Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Several weeks after CTIA announced its wireless industry voluntary consumer code program and the seal of wireless quality (CD Sept 10 p2), there has been “tremendous” progress in wireless carriers’ seeking to use the seal, CTIA Asst. Gen. Counsel Andrea Williams said Thurs. Addressing the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, she said the seal had become “a competitive issue for [carriers]. So, having the impact that we hoped it would, this is going to be an area where [members] are going to be competing for consumers.”

The FCC Thurs. expanded the scope of some Enhanced 911 requirements, including a mandate that certain mobile satellite service (MSS) providers create call centers for routing emergency calls. In an order and further notice adopted unanimously at its agenda meeting, the Commission also concluded that, for now, state and local govts. were better positioned to set rules for E911 deployment by multiline telephone systems (MLTS). It expanded E911 mandates to certain telematics services and resellers of mobile wireless services, including prepaid calling cards.

With an economy increasingly dependent on the Internet, state and federal regulators must act carefully when setting new telecom policy, despite a virtual statutory vacuum, FCC Chmn. Powell said in a speech to the Federalist Society Thurs. He said the digital revolution and resulting media convergence “throws a monkey wrench into the workings” of the 1996 Telecom Act, which he said “preserves a Balkanized legal regime built for an analog age marked by rigid specifications” based on old technology. “The rise of the Internet will severely challenge federalism as it has been applied under the Telecommunications Act,” he said.

The FCC shouldn’t take further regulatory actions to address migratory bird deaths at communications towers until additional scientific research is conducted, many industry representatives said in comments filed with the Commission. However, environmental groups said the FCC already had received extensive information on that subject but had continued to violate federal environmental laws for years under its current system of authorizing, licensing, approving and registering communications towers. The comments were filed in response to the Notice of Inquiry (NOI) the Commission issued earlier this year (CD Aug 21 p5), after FCC Chmn. Powell in May outlined an agency effort for a more “pro-active approach” to environmental and historic preservation issues on tower siting.

A Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)- led task force called for sweeping changes Wed. in U.S. spectrum management, including a recommendation for joint govt. and private sector-funded research. “This is in some ways the most radical of the recommendations,” the report said of the joint research proposal, which raised concerns about declining U.S. efforts in spectrum technology research as overseas R&D was increasing. The report, drafted by a commission led by former Defense Secy. James Schlesinger, called for direct White House oversight of spectrum management.

Citing interference concerns, broadcasters told the FCC last week that a plan for relocating certain Defense Dept. systems to make way for advanced wireless services such as 3G “seriously underestimates” the impact on the Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS). NAB and the Assn. for Maximum Service TV (MSTV) commissioned studies to evaluate the proposed relocation of 11 DoD sites for co-equal, primary use of the 2025-2110 MHz band with the BAS. They said one study showed BAS stations would experience harmful interference from the DoD sites, which in some cases would totally overload them.

FCC Comr. Adelstein on Wed. said he was in talks with his fellow commissioners about launching a broad inquiry into alleged “payola” practices at TV and radio stations around the country. In a speech to the Federal Communications Bar Assn. (FCBA), Adelstein said the Commission needs to “get to the bottom” of allegations that some TV stations have done interviews during news programs with subjects who have been asked to pay a fee. Such shows would appear to the average person to be legitimate news programs, he said, and viewers might be unaware that money is changing hands.

Rural wireless ISP (WISP) operators urged the FCC Tues. to consider changes in power limits in unlicensed bands and more spectrum, particularly below 5 GHz. At a daylong Rural WISP Workshop in a packed Commission meeting room, rural WISP developers said they also could use changes in the agency’s Part 15 rules for unlicensed spectrum and help from the FCC on restricting local ordinances for tower siting. Citing the turnout for the workshop, Comr. Adelstein suggested it might be helpful for the FCC to take such meetings on the road, with a possible next workshop somewhere in the Midwest.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) said he wasn’t sure when he will introduce the Universal Service Fund (USF) draft bill that has been floating around for some time, but said it could be before this session ends (CD Oct 28 p1). “We're thinking pretty quick, we think,” he said. Burns also said that once recommendations were received from the Federal-State Joint Board that’s studying USF distribution methods, further legislation might be warranted. “We don’t want to go down the distribution route until we see what the Joint Board has done,” he said. “I don’t want to preempt them in any way.”

Freeing Vonage from common carrier regulation would “clearly undercut” the ability of law enforcement officers to conduct electronic surveillance under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), the FBI and Dept. of Justice told the FCC in a joint filing earlier this week. The filing was one of more than 4 dozen commenting on whether the Commission should preempt a Minn. PUC ruling that Vonage’s voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service was a telecom service subject to common carrier regulation.