Going ahead with lower band 700 MHz auction will “wipe out” estimated 800 TV translator stations and unknown number of low-power TV (LPTV) stations, National Translator Assn. (NTA) said in letter to Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Inouye (D-Hawaii). Since translators and LPTV are secondary services, they would have to move to avoid new interference, NTA Pres. Byron St. Clair said: “With nowhere to go in the channels below 51, those existing stations would simply have to shut down, depriving large sections of rural America of free, over-the-air full-service television.” St. Clair said it was clear that none of FCC commissioners considered impact on translators and LPTV in deciding to go ahead with auction: “Congress should therefore halt the auction to enable the Commission and, if appropriate, the Congress, to consider the full ramifications of the action.” Industry officials said letter was start of big push on Congress.
Utah and Neb. regulators acted on Qwest unbundling rates. Utah PSC ruled against Qwest’s applying monthly recurring charge to CLECs that shared its lines. PSC said that since all recurring costs of loop already had been recovered through current rates, and sharing created no additional recurring cost, monthly rate for shared line should be zero. Agency said Qwest could impose reasonable nonrecurring charges to cover sharing setup costs and reasonable recurring charges for any equipment CLEC leases from Qwest. PSC (Case 00-049-105) disregarded Qwest’s argument that shared loops should be priced according to market value rather than cost. It said market-value pricing of network sub-elements would be inconsistent with cost-based mandates of Telecom Act and FCC rules. Meanwhile, Neb. PSC cut Qwest unbundled loop rate average of 20% to $17.15 from $21.83. Deaveraged loop rates now are $12.14-$62.50, down from former $15.14-$77.92. Those are new interim rates, derived by formula from Qwest’s cost-based Colo. rates. PSC will open new proceeding to set permanent Qwest unbundled network element (UNE) rates after Qwest files its Sec. 271 long distance entry petition with FCC.
Twenty-five prospective bidders for licenses in lower 700 MHz band were found by FCC to be not qualified to take part in auction, in some cases because carriers themselves withdrew. Carriers that didn’t complete final steps to participate in auction that starts June 19 included Pegasus Development, Pappas Telecasting of America, Univision-owned Telefutura and Cybergate, which is owned by e.spire Chmn. George Schmitt, including making down payment on desired licenses. Space Data Spectrum Holdings, which had planned to bid on all licenses in lower band, wasn’t on qualified bidder list, either. It’s deploying national network of balloon- borne wireless repeaters and was high bidder last year on 1.4 MHz of national narrowband PCS spectrum. Leap Wireless had announced earlier that its subsidiary Cricket Licensee III wouldn’t take part in lower 700 MHz bidding, following FCC decision to hold lower band bids on time and delay upper band auction by 7 months. List of 28 nonqualified bidders also included Commonwealth Telephone Enterprises, Preferred Spectrum Acquisitions, Viacel, Alaska Telephone Co., Idaho’s State Board of Education. Commission found 128 applicants to be qualified to bid in auction of 758 licenses in lower band, including Paul Allen’s Vulcan Spectrum, LIN TV, Capitol Bcstg., Arctic Slope Telecommunications, PGTV. Largest upfront payments were made by Council Tree Wireless and Spectrum Holdings, each paying $40 million. Council Tree had been among backers of NextWave re-auction bidder Alaska Native Wireless, which had financing from AT&T Wireless. Omega Communications put up 3rd largest upfront payment -- $18.9 million. Among authorized bidders for Omega is Mario Gabelli, chmn. of Gabelli Asset Management. His media holdings have included stake in Black Entertainment TV and he was backer of Theta Communications, which bid in NextWave re- auction.
Saying stations hadn’t taken “reasonable steps” to meet DTV conversion deadline, FCC Media Bureau denied deadline extensions for 36 TV stations. In separate action, it approved 33 other extensions. Bureau said extensions weren’t justified for 36 stations and “admonished” them for failure to meet deadline. It gave them until Dec. 1 to get DTV on air and required them to submit progress report within 30 days. Stations that don’t meet Dec. 1 deadline could face fines or eventually loss of license. Of stations admonished, 19 are owned by Trinity Bcstg., 5 by Libco. Most of rest are small or single-station owners. One of big ones is Hearst- Argyle-owned NBC affiliate KCRA-TV Sacramento. Latest batch of extensions includes 3 Paxson stations, several satellite stations.
FCC announced plans to fine Infinity Bcstg. $21,000 for 3 cases of indecent language, it said in notice. Complaints involved WNEW(FM) N.Y.C. Enforcement Bureau rejected Infinity claims that broadcast didn’t violate community standards and that complaints didn’t include tape of broadcast.
Radar detectors are causing interference to satellite operations and FCC should adopt rules to limit emissions, Microspace said in ex parte filing Thurs. Microspace joined Satellite Industry Assn. (SIA) and Hughes Network Systems (HNS) in charging that interference from radar detectors was severely hurting VSAT operations. Microspace is suffering technical and financial hardships because of interference, filing said. Microspace provides satellite, video and audio broadcast services for business applications. Customers include weather information providers, financial information networks, paging carriers and others who depend on Microspace to deliver satellite services in real time.
Verizon Wireless expressed concerns at FCC on draft merger review guidelines in works at agency for evaluating wireless merger proposals after spectrum cap sunsets Jan. 1. Merger review guidelines, which have been crafted by office of FCC Chief Economist David Sappington and others at agency, are expected out as early as today (Mon.). Commission voted last fall to phase out cap, which had been 45 MHz, except for rural markets where it was 55 MHz, by Jan. 1, 2003. In interim, Commission lifted cap to 55 MHz for all markets. FCC economists have been looking at merger guidelines used by FTC and Justice Dept. to ascertain whether they could any of those provisions for FCC when processing license transfer applications (CD March 19 p6). Verizon Wireless Vp John Scott told press breakfast Fri. that his company was concerned that guidelines that emerged from FCC would be more restrictive than originally thought. “It’s not clear to me why there should be guidelines for this particular industry and not all industries that the Commission regulates,” Verizon Wireless Vp John Scott said. Carrier has met with Wireless Bureau and has urged it to not adopt guidelines for 2 reasons, he said: (1) “Guidelines tend to become requirements,” with concern that guidelines not be adopted that essentially would replace spectrum cap. Otherwise, premise of spectrum cap’s being eliminated to avoid proscriptive ownership requirements “would be undercut,” Scott said. (2) Industry is changing so rapidly that “adopting a set of guidelines based on the way the industry looks today may be the most inappropriate set of guidelines 2 years from now or 5 years from now,” he said. Justice Dept. told FCC in spectrum cap proceeding last fall that “a mandatory, inflexible set of rules” is not way to go, point that Verizon Wireless has reiterated to FCC, Scott said: “We have made that point to the Commission. We hope that the full Commission will agree with it.” Comments are expected to be sought on merger review guidelines that FCC releases, he said. Scott said carrier’s understanding of guidelines was that they would be more substantive than FCC’s simply indicating it would process transaction proposals within certain number of days. “To look at the concept of guidelines that come before the Commission under [Sec.] 310, if they are going to adopt any particular guidelines for when transactions above a particular size are involved and certain carriers or certain markets merit some higher level, that to me seems a concept that should be looked at by the full Commission,” he said. On issue of extent to which large wireless carriers still are beholden to FCC for original bids in re-auction of NextWave spectrum that has been overturned by D.C. Circuit, Scott said those financial obligations were having impact in other spectrum areas. He cited lower 700 MHz band auction June 19: “There were 48 MHz of spectrum at stake in that auction and if you look at who bid for that spectrum, the wireless industry didn’t show up. There’s one very apparent reason why they didn’t show up. From a government fiscal policy, as well, it should be concerning the government that they will not be raising the revenues they otherwise would raise.” Unless NextWave re-auction issue is resolved, upper band auction, which FCC recently delayed by 7 months, is likely to suffer from same lack of interest, Scott said.
Selectable output controls (SOC) emerged as latest battleground between consumer electronics (CE) companies and cable and content providers in most recent round of filings at FCC (CS 97-80). SOC is proposed feature of set-top boxes that would allow cable operator to remotely disable ability of box to feed content to various devices or to allow only lower-resolution feeds. Cable says SOC is necessary to remain competitive with other distributors. CE industry says implementing SOC is “betraying assurances recently given to the Congress and to the consumers.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is set to take over lead for Project Safecom, which now is designed to be “single point of contact for all federal wireless communications efforts for public safety,” FEMA Chief Information Officer (CIO) Ron Miller told us Fri. Move for White House Office of Management & Budget project comes as FEMA is set to be transferred to overarching Dept. of Homeland Security under proposal outlined by President Bush Thurs. CIO meeting of several federal agencies, including Depts. of Justice and Treasury, earlier this month decided to broaden direction of Project Safecom, which originally was envisioned as focusing on interoperability of federal public safety systems, Miller said. “We want agencies in the federal government to come together to ensure that we aren’t duplicating efforts and that we are solving problems that we have set out to solve,” he said.
Rep. Stearns’ (R-Fla.) “auction 35” opt-out bill (HR- 4738) is top legislative priority for Verizon Wireless, said Howard Woolley, vp-federal relations. Bill would compel FCC to return remaining deposits of bidders in NextWave re- auction. In March, Commission returned 85% of deposits from re-auction but concluded winning bidders, such as Verizon Wireless, should be held to nearly $16 billion on potential auction obligations until pending Supreme Court review."It’s very important to remove this roadblock to effective spectrum policy,” he said. Verizon Wireless is talking with members about bill and is communicating with “key senators” on introduction of Senate version, Woolley said. Verizon Wireless officials said “whole market” was paralyzed by uncertainty of auction 35. Another policy priority for Verizon Wireless is requirements that spectrum be vacated before it is auctioned, Woolley said. “Future auctions should be conducted only after the clearing process,” he said.