Sen. Biden’s (D-Del.) hold on Senate NextWave re-auction legislation (S-2869) is retaliatory for hold placed on anti- counterfeiting bill (S-2395), Senate aide told us (CD Nov 1 p6). Biden is one of 56 co-sponsors of S-2869. Computer & Communications Industry Assn. (CCIA) joined several organizations in writing to Senate Majority Leader Daschle (D-S.D.) urging that he oppose proposed Anti-counterfeiting Amendments of 2002 (S-2395), which was said to be much broader than originally intended. Bill is being considered as standalone legislation or as amendment. Bill would prohibit otherwise lawful copying of digital watermarks, letter said, and would place “an additional layer of criminal and civil liability on top of activities currently regulated by the Copyright Act.” Bill would prevent universities, libraries and consumers from utilizing exceptions to Copyright Act adopted by Congress, letter said. It also would “implicate” database protection issue debated in last 4 Congresses, which would threaten economic activity and scientific research, letter said. ISPs could have responsibilities imposed on them that would go beyond Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and could require consumer electronics and computer manufacturers to reconfigure their products in accordance with instructions in digital watermarks, letter said. Bill would impose more severe criminal and civil penalties than are permitted by Copyright Act for identical behaviors. Since Senate Judiciary Committee reported bill, affected parties have engaged in discussions, it said. Despite progress, many problems remain, letter said, and Rep. Smith (R-Tex.), sponsor of companion measure in House, has determined that action should be deferred until 108th Congress. Several library associations, including American Library Assn., signed letter. Other signers included CEA, Digital Consumer.org, Digital Future Coalition, Electronic Frontier Foundation, National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers and Public Knowledge.
Country of origin cases
Ericsson signed $150 million contracts with China Unicom to upgrade existing cdmaOne networks to CDMA2000 1X. Contracts also cover expansion of Ericsson’s original first phase contracts with China Unicom. Carrier has installed CDMA2000 1X technology in Sichuan Province with 10,000 paying subscribers.
Qwest said late Mon. it would write down $10.8 billion in assets when it restated its financials for 2nd quarter 2002. Affected assets range from value of Qwest’s networks to customer lists and product technology. Write-down will result in reduced operating income for 2nd quarter, company said. As expected (CD Oct 2 p3), Qwest also announced it would defer $531 million in revenue from sales of optical capacity assets, also known as indefeasible rights of use (IRUs), over lives of IRU contracts. Revenue originally was booked in 2000 and 2001. Qwest already has announced plans to revise accounting treatment for another $950 million in revenue from IRU capacity swaps.
Responding to last-min. questions on proposed merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast, officials of 2 companies disclosed that AOL would get comparable high-speed cable carriage whether or not merger is approved. Revelation came in one-page letter to FCC dated Mon. In recent days, FCC’s Office of Gen. Counsel has been trying to decide whether Commission should grant motion by consumer groups imploring commissioners to examine terms and conditions of AOL high- speed access agreement made with what would be combined AT&T Comcast.
Backers of compromise plan for alleviating interference at 800 MHz told FCC they had missed self-imposed deadline for filling in details of how proposal would be funded. Nextel, public safety groups and coalition of private wireless licensees submitted revised spectrum swap plan to FCC in Aug. to alleviate public safety interference at 800 MHz. Plan revised original Nextel plan that would have provided it with 10 MHz in mobile satellite service (MSS) band at 2.1 GHz in exchange for spectrum it was giving up elsewhere to reconfigure 700, 800 and 900 MHz bands. Latest compromise would take that replacement spectrum from 5 MHz of unlicensed PCS spectrum at 1.9 MHz and another 5 MHz of reserve MSS spectrum. In Sept., groups told FCC they expected to file detailed funding arrangements around Oct. 23. Filing on Tues., signed by Assn. of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) counsel Robert Gurss on behalf of consensus parties, told FCC that it would “take slightly more time than anticipated due to the breadth of issues to be submitted.” Besides funding arrangements to cover costs of equipment upgrades and relocations, follow-up filing will cover border regions, timing and logistics as well as rights and responsibilities under plan after retuning.
BellSouth told FCC it was concerned about linking recent financial accounting scandals to Commission’s reform of regulatory accounting rules. “Targeting the FCC’s accounting rules… will do nothing to solve the problems in the headlines or punish the companies at fault,” BellSouth Vp Herschel Abbott said in Oct. 22 letter to FCC. If new Federal-State Joint Conference on Accounting “is used as an avenue to increase accounting regulation on ILECs, then it will violate the [Telecom] Act’s explicit deregulatory goals,” he said. Abbott argued that FCC financial accounting and SEC and General Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) accounting systems were designed for different goals. While all public companies are subject to SEC/GAAP accounting rules, only small number of large ILECs are subject to FCC’s accounting regime, letter said. “The original purpose of the regulatory accounting rules was to provide information critical to the rate-of-return environment” which no longer exists for large ILECs, Abbott wrote: “I urge you to focus the Joint Conference on finding the best route to substantive and significant accounting reforms as contemplated in Phase 3 [of FCC’s streamlining proceeding]. The remaining Phase 2 changes should be allowed to take effect as scheduled and the items under reconsideration should be acted on expeditiously. We all share a desire to prevent the types of accounting abuses that have been revealed. But the few ILECs now subject to FCC accounting rules are not the problem.”
U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., Fri. denied CompTel challenge to FCC’s decision to place usage restrictions on enhanced extended links (EELs), saying it was “unpersuaded” by CompTel’s claims. EEL is combination of unbundled network elements (UNEs), composed of local loop and dedicated transport element, that competitive LECs want to use to provide local service more efficiently. Bell companies have opposed making EELs available to competitors because combination also could be used to provide long distance service to customers in lieu of higher priced special access service. CompTel had argued that Telecom Act didn’t allow FCC to impose use restrictions on UNEs.
Death Fri. of Sen. Wellstone (D-Minn.) in airplane crash saddened both Democrats and Republicans in Senate, with many colleagues from both parties issuing statements saying he was good man and would be missed. Wellstone, 58, died in twin- engine plane crash 175 miles north of Minneapolis. All 8 persons aboard died, including Wellstone’s wife Sheila, daughter Marcia, 3 campaign workers, 2 pilots. Wellstone wasn’t on either Senate Commerce or Judiciary Committee, but he had demonstrated interest in broadband. In both 106th and 107th Congresses, Wellstone was primary co-sponsor of legislation to boost rural broadband. In 107th Congress, he was original co-sponsor of S-966, introduced by Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and co-sponsored by Sens. Carnahan (D-Mo.), Conrad (D-N.D.), Daschle (D-S.D.), Thomas (D-Wyo.), Harkin (D-Ia.), Hollings (D-S.C.), Johnson (D-S.D.) and Murray (D-Wash.). Bill would have had NTIA direct Rural Utilities Service under Dept. of Agriculture to make up to $3 billion in loans to rural carriers to support broadband buildout. Wellstone also was known as privacy advocate and made several efforts during debate on the USA Patriot Act to amend bill to ensure privacy. His death 11 days before Senate election in Minn. created some confusion politically. However, Minn. state Democrats cited state law allowing a political party to replace candidate on ballot who died, and they said they were confident they would be allowed to replace Wellstone on ballot. Left unclear was whether Wellstone’s campaign funds would be available to that candidate; as of June 30, Wellstone had $2.57 million on hand, according to Federal Election Commission. Wellstone was considered to be vulnerable in Nov. election. Polls often showed him with slight lead over Republican Norm Coleman, former mayor of St. Paul, but those leads sometimes fell within the poll’s margin of error.
ACLU and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sued Dept. of Justice (DoJ) for allegedly failing to respond Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for data on govt. surveillance activities and seizures of records. ACLU, EPIC, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the Freedom to Read Foundation this past summer jointly filed FOIA requests with DoJ and FBI seeking information on implementation of USA Patriot Act, which expanded govt.’s ability to conduct electronic surveillance and seize evidence. Four plaintiffs told U.S. Dist. Court, D.C., that despite receiving letters dated Sept. 3 from DoJ and Sept. 18 from FBI agreeing to an expedited processing of FOIA requests, “the government has provided no substantive response to the underlying FOIA request.” Original request was for specific information on “manner in which the government has been using its expanded authority.” Lawsuit said groups weren’t questioning “importance of safeguarding national security” in wake of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: “However, there has been a growing public concern about the scope of the Patriot Act… particularly in relation to constitutionally protected rights.” Groups said requested records “are critical to the public’s ability to evaluate the government’s use of vast new surveillance powers, and whose releases can only serve national security, not undermine it.” DoJ didn’t return calls seeking comment on lawsuit.
Wireless carriers, rural telcos, Bell companies and IXCs disagreed in latest round of comments at FCC on how intercarrier compensation should apply to certain kinds of wireless traffic. Commission requested comment on 2 petitions, one involving compensation for termination of wireless traffic by ILEC and other compensation for transit of traffic between IXC and wireless operator.