Imposing simultaneous compliance deadline for wireless number portability and 1,000-block number pooling would raise “significant network reliability and integrity issues,” group of House Commerce Committee members told FCC Chmn. Powell. Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.), ranking minority member Dingell (D- Mich.) and 30 committee members said in letter dated Feb. 14 and released Wed. that “implementation of these Commission priorities should occur as quickly as possible.” However, they urged Powell to delay number portability mandate until carriers complied with number pooling obligations.
FCC wants to discontinue Alaska Bush Earth Station (Bush) policy, Commission said in proposed rulemaking. Currently Bush policy precludes installing or operating more than one satellite earth station in any Alaskan Bush community for competitive carriage of interstate Message Telephone Service (MTS) communications, Commission said. Because satellite communication often has been only means of interconnecting Bush communities with public switched telephone network, Bush Policy has operated as regulatory entry barrier to facilities-based competition, Commission said. Eliminating Bush policy would end long-standing exception to general policy favoring open entry for facilities-based competition for interstate telecom services, FCC said. Comments are due in 30 days, replies 45 days later.
New FCC task force on spectrum policy will examine issues such as how to balance rights of incumbents vs. newcomers and whether and how to reward licensees for using their spectrum efficiently, FCC officials said Wed. “Is there a way possibly to reward incumbents to upgrade their technology so it would be easier to use the spectrum in a more efficient fashion?” asked Office of Engineering & Technology (OET) Chief Edmond Thomas. “There’s always a compromise here. There’s the rights of the incumbent and the rights of the people adjacent to them and there’s the rights of the new people coming in,” he said, with that dynamic creating need for “Solomon-like” decisions. Thomas spoke on spectrum panel at broadband conference sponsored by Georgetown U., FCBA and FCC. He outlined issues on which interagency task force would focus in coming up with recommendations on spectrum management changes. FCC said last week that Paul Kolodzy, who had been program manager with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, would head task force (CD Feb 13 p8).
FCC Comrs. Abernathy, Martin and Copps will participate today (Thurs.) in Washington seminar on future of televised public service announcements (PSAs), sponsored by Kaiser Family Foundation at International Trade Center. Other participants will include MTV Pres. Judy McGrath, ex-UPN Pres. Thomas Nunan, Alan Levitt, dir. of White House campaign against use of drugs, other media executives.
Broadcasters almost unanimously endorsed report on in- band, on-channel (IBOC) digital audio bcstg. (DAB) -- as well as concept of IBOC itself -- and urged FCC to speed transition to IBOC DAB, in comments on Commission inquiry. Backers pressed agency for quick, clear decision endorsing IBOC as broadcast standard. However, handful of commenters questioned National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC) testing methodology or raised other issues about DAB.
Industry/user group that proposed special access standards last month (CD Jan 23 p1) has come to agreement on how to enforce those standards, it told FCC in Feb. 12 ex parte filing. Enforcement proposal includes: (1) Remedies should be paid to special access customers, along with payments to U.S. Treasury. (2) Penalties could be self- executing or customers could seek damages by filing complaint with FCC or in U.S. Dist. Court. (3) Penalties should increase for repeated performance failure. (4) FCC should set standard methodology for calculating forfeitures, which should be high enough “to serve as a deterrent to anticompetitive behavior.” (5) FCC should establish nonmonetary penalties for “significant abuses,” such as suspension of Sec. 271 or price flexibility authority. (6) ILEC should be required to undergo independent audit of its performance reporting, with auditor chosen by FCC but paid by ILEC. (7) CLECs should have option to audit ILEC performance reports. CLECs would pay for that audit unless it revealed inaccuracies in ILEC report, in which case ILEC would have to pay.
Senate Commerce Committee leadership is being pressed to hold hearings on FCC’s tentative decision to reclassify wireline broadband services as information services. Commission said last week that designating “telephone-based” Internet services as information rather than common carrier services could spur investment by eliminating regulatory uncertainty (CD Feb 15 p1). Agency’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on issue “may reflect a fundamental misreading of the intent and purpose” of Telecom Act, Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) said Feb. 15 in letter to Commerce Committee Chmn. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Inouye (D-Hawaii). He said he agreed with FCC Comr. Copps’s dissenting position that decision “appears to lead to the strange conclusion that Congress intended to remove these services from the numerous competition, universal service and consumer protection provisions that Congress imposed on common carriers providing telecommunications services.” FCC Chmn. Powell last week rejected such concerns as “shortsighted and incorrect” and emphasized the NPRM would leave intact interLATA restrictions and ILEC obligations under Telecom Act’s Sec. 251 and 252. Alliance for Community Media Exec. Dir. Bunnie Riedel said purported need to reclassify Internet access as information service was “the very argument the cable operators have used to keep cable modem service closed to competition.” Just as cable operators currently can choose Internet service providers (ISPs) for their customers, FCC would enable ILECs to do likewise, she said. Both industries “must be open to competition so when you or I don’t like our Internet service we can go shopping for a better one, just like we can do now with long distance service,” she said: “It’s time for the FCC and Congress to put consumer interests ahead of the insatiable desires of the telecommunications industry.”
Upcoming Telecom events: (1) Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI) sponsors seminar March 4 on “Role of Wholesaling Access in Stimulating Investment,” Columbia U., N.Y.C. Speakers include analysts, regulators -- 212-854-4222 or www.citi.columbia.edu. (2) N. American Numbering Council meets March 12-13, FCC hq -- 202-418-2320. (3) Indian Telecom Training Initiative, sponsored by FCC and National Exchange Carrier Assn., will be Sept. 7-10, starting day earlier than previously announced, Bally’s Hotel, Las Vegas. Program will give tribal leaders information about deploying telecom services -- www.fcc.gov/indians.
ITU World Telecom Development Conference (WTDC) that starts next month is poised to take up international digital divide issues, including strategic plan that will be brought up at ITU Plenipotentiary Conference later this year. Challenge facing conference is “to show how sector reform, investment and capacity-building can make a genuine difference to improving the livelihoods of the world’s most deprived,” ITU Secy.-Gen. Yoshio Utsumi said Tues. Several U.S. participants and industry observers said they expected issues that come up at March 18-27 conference in Istanbul would lay groundwork for issues such as ITU reform that were teed up for ITU Plenipotentiary meeting in Sept. in Marrakesh, Morocco. Both WTDC and plenipotentiary are held every 4 years. Next month’s conference is expected to grapple with big picture issues such as role of ITU’s development sector in that policy arena. “I suspect we will see a lot of the plenipotentiary themes raised at least obliquely, if not directly, at the WTDC,” said David Gross, U.S. coordinator for international communications & information policy at State Dept. “It’s one of the many reasons that WTDC is such an important conference,” he told us.
FCC called for comment on issues raised by 10th U.S. Appeals Court, Denver, in its remand last year of agency’s 9th universal service order. Order set mechanism for determining how much federal universal service support would go to larger ILECs. Court ruled in Qwest v. FCC that order didn’t adequately: (1) Define and apply Telecom Act’s requirements that rates in rural areas must be “reasonably comparable” with urban areas and support should be “sufficient.” (2) Explain its reasoning for setting funding benchmark at 135% of national average. (3) Provide inducements for states to implement universal service policies. (4) Explain how mechanism would interact with other universal service programs. In Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) released late Fri., FCC asked for comments on first 3 areas and said it would deal with 4th later. Commission’s 1999 order established formula that determined how much federal support would go to each state by comparing average cost per line in each state against nationwide cost benchmark of 135%. It then allocated support only for amount of costs above that benchmark. Comments are due 30 days from NPRM’s publication in Federal Register.