Ore. PUC gave Qwest until end of July to come up with plan for reversing within 6 months recent sharp decline in business office service quality. PUC said company in June service quality report said it met standard that calls to business offices be answered within 20 sec. on just 29% of calls, when state requires 85% and Qwest year ago was achieving 69%. Agency said it had been receiving growing number of calls in recent months from customers complaining of poor access when they called Qwest for new, transferred or changed phone service. PUC Comr. Joan Smith said if Qwest couldn’t correct problem, agency could impose penalties, but she said PUC would prefer that Qwest fix problem. Meanwhile, PUC said it would implement 1,000-block number pooling for Eugene 541 area code in hope of extending its exhaustion well beyond current fall 2003 date. The 541 code covers 85% of state’s land area. PUC said pooling would begin first in larger communities served by multiple local providers and projected for growth. PUC’s plan also calls for carriers to surrender unneeded phone numbers, with at least 400,000 assigned numbers available for transfer to other carriers. PUC will implement pooling in Portland 503/971 code even though code is projected to remain good through 2008.
Wis. PSC decided to suspend and investigate Ameritech proposal to terminate existing intra-LATA reverse-billing arrangements with wireless carriers for land-to-mobile intraLATA calls, and instead bill wireline callers at standard intraLATA toll rates for calls to wireless phones located outside calling party’s local calling area. With reverse billing on land-to- mobile intraLATA calls, wireline end-user caller doesn’t pay toll charges. Instead, Ameritech bills wireless carrier at wholesale interconnection rate, while wireless carrier bills its subscriber for airtime min. Ameritech proposed change in April, but U.S. Cellular, Century Tel Wireless and New-Cell challenged move, saying it wasn’t economically necessary.
Conn. legislature adjourned for year without passing any of 15 bills that were intended to return to municipalities some degree of authority over siting of mobile phone communications towers. Bills were introduced to address Dec. ruling by U.S. Dist. Court, New Haven, that jurisdiction over tower siting rested not with local land use boards but with obscure state body called Conn. Siting Council. Court’s ruling was based on provisions of Conn. state law, leaving open possibility that legislature could change law and restore tower siting jurisdiction to municipalities. Bills ranged in scope from abolishing state body, making it purely advisory agency, making it responsible only for master-level planning, requiring local ratification of state body’s decisions and variations on those themes, all intended to give local govts. some say in cellphone tower siting decisions. Bills failed to pass despite lobbying efforts by cities and towns that believed tower siting should be purely local decision. Conn. Attorney Gen. Richard Blumenthal said he was disappointed that legislature didn’t act on tower siting issue and vowed to press appeal that’s pending in 2nd U.S. Appeals Court, N.Y. Hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled. Supporters of local control said bills didn’t succeed this year because some lawmakers wanted to wait for outcome of appeal, and bills got caught in jurisdictional squabbles between chambers’ committees responsible for utilities matters and those addressing land development issues. Some towns said they would go forward with cellphone tower site hearings and send their opinions to Siting Council.
Too many rural phone providers would be left without tax credits in bill by Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), OPASTCO said in letter to senator last week. Rockefeller’s bill (S-88) offers tax incentives for broadband deployment to rural areas, but OPASTCO Chmn. James Forcier and his fellow board members said they support “the concept” of bill but urged more companies be made eligible for credits. S-88 has 58 co-sponsors and is in Senate Finance Committee, of which Rockefeller is member. While Committee Chmn. Baucus (D-Mont.) has yet to hold hearing on bill, that could change now that new Senate governing agreement will allow committee to have full complement of members this week with one- vote Democratic majority. Similar bill in House (HR-267) by Rep. English (R-Pa.) has 170 co-sponsors and awaits action in Ways & Means Committee.
Rental car company’s use of global positioning system (GPS) in Conn. landed it in court. State’s Consumer Protection Dept. said it was investigating complaint by James Turner, who sued Acme Rent-A-Car in New Haven when company used GPS in minivan Turner had rented to clock his speed and billed him $150 for each of 3 speeding violations. Company’s lawyer said it fines motorists for driving faster than 79 mph for 2 min. or longer but Turner’s lawyer said he drove 78 mph on 2 of the 3 occasions. Company’s lawyer said rental contracts inform potential customers about GPS use.
BOSTON -- Implications of sagging financial markets raised at Wireless Communications Assn. convention here this week ranged from difficulty in renewing ITFS leasing agreements to FCC delay in setting auction date for 24 GHz market. Winstar Chmn.-CEO William Rouhana, in first comments before industry group since company’s Chapter 11 filing in April, assailed “schizophrenia” that has beset telecom sector, pitting perception of “overvalued” assets of broadband providers against growing consumer demand for services. “There is this incredible schizophrenia that has taken hold,” he said Tues.
Eight lawmakers, including House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.), urged FCC Chmn. Powell to give “due consideration” to spectrum-sharing plan negotiated by American Hospital Assn. and Itron. Agreement works out way for wireless medical and utility telemetry devices in 1427-1432 MHz to operate without causing harmful interference to each other. Lawmakers said licenses for utility telemetry on secondary basis in that band were renewed in 1999. “As Congress intended, these wireless applications have enhanced the nation’s efficient use of energy and help keep consumer utility bills low,” said letter sent earlier this month. Besides Tauzin, letter was signed by Commerce Committee’s ranking Democrat Dingell (Mich.) and Reps. Nethercutt (R-Wash.), Gutknecht (R-Minn.), Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.), Price (D- N.C.), Deal (R-Ga.), Thurman (D-Fla.). Plan appears to carry out congressional preference for spectrum sharing where possible, they wrote. Last year, FCC order set aside 14 MHz of spectrum for wireless medical telemetry on primary basis, including 1429-1432 MHz, to protect that equipment from interference, particularly from DTV. Interest in 1427-1432 MHz has been keen, including from low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems in using band for downlinks. That has fit into overall Little LEO efforts to acquire international frequency allocation for that technology. Land Mobile Communications Council also has petitioned FCC to allocate 1427-1435 MHz to private mobile radio service. Options for that spectrum also emerged last fall in notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on allocation of 27 MHz from govt. to nongovt. uses. Among bands at issue in NPRM was 1.4 GHz, for which Commission has received competing requests, including Itron petition for utility telemetry service. NPRM offers several scenarios FCC was entertaining for that band, including allocating 1427-1429 MHz on primary basis to utility telemetry and 1429-1432 MHz on co-primary basis to utility and wireless medical telemetry. Itron asked FCC earlier this year to allocate entire 1427-1432 MHz on co-primary basis to utility and wireless medical telemetry. In ex parte filing, Itron cited agreement between representatives of those 2 groups. Among other considerations, agreement calls for: (1) Utility telemetry licenses to have primary status in 1429.5- 1432 MHz, with wireless medical telemetry operating on secondary, noninterference basis. (2) Wireless medical telemetry would have primary status in 1427-1429.5 MHz, with same understanding on secondary uses.
With limited range of land-based broadband providers such as DSL and cable modems, satellite-based Internet servers want to attack markets in previously untapped rural and isolated regions of U.S., speakers said at satellite-over-Internet conference Wed. in Arlington, Va. Number of global broadband users is expected to triple by 2003, and satellite Internet providers will have to utilize current telecom networks to keep up with rapid growth, SkyBridge Satellite Senior Vp David Finkelstein said.
Campaign finance reform opponents railed against proposed restrictions on advocacy broadcast ads at Tues. hearing by House Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee, but remained divided on how to address “big money’s” influence on legislative process. Chmn. Chabot (R-O.) held hearing to assess how bill (S- 27) by Sens. McCain and Feingold (D-Wis.) might undermine First Amendment rights. ACLU Pres. Nadine Strossen said she shared Chabot’s concern that McCain-Feingold could “egregiously” violate free speech rights of advocacy groups by restricting their ability to buy air time. However, Chabot wasn’t receptive to Strossen’s proposal to finance federal campaigns publicly, measure she said would solve constitutional questions.
Flag Telecom and Level 3 reached agreement with Korea Telecom on construction and operation of landing station in Pusan, S. Korea, for multiterabit intra-Asia submarine cable system. Construction of landing station is under way and will be complete later in year, companies said. Built by Level 3, eastern leg of submarine fiber cable system will connect Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong. Western leg, built by Flag Telecom, will connect Hong Kong, S. Korea, Japan. Each company will own 3 fiber pairs on 10,000 km system. Flag N. Asian Loop will offer multi-terabit capacity to S. Korean market, connecting to U.S. through planned Pacific cable.