Mobile satellite service (MSS) providers were generally united in their opposition of petitions for reconsideration by wireless interests, requesting that the FCC move to dismiss them. Cingular and CTIA had asked the Commission in July to act on the order authorizing the use of ancillary terrestrial components (ATCs) with MSS systems, expressing concern that FCC-imposed gating criteria designed to ensure substantial satellite service weren’t adequate (CD July 9 p5).
The FCC reaffirmed its Oct. decision to allow Lockheed Martin and Comsat to transfer their earth station, private land mobile radio and international licenses to Intelsat, dismissing and denying petitions for reconsideration from PanAmSat and Litigation Recovery Trust (LRT). Lockheed, Comsat and Intelsat had asked the Commission to dismiss both petitions, saying PanAmSat wasn’t a party to the proceeding and had brought up “illogical concerns,” and LRT brought up issues that already had been considered (CD Dec 18 p10). The Commission said PanAmSat hadn’t participated in early stages of the proceeding. While Pegasus said “it couldn’t have known that the Commission planned to ‘eliminate’ dominant carrier regulation on thin routes,” the Commission ruled that PanAmSat hadn’t shown good cause for its nonparticipation and should “have appreciated that the docket might address its concerns about the regulatory status of the various Intelsat companies.” The FCC agreed that LRT raised only prior arguments again, all of which it rejected again: “We find these contentions and the remaining LRT arguments to be frivolous… In addition, LRT delayed its reply until after the reply due date, intentionally did not seek leave to file the late-filed pleading, and apparently did not serve the reply on the parties to the proceeding.”
Motorola asked the FCC to reconsider its recent decision setting dates to move to narrowband equipment below 512 MHz, joining challengers to the decision that included public safety groups, paging carriers and private wireless operators (CD Aug 19 p7). Like others asking the FCC for reconsideration, Motorola took particular issue with interim deadlines for shifting to more efficient narrowband equipment in 150-174 MHz and 421-512 MHz for private land mobile frequency bands. It asked the FCC to rescind its 2005 and 2008 prohibitions covering the authorization, manufacture and import of multimode equipment that offered backward compatibility with 25 kHz legacy systems and new 12.5 kHz capable equipment. It also asked reconsideration of a near- term prohibition on changes in existing licenses that expanded 25 kHz system footprints. “Such flexibility will not negatively affect or delay the ultimate transition to 12.5 kHz in these frequency bands,” it said. Motorola also suggested the FCC reconsider a decision to no longer exempt non-public safety one-way paging-only channels from the efficiency standards. “Motorola believes that in light of its decision to adopt a mandatory transition to 12.5 kHz technologies, the FCC should reconsider its decision to retain the January 1, 2005, mandate for manufacturers to incorporate a 6.25 kHz mode into new radio designs,” the company said. The issue of the FCC’s continued involvement in the development of 6.25 kHz equipment is teed up in a further notice, Motorola said. The rules also “appear to call into question the option to use ‘equivalent efficiency’ designs that provide 2 voice paths over 12.5 kHz channel widths,” it said. Motorola said the 2-slot, 12.5 kHz equivalent efficiency option should be kept for any 6.25 kHz requirement that would be in place when the proceeding closed.
The FCC responded to several petitions for reconsideration on service rules for the 27 MHz in separate bands between 216 MHz to 2.3 GHz, which have been reallocated from govt. to nongovt. use. The service rules cover swathes of spectrum at 216-220 MHz, 1390-1395 MHz, 1427-1429 MHz, 1429-1432 MHz, 1670-1675 MHz and 2385-2390 MHz. In its response, the FCC: (1) Declined to impose coordination procedures on the 1432-1435 MHz band licensees that operated within 100 miles of 1435-1525 MHz flight test sites. (2) Instructed the American Hospital Assn.’s American Society of Health Care Engineering (ASHE) and the Land Mobile Communications Council to present a joint coordination plan for the 1427-1432 MHz band, which is used by the wireless medical telemetry service and site-based nonmedical telemetry, within one year. (3) Declined to require that each 1392-1395 MHz band station register with the ASHE upon launching operation, saying that such a requirement would run counter to the regulatory flexibility that came with a geographic area license. (4) Changed the channel plans in the original order for the 217-220 MHz and 1427-1432 MHz bands to allow licensees to use 25 kHz or 50 kHz bandwidths with center frequencies that reached certain revised accuracy points. The Commission said the original reallocation decision had made allocation of 1390-1392 MHz and 1430-1432 MHz to nongeosynchronous satellite orbit mobile satellite service feeder links contingent on a decision at the World Radio Conference in 2003. The FCC said that the WRC approved a decision to make a secondary allocation for NGSO MSS feeder uplinks and downlinks in that spectrum. The international allocation is based on the completion of compatibility studies. The FCC reiterated that terrestrial and satellite sharing rules were to be addressed in a separate proceeding for that band.
Public safety groups petitioned the FCC for reconsideration of a decision that set dates for moving to narrowband equipment in spectrum below 512 MHz. The Federal Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group (FLEWUG) raised concerns with some of the interim deadlines for public safety users transitioning to more efficient 12.5 kHz-capable equipment: (1) The decision to bar certification of equipment capable of operating at one voice path per 25 kHz of spectrum, including 12.5 kHz-capable equipment that also provided for a 25 kHz mode, starting Jan. 1, 2005. (2) The decision to bar the manufacture and import of 150-174 MHz and 421-512 MHz band equipment that could operate on a 25 kHz bandwidth starting Jan. 1, 2008. Those dates will “preclude a graceful migration to the next generation of technology, reduce competition among manufacturers and inhibit interoperability among federal, state and local public safety agencies,” FLEWUG said: “In so doing, the Commission runs the risk of compromising critical homeland security initiatives.” The group suggested extending the Jan. 2005 certification deadline to Jan. 1, 2008. It said that “by enabling backward compatibility plus manufacture and importation of multimode equipment through 2013 public safety agencies across the nation would be able to complete the transition to narrowband operations in a more timely fashion.” A separate challenge was filed by the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO), the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs, the International Municipal Signal Assn. and others. The goal of the rules is to move licensees to narrower channels and increase the number of channels available in the same spectrum, APCO said. “Prior efforts to ‘refarm’ land mobile spectrum have been ineffective, due in part to the absence of a requirement that licensees convert to more efficient narrowband radio equipment by a specific date,” the filing said. “Instead, the Commission had merely used its equipment authorization process to force manufacturers to offer narrowband equipment, without any concurrent requirement that users purchase or deploy narrowband capabilities.” APCO told the FCC it didn’t object to an end date for public safety operators to convert to narrowband equipment, and suggested it be moved up to 2013 from 2018. But the public safety groups took issue with interim deadlines for the transition. If not changed, APCO said the near-term dates would “prevent public safety licensees from adding critical capacity and coverage for existing systems, locking them into current channels and equipment supplies, or forcing them to expend scarce resources to replace prematurely their entire radio systems.” Separately, paging carriers challenged the order, including the American Assn. of Paging Carriers, Allied National Paging Assn., Arch Wireless and Metrocall. They said that to the extent the rules compelled them to convert their Part 90 paging frequencies to 12.5 kHz, they would “be forced to replace their existing systems and equipment at significant and unnecessary cost and with substantial disruption of services provided to their customers.” The carriers took issue with a previous FCC decision to exempt all Part 90 paging-only frequencies below 800 MHz from any narrowbanding requirement. They told the Commission that they believed that the inclusion of paging-only frequencies in the narrowbanding mandates was inadvertent. They said it wasn’t technically possible to intermix 25 kHz base stations with 12.5 kHz base stations in the same paging system. That would mean carriers would have to “flash cut” their existing 25 kHz systems to 12.5 kHz equipment or overlay “complex and costly” networks to accommodate 12.5 kHz modes.
Stratex Networks said it signed an agreement with Bangladesh Telegraph & Telephone Board (BTTB) to build multiple high-speed, medium-capacity microwave links to expand the country’s telecom infrastructure. BTTB is the sole land phone operator in Bangladesh, with more than 650,000 fixed telephone subscribers and is 100% owned by the govt. Scheduled for completion in March, the contract is estimated to be worth $3 million, Stratex said.
Gemstar-TV Guide International, benefitting from $9.8 million payment from Thomson for past license fees, said 2nd- quarter loss narrowed to $22.5 million from $886 million year earlier. Latter included $1.2 billion impairment charge for intangible assets. Overall revenue fell to $226.1 million from $259.3 million due, in part, to sales declines at print version of TV Guide and in cable and satellite business, which includes TV Guide Interactive program guide and TV Guide Channel.
The FCC’s Wireline Bureau told the Commission at its agenda meeting Wed. that broadband subscribership was growing in rural as well as urban areas, but Comrs. Copps and Adelstein questioned the timing of the report and the quality of the data. The bureau submitted a report showing the percent of occupied housing units with high-speed lines in service grew nationwide to 16% in Dec. 2002, from 2% in Dec. 1999. On a state-by-state basis, rural areas also were gaining more broadband subscribers, for example growing in S.D. to 6% of housing units in Dec. 2002 from less than 0.5% in Dec. 1999, in Ark. to 9% from 1%. Among more urban states, the N.Y. percent of high speed lines increased to 25% from 2% and Mass. to 24% from 4%. The bureau said the percentages were estimates. Other data it reported: (1) The number of high-speed lines connecting homes and businesses to the Internet at the end of 2002 was nearly 20 million, vs. 2.8 million at the end of 1999. (2) In Dec. 1999, 60% of the nation’s zip codes had at least one service provider with at least one subscriber to its high-speed service, 10% had at least 4 providers and only 1% had 7 providers. By the end of 2002, the comparable figures were 88%, 39% and 17%. The report defined high-speed lines as those that provided services at speeds exceeding 200 kbps in at least one direction. Copps said the report “seems like good news” because progress was being made in the number of people with high-speed access. However, he questioned the survey’s methodology in 2 areas: (1) The use of “skeletal zip code data” to measure use of high-speed services because “finding one high-speed subscriber in a zip code and counting it as service available throughout is not a credible way to proceed.” (2) “Basing our measurements and our objectives on a broadband revolution at 200 kilobits may be just a little passe.” He said it might be time to use “a more rigorous bandwidth standard.” Copps said the Commission wasn’t conducting the congressionally mandated Sec. 706 broadband surveys frequently enough: “When the Commission undertook its first Sec. 706 inquiry, it stated that the agency would inquire annually into the deployment of broadband. Yet it has been a full 2 years since the Commission released its last notice of inquiry.” Adelstein said the report was “a good effort but we must do more.” It has been 2 years since the Commission began its last inquiry and 19 months since it issued its last report, he said. A bureau spokesman said the Commission planned to release a notice of inquiry this fall. -- EH
FCC opened a wide-ranging rulemaking Wed. with intention of establishing rules to help low-power TV stations (LPTV), booster and translator stations in rural communities switch to digital from analog service. Rulemaking made some tentative conclusions but mostly asked numerous questions about how such stations should be treated in the DTV transition and timetable they would need to make switch.
The FCC opened a wide-ranging rulemaking Wed. with the intention of establishing rules to help low-power TV stations (LPTV), booster and translator stations in rural communities switch to digital from analog service. The rulemaking made some tentative conclusions but mostly asked numerous questions about how such stations should be treated in the digital transition and the timetable they would need to make the switch.