Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

The FCC should ensure that spectrum already allocated to public safety is used efficiently before dedicating more to that purpose, Progress & Freedom Foundation Senior Fellow Tom Lenard told the Commission in comments. “More than 97 MHz of spectrum is allocated for public safety communication, including 24 MHz in the 700 MHz band occupied by broadcasters pending resolution of the DTV transition,” Lenard said, suggesting that more spectrum doesn’t guarantee better service. “Given the large amount of spectrum already allocated to public safety agencies and its high opportunity cost, an extra dollar spent on other inputs, including new equipment and additional public safety personnel, is likely to yield far more in terms of improving the emergency response effort than an extra dollar’s worth of spectrum,” he said. Lenard urged the FCC to “propertize” the public safety spectrum, using the market to allocate spectrum rights. “A market-based system of flexible-use, resalable licenses should not be restricted to private-sector uses,” he said. Because emergencies are rare, he said “much of the public safety spectrum undoubtedly is unused most of the time. Given the value of spectrum, this is extremely costly.” Lenard said giving public safety licensees expanded property rights in licenses they already hold would encourage them to “explore creative new cooperative relationships with the private sector to obtain needed new technologies in exchange for granting usage rights to their excess spectrum.” Such arrangements, he said, would “constitute a significant new revenue source, providing resources to upgrade communications equipment and perhaps fund a range of public safety activities,” while retaining the rights to use the necessary spectrum in emergencies. Lenard’s comments came as the FCC gathers data to assess the spectrum needs of federal, state and local emergency response providers. The review was ordered by the 2004 Intelligence Reform & Terrorism Prevention Act. The Commission’s report on the results is due to Congress by Dec. 17. “Additional spectrum for emergency response providers is definitely needed” and should be in the 700 MHz band, adjacent to the existing public safety band, said the National Emergency Management Assn. (NEMA). FCC loopholes let broadcasters stay in that band indefinitely, NEMA said. “This has compelled some states to purchase radios that work in both the 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands,” NEMA said: “Keeping any additional bandwidth adjacent to the current spectrum will allow those states to use equipment that they've invested in and currently own.” The Fla. Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) said Congress should consider allocating more spectrum at 700 MHz to meet short- and long-term needs. The 700 MHz band is best for an advanced statewide communications system supporting highway safety, FDOT said. Given “overwhelming benefits to be gained from operation in this band,” FDOT said it’s “willing to wait a reasonable time” for incumbent TV operations to be cleared. But “any timetable much beyond the contemplated December 31, 2006 objective for clearing the band of TV operations will severely strain the operations of FDOT and other Florida emergency response providers,” FDOT said.

The wireless industry urged the FCC in comments to provide regulatory certainty as it creates a new regulatory framework for wireless broadband services. Commenters generally supported the FCC Wireless Broadband Access Task Force report recommendations released in Feb. (CD Feb 11 p8), calling them a step in the right direction. But some expressed concern that the report failed to make firm recommendations regarding issues such as jurisdiction. They said the Commission should take further steps before carrying out the recommendations.

CompTel urged the FCC on Mon. to “simply deny” requests to approve the SBC-AT&T merger and not try to “mitigate the many public interest harms… through toothless merger conditions.” In comments to the FCC, CompTel said the proposed merger is little more than an attempt by SBC “to swallow [its] largest rival” after “leveraging its local monopoly” to bring AT&T “to its knees.”

Sale of Adelphia to Time Warner-Comcast wouldn’t be in the public interest of cities and local franchising authorities that oversee cable rates, advocacy groups warned mayors Wed. in a letter to cities within the deal’s radius. “We ask you to join us in opposing the sale of Adelphia Corp.’s cable systems to Comcast and Time Warner Cable and the transfer of local Adelphia cable franchises to those companies,” the letter said.

By combining, Sprint and Nextel would be able to deploy next-generation EV-DO Revision A technology “more rapidly and extensively” than either company would have done independently, Sprint and Nextel told FCC officials during an ex parte meeting last week. They said after the merger one of the joint company’s primary goals would be ubiquitous deployment of the CDMA push-to-talk function, supported by EV-DO Revision A. They said they had moved to create gateways permitting interoperability between push-to-talk functions on the Sprint Nextel iDEN and CDMA networks. Sprint and Nextel called IP technology critical to their plans; integrating Sprint’s fiber and IP resources with the combined company’s wireless networks would “improve the efficiency and availability of the company’s services.” They said the “expanded geographic breadth and depth” of the merged company’s spectrum holdings in the 2.5 GHz band would provide the “necessary scale to justify the cost and risk” of offering new services there. Meanwhile, fixed wireless broadband service provider SpeedNet said the deal would “help resolve the technological hurdles that have plagued the 2.5 GHz band” and “drive the development of economically- viable technologies for this band.” The U. of Ariz. called the proposed transaction “an extremely positive development for the future of 2.5 GHz spectrum,” used by educational institutions for EBS radio services. It said the deal would “facilitate the deployment of the kind of services that have been envisioned for this spectrum.” But Anderson Communications urged the FCC to deny the merger applications with respect to all spectrum subject to the 800 MHz Rebanding Order. It said Sprint and Nextel had failed to show the deal was in the public interest in the context of the nationwide frequency allocation awarded to Nextel. Sprint and Nextel have said such issues should be addressed in the 800 MHz order rather than as part of the merger review. But Anderson said “the circularity that would arise from adoption of that position only further highlights the need for resolution of the merits of the issues before the Commission can deem the proposed merger to be in the public interest.” Consumer groups again asked the FCC to reject the Sprint/Nextel merger. They claimed the combined company would hold “significantly more than the 80 MHz per market” previously allowed by the Commission. Otherwise, they said, the FCC should require the combined entity to divest itself of the 2.5 GHz band spectrum. “Sprint would like to have it both ways,” the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and Consumers Union (CU) told the FCC Mon. On one hand, the groups said, Sprint and Nextel say the 2.5 GHz band is just “an input, not a service or market itself,” meaning more spectrum soon would be available for broadband wireless services. But, the groups said, Sprint and Nextel also say they need 2.5 GHz band to provide wireless interactive media services rather than voice telephony and the companies said the Commission shouldn’t assess the combined company’s market power over that market. “Although the FCC has not considered the 2.5 GHz band part of the broadband mobile wireless market before, it should now,” CFA and CU said: “In the past, it may have been unclear whether this spectrum would be used for broadband mobile wireless services. It is now evident that the band will be used for precisely that purpose.”

All AT&T calling cards should be regulated as telecom services, subjecting them to access charge and universal service payments, organizations representing rural telecom companies and state consumer advocates told the FCC Fri. The Commission in Feb. ruled that AT&T’s enhanced prepaid calling card service was subject to telecom regulation (CD Feb 24 p1) but asked for comments on how new, more high- tech versions introduced late last year by AT&T should be regulated. The agency asked whether the cards should be classified as information services instead of telecom services and, if so, whether they should be federally regulated.

While the FCC has many items on its agenda that could affect broadband delivery and service, it’s likely that nothing substantive will be resolved until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Brand X case. States could also play a factor in broadband delivery, though it seems their actions could have less potential impact, according to sources.

In what some observers described as a “very straightforward” oral argument, a panel of federal appeals court judges considered Mon. whether the FCC should reinstate the NorthPoint MVDDS license application in the 12 GHz spectrum. The judges focused on 2 issues highlighted in the NorthPoint Technologies v. FCC case: (1) Whether MVDDS providers would cause interference to incumbent DBS operators. (2) Whether MVDDS licenses should have been allocated to terrestrial providers, rather than auctioned.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Prominent state regulators with a deregulatory bent pushed at the NCTA convention here for “cooperative federalism,” in which Washington sets most of the few rules on communications services, and states play a strong role in enforcing them, especially consumer issues. Outnumbered on a panel Mon., an Ia. regulator said he agonized over the fates of his state’s many tiny incumbent carriers and their customers in a world with much less protection and subsidy.

In the midst of reforming the separations process the FCC shouldn’t be taking “piecemeal” actions such as setting up a new account to handle CALEA costs, the Bells told the Commission in comments filed late Fri. The FCC asked for comments on separations treatment of CALEA costs on behalf of the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations. Such costs can include such items as new software and switches. The separations process, which the Bells call outdated, decides which telephone company costs are regulated as interstate and which as intrastate. Interstate regulation generally is the FCC’s responsibility; intrastate rules are the purview of the state PUCs. The FCC instituted a 6-year freeze on the separations process in 2001 while the agency considered reforming it.