Small cable operators with rural systems applied for $1.3 billion in NTIA and RUS grants and loans for last-mile and middle-mile broadband projects in unserved and underserved areas, the American Cable Association said. Applications were made by 83 of the companies, including NewWave Communications, NPG Cable and Wave Broadband, all closely held, the ACA said late Thursday. Large, publicly traded cable operators including Cablevision and Time Warner Cable said they didn’t plan to apply.

Washington is soliciting proposals from companies interested in mapping the state, Washington’s Broadband Advisory Council said this week. While the state issued the request for proposals on July 17, the council made it public this week along with a report on how best to increase broadband connectivity in the state. States must designate a single entity to do broadband mapping in order to receive federal mapping funds.

Small and mid-size cable operators asked lawmakers to examine how carriage deals may affect the digital transition. House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., were asked in a Monday letter by American Cable Association President Matt Polka to “inquire” how such deals “in the months leading up to the DTV transition” could affect the switch. With many retransmission consent agreements between cable operators and broadcasters set to expire by Dec. 31, ACA worries about “mass confusion” among viewers if the industries can’t reach new accords, he said. Impasses in negotiations could lead broadcasters to pull their signals off cable, meaning “consumers will be unaware whether or not their lost channels are the result of the DTV transition” or other factors, wrote Polka. NAB said ACA’s connection of carriage deals and DTV is “desperate” and policymakers shouldn’t be “fooled” by the tactic. Carriage talks work “exactly as Congress intended,” said an NAB spokesman.

The latest CableCARD waiver request sent to the FCC has a twist. Guiness Communications said it needs a waiver of the July 2007 set-top box navigation and integration ban because its customers live on an island connected to Canada, where CableCARDs aren’t available. Guiness has 750 customers in Pt. Roberts, Wash., located on a peninsula not connected to the continental U.S., it said. A waiver wouldn’t affect the U.S. CE market because Guiness customers buy most electronics in Canada, the company’s Mon. filing said: “CableCARD devices are typically not sold in Canadian stores.” Other recent CableCARD waivers have made similar requests (CD May 1 p7). In April 8th floor visits, cable operators lobbied for waivers, said ex parte filings from the American Cable Assn. (ACA). Officials from ACA, Armstrong Cable, Mediacom and Wave met about waivers with Comrs. Adelstein and Tate and an aide to Comr. McDowell, also asking the FCC to place curbs on Liberty Media’s deal to get a controlling stake in DirecTV from News Corp. “The Commission should use the Hughes/News Corp. conditions as a model” for the pending deal, ACA said, “expanding and adjusting those conditions to remedy gaps and loopholes in the model that have become evident over the past 3 years” since News Corp. acquired the DirecTV stake from General Motors.

The American Cable Assn. (ACA) wants Congress to require DBS to sell local broadcast signals to small rural cable operators that can’t get adequate signals on their own. But DBS operators say they've been investing heavily, especially in local HD, and hesitate to help competitors. The ACA went to Capitol Hill this week en masse to push this and other industry priorities in anticipation of the DTV transition.

Chmn. Powell announced Fri. he will leave the FCC in March. With key issues pending for all communications sectors, sources agreed the next chmn. is likely to maintain Powell’s policies in the broadest sense, including an emphasis on competition and on promoting new technologies.

Cable channels are like guava paste -- if people stumble onto the product, they like it, said Jon Mandel, co-CEO and chief global buying officer for advertising firm Mediacom Worldwide (not connected with cable MSO Mediacom). The power of a large bundle of cable channels is similar, he told an FCC symposium on a la carte pricing: Many people will happen upon a cable channel, only to find programming they can no longer live without.

Australia pushed for promotion of competition and growth in the fixed phone market by giving a temporary exemption from the customer service guarantee (CSG) obligations to new service providers. The Australian Minister for Communications & Information Technology, Sen. Richard Alston, directed the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) to make a number of changes in the CSG. Under the CSG, which was introduced in 1998, telephone companies must meet specific time frames for the connection and repair of telephone services and meeting appointment times for residential and small business customers. Companies that fail to meet the time frames are required to make automatic compensation payments to customers. However, citing a recent ACA report, the regulator said blanket application of the CSG “may be a barrier to entry into the fixed phone market and can reduce potential consumer benefits including price, quality, choice and innovation.” Under the new arrangements, the exemption scheme will apply only to telephone companies with a small share of the market in a specified geographic area. Such companies will have to prove that they don’t supply fixed phone services on a medium or large scale in the area for which an exemption is sought, and that the proposed exemption would benefit consumers in the area. To ensure consumers aren’t disadvantaged by the exemption, the exempt telephone companies will be required to inform their customers of that fact and its implications. Telstra won’t be eligible for an exemption under the changes.

Australian govt.’s reforms to promote competition in telecom market have brought “significant benefits” to consumers, valued at up to $878 per household or up to $6.5 billion nationally in 2001-2002, said new report by Australian Communications Authority (ACA) submitted to Parliament by Australian Communications & Information Technology Minister Richard Alston. Report said Australian economy was $10 billion larger in 2001-2002 than it would have been without govt.’s telecom reforms. It said reforms had led to creation of 100,000 new jobs in Australian economy and to $900 million in increased profits for small business in 2001-2002. Recent amendments to Telecom Competition Bill 2002 “will further improve the telecommunications access arrangements and strengthen the operation of the anticompetitive conduct provisions.” Report also found that: (1) Investment in telecom infrastructure and services continued, with new technologies and services being introduced. (2) Telstra and Optus had provided strong performance in connecting services under Customer Service Guarantee (CSG), with compliance consistently above 90%. (3) Govt. tightened interim service arrangements requiring that Telstra offer its customers interim or alternative services where connections or fault repairs were delayed. (4) Extended Zones Agreement provided “significant” pricing, service quality and Internet enhancements for rural Australia. (5) Australia was rated as having some of lowest Internet access costs at peak times worldwide. (6) Number of broadband services in operation increased 131% in 2001-2002, mobile services to 12.67 million services in operation (up 13%), Short Message Service use 57%, terrestrial mobile service coverage covered 97% of population, satellite mobile services were accessible to 100% of population. (7) Total complaint issues recorded by Telecom Industry Ombudsman declined 13% in period, reversing previous upward trend.

American Cable Assn. (ACA) representatives met with FCC Cable Bureau staffers recently to press their case for no open access mandates on smaller cable operators. In March 27 ex parte filing in Commission’s open access inquiry, ACA officials argued that “administrative burdens and costs of regulated open access combined with regulated rates would threaten the viability of offering these services” because of thin margins for high-speed data services in smaller markets. They also contended that connection costs from headend to Internet backbone could “result in unattractive, even negative rates of return for ISPs in smaller markets. They cited as example case of Millennium Digital Media, smaller MSO that provides simple Internet connectivity via cable modems with no start page or other content services, unlike its bigger counterparts.