A mobility fund offering only the $100 million to $300 million proposed by the FCC won’t be enough to meet the many needs for mobile deployment, said CTIA and many of the wireless carriers it represents, in reply comments to the commission. Commenters also said there’s widespread concern about a proposal to use reverse auctions to determine which carriers get funding. The comments arrived at the FCC as it announced that a rulemaking to overhaul the Universal Service Fund is scheduled for a vote at the Feb. 8 commission meeting. (See the related report in this issue.)
Nullification of FCC net neutrality rules through the Congressional Review Act topped a list of communications and technology priorities for Republicans on the House Commerce Committee. Also listed in a staff memo Tuesday as “key issues” this year: Spectrum auction legislation, revamping the commission’s processes, broadband stimulus oversight and a Universal Service Fund overhaul. Colin Crowell, former aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said on a panel Wednesday at the State of the Net Conference he doubts that the GOP’s planned resolution of disapproval concerning net neutrality will succeed.
Payphone operators’ request for emergency cash and long-term Universal Service Fund support was panned by Sprint-Nextel, Verizon, USTelecom and TracFone Wireless. The American Public Communications Council filed a petition last month asking the FCC for about $57 million in emergency Lifeline money and for a proceeding on whether payphones should receive universal service support permanently (CD Dec 6 p6). The petition drew support from the Florida Public Telecommunications Association, which said that the collapse of the payphone industry “has been greatly exacerbated in Florida and other states … due to the introduction of ‘free’ governmentally supported cell phone service offered by TracFone and more recently Virgin Mobile.”
The FCC seems ready to add secondary market spectrum leasing rules for terrestrial use in bands currently allocated for mobile satellite service, said agency officials and industry executives. A report and order, which are on circulation, are largely in line with the FCC’s rulemaking proposal from last year (CD July 7 p1), they said. The agency’s notice of inquiry on MSS -- which asked for input on various ways to increase terrestrial use of the MSS bands, including incentive auctions -- will be taken up later, said satellite industry executives. The order will also grant terrestrial use as a co-primary allocation in the S-band, said industry executives.
A deal was struck that would allow deployment of body sensor networks operating on a secondary basis in the 2360-2390 MHz band, the Aerospace & Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council, Philips Healthcare and GE Healthcare announced Tuesday. They worked out an agreement on sharing of the band between primary aeronautical mobile telemetry and medical networks, and presented the deal to FCC officials last week, said an ex parte filing.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said he will introduce legislation that would limit carriers’ liability in cybersecurity attacks. “We are working on it and we hope to have it soon,” Goodlatte said after hosting a luncheon at the State of the Net conference. “We need to be looking at ways to encourage folks to try new ideas in the area of cybersecurity.” He said he hoped legislation -- modeled on laws passed to calm fears of a Y2K meltdown -- would help businesses “step up their game.”
A group representing the leading industry players on tower siting asked the FCC to provide additional detail on what the commission is considering in a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) on the antenna structure registration program. The FCC is examining its tower siting rules in response to a February 2008 remand from the U.S. Coyurt of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (CD Feb 20/08 p2). The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, meanwhile, proposed several steps the FCC could take to curb bird deaths from collisions with towers.
Congress is unlikely to take up a total rewrite of the Telecom Act until late this session at the earliest, telecom trade group executives said Tuesday on a Broadband Breakfast panel. USTelecom, CompTel and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association will be busy early this year lobbying members on broadband issues, they said. But “the next two years are going to go by pretty fast,” and “there just won’t be enough time to address all the issues that we'd like to see addressed,” said Qwest spokesman Tom McMahon.
The U.S. government is making Comcast fulfill several Web conditions to complete its purchase of control in NBC Universal from General Electric and form a new joint venture with GE. The FCC and Justice Department said they're barring the cable operator, in its role as an ISP, from discriminating against competing content. A condition from the commission -- which some see as a form of net neutrality (CD Jan 12 p4) -- prohibits Comcast from giving priority on its broadband network to its content over competitors’, FCC officials said.
Europe’s satellite navigation systems are making progress but face “fresh challenges,” the European Commission said in a midterm report on Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System. The programs have been slowed by cost overruns, price increases and lack of competition in some contract awards, it said. The economic situation of the EU and its members has led the EC not to ask for additional money in the current budget, but that decision, too, is causing delays and increasing costs, the EC said. And political decisions on the governance and financing of the projects are needed, it said.