NTIA Associate Administrator Karl Nebbia provided a detailed analysis of the many federal operations that use the 1755-1850 MHz band at the first meeting of the reconstituted Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CD May 25 p2). Getting part of that band, 1755-1780 MHz, for wireless broadband is a top wireless industry priority, but won’t be easy, he said.
In a setback for public safety communications legislation moving through Congress, key Republicans on the House Commerce Committee balked at proposals to reallocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety. Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., appeared skeptical at a hearing Wednesday of the House Communications Subcommittee about the approach supported by President Barack Obama, the Senate Commerce Committee and the House and Senate Homeland Security committees. House Commerce Democrats supported the reallocation bill (S-911) by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
The FCC is starting to implement rules to tamp down the volume of ads so they're not startlingly louder than the shows they appear within. Agency and industry officials said a draft rulemaking notice seeks comment on putting into place the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. The CALM Act was passed by Congress in December (CD Dec 6 p8), and applies to TV stations and subscription-video providers. A Media Bureau rulemaking notice circulated May 5 may be voted on within the next few weeks and has already attracted lobbying at the commission from telco-TV providers, cable and broadcasters, FCC and industry officials said.
Industry remains divided on how best to fix the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regimes, with a few months left before an FCC-promised deadline. Despite broad agreement that USF and intercarrier comp need fixing, reply comments show deep divisions over such questions as how quickly to transform to an all-IP network, how to treat VoIP service and the role of satellite and wireless technologies. “There is no doubt that the current universal service fund … and intercarrier compensation regimes are not sustainable in light of market and technological changes,” the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance said. “The comments show that there is no industry consensus in favor of the reforms outlined in the Notice or any other plan to promote broadband deployment to unserved areas.” The replies were posted in docket 10-90.
Video for first responders won’t be available anytime soon, though it’s long been seen as a key expected use of a national public safety network, Bill Schrier, chair of the FCC’s Public Safety Advisory Committee working group on applications, told Tuesday’s PSAP meeting. The working group ranked an application allowing first responders to broadcast a message they're in trouble and need help as the top priority among all that will be developed for the network.
The House would cut the broadband loans program at the Rural Utilities Service under fiscal 2012 budget legislation moving through the Appropriations Committee. The panel’s Agriculture Subcommittee late Tuesday approved an agriculture bill that counts the RUS program among its cuts. House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., slammed the proposed cut. USTelecom and the NTCA supported giving $22 million to the loans program under an amendment submitted by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. At our deadline, the subcommittee voted not to adopt the Lummis amendment.
Industry groups seek carve-outs for broadband and other advanced communications services (ACS) from disabilities accessibility legislation passed last year, while advocates for those with trouble seeing want exemptions to be few and narrow. Replies posted Tuesday in FCC docket 10-213 picked up on the theme of initial comments on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CD April 27 p7), where industry sought flexibility. The CEA, NCTA and others said the commission must not further regulate services whose primary function isn’t ACS, while the videogame industry’s lobbying group sought a blanket exemption for its products. Seven advocacy groups for the deaf and others said the act shouldn’t be curtailed, regardless of calls to do so.
Leap Wireless/Cricket Tuesday formally opposed AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile. But the merger got key support from Microsoft the same day, the first high tech company to back the deal publicly. Microsoft supports the deal, said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith at a Tuesday event at the company’s new office in Washington. “We see it as a step toward building out broadband capability and capacity,” Smith told reporters. Microsoft Windows mobile software runs on at least eight current mobile phone models and the company has device partnerships with both AT&T and T-Mobile, a spokeswoman said.
EchoStar relinquished its five 17/24 GHz reverse band FCC authorizations Tuesday in an effort to rebut an FCC presumption of the company as using authorizations for speculation, FCC filings show. The surrendered authorizations are meant to clear the way at the FCC for EchoStar’s purchase of Hughes Communications, a $2 billion transaction currently being reviewed at the agency. No filings opposing the deal were made in that proceeding, though the agency did request additional satellite deployment plans in relation to the purchase, an EchoStar filing said. Although the company gave up the five authorizations, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have future plans using the reverse band, an industry executive said.
The first priority of the newly reconstituted Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee will be the government’s “search” for 500 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband, according to the group’s draft work program. The new CSMAC meets for the first time Wednesday at the Department of Commerce.