A draft order being circulated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for the July 11 meeting lays out a process for the agency’s rural broadband experiment that’s seen as a test of the competitive bidding envisioned under Phase II of the Connect America Fund (CAF), said agency and industry officials in interviews last week. Wheeler is proposing to spend $100 million over the next 10 years for the experiment, at the upper end of the $50 million to $100 million range outlined in an NPRM, said an agency official. It’s unknown whether the commission will back that figure, the official said.
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Hogan Lovells hires Eduardo Ustaran, privacy and data protection lawyer, as partner, and he will lead European team of global Privacy and Information Management practice … Lobbyist registrations: American Television Alliance, Mercury Strategies, effective March 24 … AnsuR Technologies, satellite and wireless firm, American Defense International, effective May 15 … Electronic Funds Transfer Association, Roberts, Raheb & Gradler, effective May 1 … Entravision, Ogilvy Government Relations, effective April 23.
The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a series of NPRMs on FM channel allotments. The bureau’s Audio Division seeks comment on a proposal from Bryan Broadcasting to substitute Channel 274A for Channel 267A at Centerville, Texas, it said in an NPRM (http://bit.ly/1rYgLIU). The division invites comment on Ashley Bruton’s proposal to allot Channel 280A at McCall, Idaho, as the community’s eighth local service, said a separate NPRM (http://bit.ly/1joRGUT). Bruton also filed a Form 301 application for Channel 280A at McCall, it said. The Navajo Nation proposed to allot FM Channel 258C2 at Rough Rock, Arizona, as a first local service, the division said (http://bit.ly/1joSpFz). Initial comments in all proceedings are due June 23, replies July 8.
A $2 million broadband stimulus grant helped the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority deliver wireless to an underserved area, NTIA said in a Tuesday blog post (http://1.usa.gov/1ejLPLs). The authority, funded through the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, helped the Navajo Nation territory in the southwest U.S. “And now the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority is signing up its first customers for a new 4G LTE wireless broadband network funded largely by the federal government,” NTIA said. “Covering 15,000 square miles, the new network consists of 59 wireless towers, 43 base stations, 60 microwave links, 550 miles of fiber and 20 miles of fiber or microwave connections into buildings.” The authority worked with wireless company Commnet, NTIA said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on a petition by Navajo Pillars Telecommunications for designation as an eligible telecom carrier and to receive waivers of several FCC rules, it said in a public notice Thursday (http://bit.ly/16pcBkq). The telco seeks a waiver of the commission’s study area boundary rules to modify a current Frontier study area in order to create a new study area. It also seeks “immediate access” to high-cost loop support and interstate common line support, the public notice said. It wants a waiver of the definition of “telephone company” to let it become a member of the National Exchange Carrier Association and “immediately participate in NECA pools and tariffs,” the notice said. It also wants a five-year waiver of the cap on interstate originating and terminating rates, intrastate terminating rates, and the transition path for those rates as set forth in the commission’s rules. And it wants a five-year waiver of the rule limiting reimbursable capital and operating expenses for high-cost loop support. “Given the complexities of the issues raised in the Petition, the Bureau finds that the Petition is inappropriate for streamlined treatment, and should be subject to further analysis and review,” the bureau said. Comments in WC docket 10-90 are due Dec. 2, replies Dec. 16.
NTUA Wireless wants a decision by Wednesday on the merits of its application to become an eligible telecom carrier, it told the FCC Wireline Bureau Friday (http://xrl.us/bnq8o3). Its unopposed application has been pending for 568 days, the majority-owned Tribal entity said. Despite countless meetings, the carrier has “never been offered a reason to justify the prolonged regulatory delay in acting on its application,” which is causing “irreparable harm” to the carrier and the residents of Navajo Nation, it said.
The Navajo Nation Telecommunications Regulatory Commission needs to acquire data about Lifeline subscribers on the Navajo Nation to determine whether efforts to recertify them are proving successful, NNTRC Executive Director Brian Tagaban told officials from the FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Native Affairs and Policy on Monday (http://xrl.us/bnkpsk). NNTRC also asked for access to any reports produced by Smith Bagley Inc. as part of the company’s request for a waiver of the Lifeline Order’s recertification requirements.
The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission will meet with CenturyLink Aug. 20 to “address service issues on the Navajo Nation and for residents south of Gallup,” the PRC said (http://xrl.us/bnj79e). PRC Vice Chair Theresa Becenti-Aguilar is hosting at the Gallup Community Service Center in Gallup, N.M., it said. “I am bringing CenturyLink, the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] and my constituents together in this process so that together we can achieve what has been long overdue,” she said in the announcement. It’s a followup to two meetings the PRC vice chair held in 2011 at which CenturyLink answered questions on “service problems and future plans to connect more people in the Gallup area to its network,” the PRC said.
The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission denied state USF money to Sacred Wind Communications in a 5-0 vote Tuesday. Sacred Wind had applied as a means to fund “the extension of high-speed telecom and Internet capabilities to underserved areas,” specifically in the rural Navajo Nation land, but the Commission said it was concerned these USF funds “might be used for things like investor profits instead of consumer benefits.” Sacred Wind “lacked the proof necessary to show that underserved consumers will be connected,” said Commissioner Theresa Becenti-Aguilar in prepared remarks. The commission held an extended hearing on the case in February. Sacred Wind serves “approximately 2,200 residential customers spread over 3,600 square miles of Navajo Reservation and near-reservation lands in remote, rural areas of New Mexico,” the company said earlier this year(http://xrl.us/bnc4pg).
Native Americans became the first parties to oppose petitions to reconsider last fall’s universal service reforms, the record on docket 10-90 showed. The National Congress of American Indians and Navajo telecom regulators filed separate, but similarly worded, briefs to oppose RLEC’s request for exemption of some of the new rules’ guidelines for deploying broadband in tribal areas (CD Oct 28 p1).