireless carrier until the Commission issued proposed rules to consider areas such as consumer impact, the costs of implementation by LECs, CLECs and cable telephony providers and the need for state PUC review of the costs of expanding LNP beyond the wireline rate center. CTIA said in its filing this week that Qwest had failed to “proffer any new or novel justification for its request.” It said: “Essentially, if Qwest’s definition [of location portability] is accepted, not one person, not even a random ‘lucky’ customer whose telephone number is associated with the same rate center as the wireless carrier, would be able to port a wireline number to a wireless carrier.” CTIA said that when the FCC adopted the LNP requirement it was aware that when a customer moved a number from a wireline to a wireless carrier “the customer would use that number like any other mobile number, including taking advantage of the technology’s intrinsic ability to initiate calls from outside the rate center.”
As part of FCC Chmn. Powell’s initiative on localism, the agency announced Thurs. a 4-part settlement window for certain groups of pending low-power FM (LPFM) applications. Requests for approval that are filed by Oct. 31 and satisfy all requirements will receive expedited processing. Settlement proposals must be filed jointly by the mutually exclusive groups and no partial settlements will be entertained. During the filing period, the FCC will allow applicants to include major change amendments for new FM channels to resolve technical conflicts and obtain construction permits. The Media Bureau has reactivated its LPFM channel-finder tool to help applicants find available alternative frequencies. It’s available at www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm_channel_finderl.html. Minor amendments also may be filed as part of a settlement, but no other major change amendments will be accepted. The FCC encouraged applicants to use time-share arrangements and technical amendments to eliminate conflicts between applicants over channels. If the application originally was filed electronically, it must be amended electronically.
Verizon Wireless asked the FCC to reconsider or clarify its national do-not-call rules, which complement the single do-not-call database approved by the FTC. The company said its petition was on narrow grounds. It said that the FCC, in a wireless telemarketing situation, had interpreted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as allowing wireless subscribers to register their wireless numbers with the national do-not-call program. It said the FCC, to protect wireless subscribers from unwanted telemarketing calls, should: (1) Clarify that telemarketers were barred from using autodialed or prerecorded voice messages to call wireless subscribers ported from wireline carriers. (2) Reconsider the requirement that carriers use legal entity names when they sent prerecorded messages to customers. (3) Clarify that carriers could use bill messages to notify subscribers of the availability of the national do-not-call registry. Verizon said: “Regardless of whether there are or will be technical ways for telemarketers to identify wireless numbers, the more fundamental problem that the FCC failed to address is whether a number should be treated as ‘assigned to’ a wireless service based on whether it is currently associated with a customer using it for wireless service or whether it was initially ported from a wireless service provider.” The carrier said it wasn’t clear when a landline customer carried a number to a wireless service provider, whether telemarketers still could use autodialed and prerecorded calls to solicit such a subscriber, who now was on a wireless rate plan, without violating the Act. Another wrinkle that complicated the situation was that under numbering guidelines, numbers ported to another carrier were treated as “assigned” and reported to the FCC for utilization purposes by the donating carrier, not the receiving company. “Thus, for purposes of numbering and local number portability, a number that is ported to another carrier is still assigned to the original carrier,” it said.
Boeing and ICO recently signed an agreement to step up manufacturing of ICO satellites and begin deliveries in 2005, a Boeing spokeswoman confirmed. The original contract, valued at $1.5 billion (CD March 14/01 p4), included 12 satellites with indefinite launch dates. One of those birds was launched successfully, another was destroyed at launch in March 2000 and no others have been completed. The spokeswoman said production on the remaining 10 satellites never had stopped: “The satellites have always been in the factory and we have continued to work on them, we just sort of slowed down on” them. The increased production speed was ICO’s decision, she said. The spokeswoman said the satellites were in different stages of production and delivery dates hadn’t been set. The move isn’t the result of a new contract and no new money was involved, she said. A Wall Street Journal report quoted a Boeing official as saying that increasing production would be an advantage for both companies. ICO didn’t return calls for comment.
NTCA, the Rural Telecom Group and law firms representing rural cooperatives asked the FCC to eliminate the tax-exempt requirement for rural telcos seeking to exclude officer and director revenue from attributable revenue when it comes to qualifying for certain Commission bidding credits. The groups filed a partial petition for reconsideration last week. They said the legal requirements for structuring a rural telephone cooperative barred applicants from setting up sham firms to gain a bidding advantage. “These legal protections are independent of the tax status of the rural telephone cooperative,” the groups said. The tax-exempt requirement isn’t necessary and undermines the point of the exemption because “many rural telephone cooperative applicants are not tax-exempt in a given year,” the groups said. They said the structure of such cooperatives guarded against sham operations. If an additional gating criterion was needed to protect the integrity of such bidders, the coalition urged the FCC to adopt one of 2 proposed alternative standards: (1) Require that a rural cooperative seeking the attribution exemption demonstrate it meets the Internal Revenue Service’s 3 criteria for being recognized as a cooperative. (2) Require an applicant to show it meets a “community commitment” standard before qualifying for the attribution exemption. A rural phone cooperative would have to show it has been operating continually since Feb. 8, 1996. The issue of a rural cooperative’s being tax exempt came up when the FCC examined on reconsideration its controlling interest standard for determining whether to attribute to an applicant the gross revenues of its interest holders and their affiliates. Originally, the officers and directors of a rural phone cooperative were deemed to have a controlling interest, meaning their revenue was attributed to that of the cooperative. On reconsideration, the FCC exempted rural phone cooperatives from those attribution rules, adopting gating criteria to make sure that a rural co-op was a bona fide entity. One of the criteria was that it might be eligible for tax-exempt status.
The FCC Triennial Review decision could set the stage for a jurisdictional fight between the federal and state govts., some believe. The Cal. ISP Assn. (CISPA), for example, says the Cal. legislature has mandated line sharing, and it would violate the state constitution for the Cal. PUC to comply with the FCC line-sharing decision. CISPA called the decision “an unconstitutional disaster for independent Internet service providers.”
Telefutura Fresno told the FCC that EchoStar “erroneously contends” that the company didn’t elect for must-carry in a timely manner for its station KTFF-TV (Ch. 61) Porterville-Fresno. KTFF elected must-carry twice, Telefutura said. The first election was in June 2001, when EchoStar notified the station of its intent to carry local stations in Fresno, although it didn’t plan to add commercial service until later, and the 2nd election was in June 2002. EchoStar claimed that the 2002 letter was sent 9 days too late, but Telefutura said that 2 letters of intent were sent, in May and June, and in a 3rd letter, “EchoStar admits that it mistakenly mailed the May 16, 2002, notice to the wrong address, and therefore the letter was ’subsequently returned as undeliverable.'” Because the letter wasn’t received until 3 days after the original June 15 deadline, Telefutura said “KTFF’s June 26, 2002, election letter cannot be considered untimely.”
FCC Office of Engineering & Technology (OET) Chief Edmond Thomas told reporters Thurs. that his office had a firm understanding of the technical implications of different plans for mitigating public safety interference at 800 MHz. “I think now more policy considerations are taking front and center,” he told reporters in a tour of the agency’s lab in Columbia, Md. “We basically separated the technical facts from the technical fictions.” Thomas reiterated what top FCC staffers have said in recent weeks -- a proposal is expected to be ready for FCC approval by the end of the year.