The House Commerce Committee wasn’t satisfied by the FCC’s explanation for using an adjusted spectrum screen in its review of the recently failed AT&T/T-Mobile transaction. Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., last month questioned the FCC process (CD Dec 8 p2) behind the change, as well as the decision to release a staff report about the deal after AT&T and T-Mobile withdrew their application. In a letter dated Dec. 20 and released last week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski replied that no formal rulemaking is required to change the spectrum screen, and that it would have been inappropriate to “suppress the completed [staff] report.”
The agency that runs the federal Networx programs denied allegations -- made first by a member of the Federal IPv6 Working Group and now echoed by Internet pioneer Vint Cerf -- that carrier contractors in the programs have turned away agencies seeking support that the companies have promised for this year’s transition to the new protocol. “The Networx contract fully supports IPv6 services and they can be readily ordered from and fulfilled by the Networx carriers,” a General Services Administration spokeswoman told us by email late last week. “In our role as member and supporter of the Federal Working Group, we have not found an example of a new IPv6 order not being accepted by a Networx carrier. GSA and the Networx carriers have also on several occasions briefed the full Federal IPv6 Working Group on the carriers’ IPv6 capabilities and available agency support."
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Thursday named senior advisor Zac Katz as his new chief of staff, to serve for what is expected to be the final year or so of his chairmanship. Katz, Genachowski’s aide on wireline issues, had been a key player in the commission’s approval last year of a Universal Service Fund/intercarrier compensation order. Katz was also a top Genachowski aide behind the FCC’s approval in December 2010 of its controversial net neutrality rules, having spent a year working on that issue when he first got to the agency.
Content creators and distributors would both have duties when it comes to captioning pay-TV and broadcast programming that goes online, under a draft FCC order set to be issued shortly. Video programming distributors (VPDs) like cable, DBS, telco-TV companies and TV stations, and video programming owners (VPO) like studios and other content creators, both have roles. The draft order implementing Internet Protocol captioning rules under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act requires VPOs to deliver captioned shows to VPDs, said industry and commission officials. They said the order would give programmers and makers of consumer electronics time to come into compliance.
President Barack Obama’s announcement Wednesday he was installing Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through a “recess appointment” could have big implications for the FCC. Industry and government officials said the resulting blow up over the Cordray appointment could provoke Senate Republicans to hold up votes on other nominees, and FCC nominees Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai could get caught in the crossfire.
Comcast never planned to build out its AWS spectrum licenses, which it won at auction along with some other cable operator members of SpectrumCo, Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis told investors at a Citigroup conference Thursday. He was asked about SpectrumCo’s recent deal to sell that spectrum to Verizon Wireless with Comcast and Verizon then marketing each other’s products. “We never really intended to build that spectrum, so therefore it’s a really good use of that spectrum,” he said. “We always said the spectrum had to be financially optimized and strategically optimized and I think with Verizon we were able to do that,” Angelakis said.
Low-power radio has little economic impact on full-service stations in the same market, an FCC study for Congress said. The study of all 835 “active” U.S. low-power FM stations -- which compares to 6,468 full-service commercial stations -- pointed to LPFM outlets’ low listenership figures. It also found low LPFM revenue figures and listed regulatory obstacles that limit coverage areas. Half the portion of LPFM stations have websites as do commercial full-power FM broadcasters, which are three times more likely to stream their audio online, the Media Bureau analysis said.
The FCC understands that some companies may not be able to meet newly imposed deadlines for auditing their books under new Universal Service Fund rules, Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey said Thursday. “We are well aware of the challenges of companies that have not been able to submit to a financial audit,” Mattey said in a webinar hosted by USTelecom. “I do very much appreciate the time-sensitivity of it and I think we will be able to give some guidance on the timing of that. We recognize that certain things may not be able to be implemented by the deadline of this year.”
AT&T has no regrets and “no second guesses” about its failed $39 billion T-Mobile deal, said John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Business Solutions. The carrier will now focus on a different strategy and evaluate its spectrum opportunities as it always does, he told investors Thursday. AT&T meanwhile is ahead of schedule in LTE deployment and expects to complete national deployment by 2013, he told the Citi conference in San Francisco.
Clearwire is training its sights again on T-Mobile in an eager search to sign a second wholesale customer to join Sprint Nextel on its 4G network, said Chief Financial Officer Hope Cochran. The failure of T-Mobile’s sale to AT&T “did free up a lot of conversations,” she said late Wednesday at Citi’s investors conference in San Francisco. T-Mobile needs “capacity, they need spectrum, and they need an LTE path,” Cochran said. She left unstated Clearwire’s sales pitch that it can meet those needs, and she declined to discuss any communications between the companies.