FCC rescheduled this year’s Indian Telecom Training Initiative (ITTI) to Sept. 8-11, 2002, at Bally’s Las Vegas. In conjunction with National Exchange Carrier Assn., ITTI 2001/2002 will provide American Indian tribal and Alaskan Native Village leaders and other parties opportunity to obtain and share information on increasing telecom services on tribal lands, Commission said. Attending will be FCC experts, other govt. agencies, telecom companies.
TDK Mediactive (TDKM) is co-publishing PC title Shrek Game Land Activity Center with Activision’s Minneapolis-based Activision Value Publishing (AVP) subsidiary. Calabasas, Cal., game maker said title will ship in Nov. at $19.99. TDKM CEO Vincent Bitetti noted game will be his company’s “3rd Shrek title to be released this year.” But game is first title to be released under co-publishing agreement recently signed by TDKM and AVP.
Proposed sale of Hughes Electronics, owner of DirecTV, to EchoStar for $26 billion may augur change in retail distribution. DirecTV, which has 10.3 million subscribers, had dominated retail sales largely because of incentive package it offered dealers who agreed to sell service exclusively. Dealers that also sold EchoStar received less support from DirecTV in terms of funding for promotions. EchoStar, whose largest retailer was Sears, also sold Digital Sky Highway (DISH) service through independent chains including P.C. Richard in N.Y.C. and Sight ‘n Sound in Oklahoma City. It, along with Sears, sued DirecTV in 2000, alleging violations of antitrust law, and both cases are pending. EchoStar has 6.4 million subscribers.
Viacom reported net loss of $190 million in 3rd quarter, saying results were affected by lower revenue and increased costs resulting from terrorist attacks Sept. 11. It said it experienced significant loss of ad revenue and incurred additional newsgathering costs for 93 hours of continuous coverage by CBS. Both CBS and UPN suffered from soft ad market. In addition to continuous coverage, CBS had many preemptions of regularly scheduled programming, further hurting bottom line, company said. TV results were partly offset by strong showing of Paramount TV Group’s Frasier, Ed and 7th Heaven and syndication availability of Everybody Loves Raymond. In 3rd quarter, Viacom’s Blockbuster division had pretax noncash charge of $356 million because it eliminated 25% of its VHS library as part of strategic move to stock more DVDs and to overhaul management. Viacom cable networks BET, MTV, TV Land and VH1 had higher revenue from growth in cable affiliate fees, DBS revenue, advertising.
Satellite radio operators XM and Sirius are facing major hurdles in beginning service, meeting financial requirements of their cash-intensive start-ups and gaining widespread acceptance, officials said. Neither is expected to hit subscriber targets by end of next year, and 2nd to market Sirius has delayed debut of its service until next year because of problems with chipset, Lehman Bros. analyst William Kidd said. Sirius continues to test its service and will “continue testing chipsets for some time,” spokeswoman said. Chipsets had been scheduled to be ready for receivers by late Sept. or early Oct. Sirius CEO David Margolese also announced resignation Tues. Kidd said he believed move was effort to restore investor confidence, but Sirius Senior Vp Doug Wilsterman said Margolese’s departure after 10 years as CEO was unrelated to latest delay in company’s commercial launch. Sirius will announce full range of plans in conference call Nov. 14.
Problems continued mounting Tues. for Sirius Satellite Radio, which announced resignation of CEO David Margolese. Meanwhile, another senior executive confirmed company would miss its Dec. commercial launch target.
FCC has much bigger job -- to protect public’s interest, chiefly its safety -- than anyone could have imagined just 5 weeks ago, Comr. Copps said Mon. In speech to Federal Communications Bar Assn. (FCBA), he said Sept. 11 terrorist attacks caused many in federal govt. to rethink their agencies’ role. FCC now “must be in the vanguard of our homeland security efforts,” he said. Among first tasks, Copps said, is for Commission and industry to determine which parts of nation’s telecom networks performed well, which failed, repair damage, establish “redundancies” in networks that will allow citizens to communicate during crises, even when one system fails. He cited example of his own family. His son, student at Gonzaga High near Capitol, tried to get through to his parents by wireline and wireless without success. But, much to his worried parents’ relief, he was able to reach them over school’s Internet connection to tell them he was okay. “If Sept. 11 was about anything other than evil, it was about communications,” Copps said, citing “desperate outreach from each of us as citizens to find out what was going on, where our loved ones were, what other threats were coming our way.”
Telecom Right-of-Way (TelROW) Coalition said NOAA failed to identify how fiber projects crossing National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) resulted in public’s loss of use of those protected areas. TelROW, group of telcos, ISPs and energy utilities, said NOAA’s revised fair market value analysis report released in Aug. (CD Aug 20 p4) would result in “unnecessary and invalid escalations in [right-of-way] price.” Although group in past had lauded agency for dropping its proposed one-time $120,000 per-fiber-mile ROW fee, it reiterated concern that proposed land-valuation methodology deviated from accepted appraisal industry standards: “These long-range cable projects form the backbone of the information superhighway… The valuation of rights-of-way advanced in the [NMS] report will have a significant impact not only on the costs associated with international electronic commerce, but efforts to extend digital information opportunities to these underserved populations, and bridge the ‘digital divide.'”
FCC authorized U.S. earth stations Tues. to use Inmarsat to offer mobile satellite service provided former intergovernmental satellite organization completed IPO. Commission said Inmarsat had met all requirements of Open- Market Reorganization for Betterment of Technology (ORBIT) Act. Authorizations will allow U.S. companies to use Inmarsat system for aeronautical, maritime and land mobile communications, including voice, data, facsimile, high-speed Internet. New services should increase competition, FCC said. Comr. Abernathy called decision “significant step” in International Bureau’s “effort to reduce backlog.”
With Comr. Martin dissenting, FCC designated Western Wireless as eligible telecom carrier (ETC) for universal service support for Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in S.D. Order released late Fri. concluded that FCC, not S.D. PUC, had jurisdiction over decision on whether to grant ETC status to Western Wireless for service. Commission said S.D. PUC should make ETC determination for providing services to nontribal members on Oglala Sioux Tribe’s reservation. Companion order designated Western Wireless as having ETC status for serving tribal population, move that S.D. PUC and some LECs had opposed. In Aug. 2000, Oglala Sioux and Western Wireless had signed agreement for wireless universal service offering on Pine Ridge, where tribal members comprise 91% of population. PUC had argued that Western Wireless was subject to state’s general regulatory authority over service quality and prohibitions against unreasonable rate and service discrimination. State also contended it was in better position to make public interest determination on whether to permit additional ETC carrier for area now serviced by ILEC. “Although we are sympathetic to state concerns about maintaining uniformity and preventing unjust and unreasonable discrimination in telecommunications statewide, we are persuaded that the tribe’s interests in regulating service quality and determining the procedures by which to resolve complaints between Western Wireless and its tribal members are more compelling,” FCC said. While states typically are more familiar with local circumstances, it said: “Here we have been presented with a full record detailing the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s sovereignty interests and its desire to regulate the relationship between the carrier and its own tribal members.” Sec. 214 of Communications Act sets out that where state lacks jurisdiction, FCC will make public interest determination on whether carrier should be designated as ETC. “Perhaps most importantly,” Commission said regulated wireline carriers, unlike Western Wireless, hadn’t consented to tribal jurisdiction. However, FCC disagreed with Western Wireless contention that agency should declare tribal jurisdiction over all of Western Wireless’s service on reservation. In dissent, Martin said part of Sec. 214 of Communications Act at issue was written by Congress based on concerns that some Indian-controlled carriers couldn’t obtain forum in which to seek ETC status due to jurisdictional limits of state PUCs. “In my view, the Commission has taken a misguided approach to effectuating Congress’s intent,” he wrote: “Rather than simply ensuring that carriers have a place to go when state commissions or courts conclude that a state lacks jurisdiction, the Commission has made itself the arbiter of competing jurisdictional claims made by states and Indian tribes.” Martin also highlighted “legal and practical problems” of order. “Among other things, we have set up a regime in which Western Wireless will receive universal service funding for serving Indians, but not non-Indians, even if they live on the same land.” He expressed concern that order would encourage “more parties to come before the Commission seeking to displace state claims of jurisdiction.” Western Wireless said grant of ETC status on Pine Ridge reservation meant “the FCC has empowered the tribe to have a real choice and resolve the long-standing telephone service problems on the reservation.” Company said that within one month of starting wireless phone service on reservation in Nov. 2000, it had more than 1,000 customers.