BellSouth and Cox urged the La. PSC to look into a developing situation involving municipal telecom entry and the PSC’s rules. They told the PSC that the Lafayette City-Parish Council may authorize Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) to offer telecom, cable and Internet services through a separate subsidiary before the PSC completes its current proceeding on rules governing municipal telecom ventures. BellSouth and Cox said the city is likely to approve the utility’s fiber-based telephone, cable and Internet venture Nov. 16, while PSC rules on municipal telecom entry aren’t expected to be in place for at least another 4 months. The 2004 legislature passed a law allowing municipal telecom entry but delegated to the PSC the job of crafting rules to prevent unlawful discrimination and cross-subsidization of telecom ventures from municipal tax or energy-service revenue. The PSC would enforce the rules as they apply to telecom, while the state Legislative Auditor’s Office would enforce the rules for cable and Internet services. The utility plans to borrow over $100 million to develop the venture. Utility officials say the calls of alarm from BellSouth and Cox aren’t valid. LUS said that there’s no mandate under the law for it to wait until the PSC has acted. LUS officials also said that if the PSC adopts rules that require substantial changes to its plans, it would petition the city’s governing body to make the necessary changes.
Notable CROSS rulings
Common Cause and Free Press asked the FCC to deny the license renewal of Media General’s S.C. station. Media General’s WBTW-TV (Ch. 13, CBS) Florence filed a request for a permanent waiver to own the station and local newspaper Morning News in violation of the FCC newspaper- broadcast cross ownership rule, the group said. WBTW-TV is the largest station in the area and the Morning News is the only daily newspaper. In 2000, Media General bought the station and paper, using a provision giving the company time to sell one of its properties to comply with the FCC ownership rules. Media General took advantage of the provision in the hope that it could hold on to both properties until the FCC changed its rules, the groups said.
NAB renewed its push at the FCC to craft emergency alert system (EAS) regulation that would make cable operators better protect local broadcasters’ emergency signals. In comments filed with the FCC on EAS, NAB proposed a selective override in which the FCC mandates that cable operators use a filter system enabling a cable operator to replace certain channels selectively during an EAS interruption.
The 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, denied Viacom’s motions Thurs. for partial lifting of the court’s stay on radio and TV cross-ownership rules. The court remanded many of the FCC revised ownership rules in June (CD June 25 p1).
The FCC issued an order Thurs. on broadband over power line (BPL) technical and administrative requirements that contained few surprises. The nascent BPL industry called it “fairly balanced” and a reasonable compromise and promised accelerated BPL rollout in the next 6 months. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which had bombarded the FCC with comments about interference to ham radio, said the announcement had both positive items and areas of concern.
Law enforcement agencies are much less interoperable than other first responders because of jurisdictional rules that bind police and federal agents, said Capt. Eddie Reyes, Alexandria Police Dept. Speaking at the Industrial Telecommunications Assn.’s 2004 Private Wireless Summit Public Safety Seminar, Reyes highlighted an ever-increasing need for spectrum -- there are now 2.5 million first responders in the U.S., he said -- but also said increased inter-agency and inter-jurisdictional cooperation are the most pressing needs for public safety communications. “Technology is no longer the issue,” Reyes said, but law enforcement agencies “have a hard time with change.” Charles Stephenson of the National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center and a former D.C. police officer agreed, saying “the MOUs between jurisdictions took longer than the procurement” of interoperable wireless technology. Stephenson said “the agency language is a major key beyond the realm of interoperability,” pointing out that law enforcement “10- code,” the shorthand used by various agencies over radio, is so different for each agency that interoperable systems need to adopt a new code. Reyes said the Capital-area system, which maintains 6 multiple-agency fixed cross- connect antenna sites, called for a “plain English” approach with a completely new “12-code” system for times when code is absolutely necessary.
Hopes for the broadcast decency amendment to the DoD Authorization bill grew dimmer Thurs., Senate sources said, after Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Levin (Mich.) refused to separate the decency provision from the controversial media ownership and broadcast violence provisions. Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) successfully kept his media ownership provision attached to Sen. Brownback’s (R-Kan.) broadcast decency amendment, which was attached to the DoD bill. The House leadership strenuously opposes the ownership provisions, and Senate sources said failure to separate the decency and ownership amendments would scuttle both provisions. The DoD bill is currently in conference, and a final conference vote hasn’t yet occurred. Sources said the conference could finish work on the bill Fri. Dorgan’s ownership amendment would stay all of the FCC’s controversial cross-ownership rules but would allow the 39% broadcast ownership cap to remain. Senate sources said Thurs. that Dorgan won Levin’s support to keep the decency and ownership provisions together. Also, sources said Levin agreed to keep Senate Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Hollings’ (S.C.) violence provision attached to the decency provision. That provision would require the FCC to treat violent broadcast content in a manner similar to indecent content, including prohibitions on violent content in the “family hour.” A spokeswoman for Levin said she couldn’t comment on the ongoing conference negotiations. Sen. Dorgan’s spokesman said that Levin had always agreed to keep decency and media ownership tied together.
The European Commission’s (EC) approach to development of digital rights management (DRM) technologies is too pro-industry, consumer and user groups said in comments. In July, the EC launched a consultation on a report -- by its High Level Group (HLG) on DRM -- on whether European Union (EU)-wide policies were needed to boost DRM deployment (WID July 19 p1).
European Union (EU) competition ministers Fri. kicked back for further negotiation a proposed regulation some telcos say unfairly discriminates against them. The provision at issue, Article 5a, was floated by the Dutch presidency this month as part of several amendments to a 2001 regulation on sales promotions in the internal market. The regulation aims to remove barriers to the use and commercial communication of sales promotions within the internal market by harmonizing provisions such as what information promoters must give consumers about their offers, an EU official said; it also lets promoters follow their domestic law when running cross-border promotions. But telcos said last week Art. 5a could harm their industry and should be clarified and put out for public comment.
The FCC said it would give DTV Norwich a year to comply with rules restricting cross ownership of multichannel video distribution & data service (MVDDS) and cable licenses. The company asked for the additional time in June after winning MVDDS licenses in N.Y., where parent Cablevision operates a cable system. The rules generally require divestiture of competing licenses in 90 days, but DTV Norwich asked for an additional 270 days to allow Cablevision to complete a planned spinoff of Rainbow Media Enterprise that would include DTV Norwich (CD June 16 p11). The Commission said the purpose or competitive goals of the rule wouldn’t be served by denying the request, but if the divestiture doesn’t happen within the year, the licenses will be rescinded.