The FCC needs to review its International Bureau and Office of Engineering grant of Boeing’s modification application replacing its originally proposed nongeostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) system with a single satellite in a geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) and using the 2 GHz band, ICO said in an application for review. The decision should be reversed, or at the least amended, to “restrict Boeing’s use of globally harmonized 2 GHz [mobile satellite service (MSS)] spectrum for its regional system and make that spectrum available for NGSO-only use,” ICO said. Allowing the substitution of a single GSO satellite for an NGSO satellite system is unprecedented and shouldn’t have been considered a modification, but rather a new system application, ICO said. It said approval of the application wouldn’t serve the public interest, citing the lack of identified innovative features and the extension of the final milestone deadline. “Approval of the Boeing application is certain to confer a purely private benefit to Boeing, rather than to the public at large… [and] will harm the public interest by devoting scarce, globally harmonized 2 GHz MSS spectrum resources to multiple regional GSO systems that are far less capable of delivering seamless services to remote and underserved areas of the world,” ICO said.
Country of origin cases
The NAB and its TV members of the Network Affiliated Stations Alliance (NASA) appear to be back on the same track in the fight against the FCC’s increase in TV station ownership to 45% from 35%, following the NAB’s special board meeting Mon. (CD July 29 p8), several board members told us.
After 5 years of legal wrangling over NextWave’s PCS licenses, similarly situated bankrupt bidder Urban Communicators asked the FCC to reinstate its C- and F-block licenses. The company, which won 10 C-block and 13 F-block licenses in 1996, cited the Jan. Supreme Court ruling that the FCC had erred when it cancelled NextWave’s licenses for nonpayment. Urban Comm also urged the agency to adjust the interest rates charged for the revised installment payment period to reflect the lower rates that would apply if the licenses were granted today. Arguments on the application of lower interest rates are part of discussions between NextWave and the FCC on that carrier’s installment payments, many sources said.
Sens. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Lott (R-Miss.) will host a news conference today (Tues.) to discuss the timetable for a legislative veto of the FCC’s media ownership rule. Dorgan introduced S.J. Res. 17, which would completely overturn all FCC media ownership rules, and Lott is an original co- sponsor. Upon introduction, Dorgan said Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.) would mark up the resolution, even though Dorgan has more than the 30 signatures needed to bypass the Committee and take the resolution straight to the Senate floor, where it would be treated as a privileged resolution and could receive a vote. But Senate sources said Dorgan has changed his mind about marking up the bill in Committee and will move it straight to the floor.
The American Teleservices Assn. (ATA) filed a petition in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Denver, seeking judicial review of the FCC’s telemarketing order. The ATA also asked the Commission to stay enforcement of its telemarketing regulations until the court reviewed them. The FCC in June updated its original Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) rules, adopted in 1992, and established a national do-not-call (DNC) list that included all telemarketers and covered both interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls (CD June 27 p7). “This truly is a case of regulatory overkill,” said Timothy Searcy, ATA exec. dir.: “The FCC ignored its obligations under the federal law and the Constitution to carefully balance the privacy interests of consumers with the First Amendment rights of legitimate telemarketers.” The ATA, which filed a similar suit against the FTC in Jan., said it was waiting for a court date on that case to be set before the Oct. 1 DNC registry implementation deadline. The ATA estimated the national DNC list could eliminate up to 2 million jobs in the telemarketing industry that employed 6.5 million people and generated more than $660 billion per year. ATA Chmn. Thomas Rocca said: “The FCC’s rules violated the United States Constitution, and we are confident that the courts will agree.”
Wireless carriers are stepping up their calls for the FCC to rule on questions involving intercarrier compensation by mobile operators and LECs, citing the rising number of wireless termination tariffs filed by wireline carriers. While wireless carriers want the Commission to rule those tariffs are illegal, rural LECs have urged the agency to uphold their lawfulness, defending them as cost-based and voluntary because they apply only when there’s not a negotiated agreement.
In just 3 years, Telemundo has gone from acquiring all of its content from outside sources to producing 70% of its own programming, CEO James McNamara told TV critics in L.A. last week. He said the Spanish-language network’s yearly budget had almost doubled since it was bought by NBC, to $145 million currently from $85 million 3 years ago. “Now, for a network like NBC producing shows like Friends, that isn’t a lot of money,” McNamara said. “But for us, that’s quite a bit of money because producing shows in our Miami studios costs on average about $60,000 per hour of programming. Thanks to NBC, we have transformed Telemundo from an acquirer of programming to a producer of original content and by the end of the year we'll be one of the largest novella producers, behind only Televisa and Globe Brasil. And the content we are producing is intended specifically for the U.S. Hispanic market. We are going to stay very true to what the audience wants, which is basically telenovelas.” But McNamara said the network also was reaching out to English speaking viewers via closed-captioning: “In the past we tried English subtitles but our core Spanish-speaking audience found it too intrusive. So we instead decided to go to closed-captioning. Out first responsibility is to close- caption in Spanish, which runs on CC1. Because of some technical issues, the English closed-captions have to run on CC3, which many TV sets don’t have. But it is something we are working on and hope to have ready by this September.”
LOS ANGELES -- Economic considerations and market competitiveness are the drivers behind NBC’s new year-round strategy, Entertainment Pres. Jeff Zucker told TV critics here this week. The new strategy “is not evolutionary, it’s revolutionary,” he said: “It is just not feasible to program the way we have in the past. We cannot tolerate lowly rated repeats any more during the summer. You look for original takes on things and we're always looking to be as original as possible. This has been a successful summer even though there hasn’t been a breakout hit… But this strategy has worked on a number of levels -- creatively, promotionally and financially. It has added an additional $30 to $40 million to the coffers, which is just found money. As a result, we will employ the exact same strategy next summer.”
Instead of barring the govt. from doing business with MCI, a House Appropriations Committee amendment adopted Thurs. would require the General Services Administration (GSA) to issue a report on the suitability of MCI to receive govt. contracts. Rep. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) had said he would propose an amendment to the Transportation & Treasury appropriations bill that would have barred the GSA from granting MCI govt. contracts. However, industry sources said the Administration stepped in on behalf of MCI before the markup to help reach a compromise, although one Capitol Hill source disagreed that the White House was involved.
Hughes Network Systems (HNS) said it signed a contract with Thuraya Satellite Telecom for 100,000 HNS advanced generation mobile satellite handsets. Production will begin in early 2004. The contract follows an original supply contract signed in 2001, HNS said. The handsets will include several new features, the company said: (1) A GPS distance and direction display as a standard feature. (2) Wireless application protocol for access to mobile data services. (3) A choice among various languages, including Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Russian and Hindu.