Citing concerns about being elbowed out of the Connect America Fund Phase II competitive bidding process, the satellite industry is pushing the FCC to ensure that satellite is evaluated on equal footing with fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). "The FCC has a longstanding policy favoring technology neutrality for CAF that has served the public interest resulting in increased innovation, service quality and reduced costs to consumers," the Satellite Industry Association said in a filing Tuesday in docket 10-90. Due to such satellite innovations as high-throughput space stations and broadband via nongeostationary constellations, SIA said, "It would be a mistake for the FCC to abandon such a policy now."
The FCC's new two-degree spacing rules for satellites are "a middle ground" between extremes that had been staked out by different parties in the satellite industry, said Jose Albuquerque, chief of the International Bureau's satellite division, Thursday. The Part 25 Report and Order passed 5-0 Thursday follows a similar set of Part 25 rules changes approved in 2013 and was aimed at relieving regulatory burdens on applicants and deterring spectrum warehousing, IB Chief Mindel De La Torre said. The FCC will undertake a rulemaking in the future specifically on the two-degree spacing changes to assess their impact, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said.
The FCC gave incumbent telcos relief from “obsolete” phone regulations while preserving others it said are needed to protect consumers and competition. The commission approved an order at Thursday’s meeting granting several USTelecom requests that the agency forbear from requiring ILECs to meet certain requirements on wholesale network access (including to some conduits), stand-alone residential long-distance service, and “enhanced services.” But it denied ILECs relief from duties to provide voice service in certain rural areas, safeguards for “enterprise” stand-alone long-distance service, and a prohibition against “contract tariffs” for business data services in some areas.
The FCC's best route to LTE-U/Wi-Fi coexistence is by watching and encouraging industry-led progress toward that goal, the Wi-Fi Alliance said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 15-105. The group, which earlier this month put out its own suggested guidelines on how the two can coexist in the same spectrum (see 1511040059), has said the agency should monitor that coexistence development and step in on coexistence issues only if necessary. "I hope we have stepped in on it," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday after the agency's November meeting. "I've said to [LTE-U and Wi-Fi industry representatives], 'Folks, you've got to come together and resolve this in a broad-based standard.' It appears the House subcommittee has done the same. This is the way things ought to be taken care of. There are two things that characterize unlicensed spectrum. One, it's the innovation band; it's where all kinds of new innovations happen. And you want to make sure that in fact continues. The second is, it's the 'everybody respects everybody else' band. And we want to make sure both of those are happening. And the way that can be done is by a broad-based development of commonly agreed-to standards that meets both of those criteria." LTE-U backer Verizon "agrees," Patrick Welsh, assistant vice president-regulatory affairs, told us Friday in an email. "We are actively working with the Wi-Fi Alliance to develop coexistence guidelines for LTE-U." And in a statement, fellow LTE-U advocate Qualcomm said "proponents of LTE-U, including the members of the LTE-U Forum -- whose members also are members of the Wi-Fi Alliance -- are pleased to continue our ongoing collaboration with the industry through our work with the Wi-Fi Alliance initiative to develop an agreed-upon coexistence test regimen that will ensure that LTE-U and Wi-Fi successfully co-exist in the unlicensed spectrum, where the watchword is permission-less innovation, as Chairman Wheeler has correctly recognized.” The Wi-Fi Alliance ex parte recapped meetings between alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa and front-line staff of Wheeler and of Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, plus with Office of Engineering and Technology representatives. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it plans a Coexistence Test Workshop for the week of Feb. 8. The group's members include Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Sony and T-Mobile, its website said.
The FCC's best route to LTE-U/Wi-Fi coexistence is by watching and encouraging industry-led progress toward that goal, the Wi-Fi Alliance said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 15-105. The group, which earlier this month put out its own suggested guidelines on how the two can coexist in the same spectrum (see 1511040059), has said the agency should monitor that coexistence development and step in on coexistence issues only if necessary. "I hope we have stepped in on it," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday after the agency's November meeting. "I've said to [LTE-U and Wi-Fi industry representatives], 'Folks, you've got to come together and resolve this in a broad-based standard.' It appears the House subcommittee has done the same. This is the way things ought to be taken care of. There are two things that characterize unlicensed spectrum. One, it's the innovation band; it's where all kinds of new innovations happen. And you want to make sure that in fact continues. The second is, it's the 'everybody respects everybody else' band. And we want to make sure both of those are happening. And the way that can be done is by a broad-based development of commonly agreed-to standards that meets both of those criteria." LTE-U backer Verizon "agrees," Patrick Welsh, assistant vice president-regulatory affairs, told us Friday in an email. "We are actively working with the Wi-Fi Alliance to develop coexistence guidelines for LTE-U." And in a statement, fellow LTE-U advocate Qualcomm said "proponents of LTE-U, including the members of the LTE-U Forum -- whose members also are members of the Wi-Fi Alliance -- are pleased to continue our ongoing collaboration with the industry through our work with the Wi-Fi Alliance initiative to develop an agreed-upon coexistence test regimen that will ensure that LTE-U and Wi-Fi successfully co-exist in the unlicensed spectrum, where the watchword is permission-less innovation, as Chairman Wheeler has correctly recognized.” The Wi-Fi Alliance ex parte recapped meetings between alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa and front-line staff of Wheeler and of Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, plus with Office of Engineering and Technology representatives. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it plans a Coexistence Test Workshop for the week of Feb. 8. The group's members include Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Sony and T-Mobile, its website said.
The FCC's best route to LTE-U/Wi-Fi coexistence is by watching and encouraging industry-led progress toward that goal, the Wi-Fi Alliance said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 15-105. The group, which earlier this month put out its own suggested guidelines on how the two can coexist in the same spectrum (see 1511040059), has said the agency should monitor that coexistence development and step in on coexistence issues only if necessary. "I hope we have stepped in on it," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday after the agency's November meeting. "I've said to [LTE-U and Wi-Fi industry representatives], 'Folks, you've got to come together and resolve this in a broad-based standard.' It appears the House subcommittee has done the same. This is the way things ought to be taken care of. There are two things that characterize unlicensed spectrum. One, it's the innovation band; it's where all kinds of new innovations happen. And you want to make sure that in fact continues. The second is, it's the 'everybody respects everybody else' band. And we want to make sure both of those are happening. And the way that can be done is by a broad-based development of commonly agreed-to standards that meets both of those criteria." LTE-U backer Verizon "agrees," Patrick Welsh, assistant vice president-regulatory affairs, told us Friday in an email. "We are actively working with the Wi-Fi Alliance to develop coexistence guidelines for LTE-U." And in a statement, fellow LTE-U advocate Qualcomm said "proponents of LTE-U, including the members of the LTE-U Forum -- whose members also are members of the Wi-Fi Alliance -- are pleased to continue our ongoing collaboration with the industry through our work with the Wi-Fi Alliance initiative to develop an agreed-upon coexistence test regimen that will ensure that LTE-U and Wi-Fi successfully co-exist in the unlicensed spectrum, where the watchword is permission-less innovation, as Chairman Wheeler has correctly recognized.” The Wi-Fi Alliance ex parte recapped meetings between alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa and front-line staff of Wheeler and of Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, plus with Office of Engineering and Technology representatives. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it plans a Coexistence Test Workshop for the week of Feb. 8. The group's members include Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Sony and T-Mobile, its website said.
The FCC proposed rules intended to improve wireless emergency alert (WEA) effectiveness in informing the public about urgent matters. At their Thursday meeting, commissioners voted 5-0 to approve an NPRM. It sought comment on allowing longer WEA messages, inclusion of hyperlinks and narrower distribution of alerts, as was expected (see 1511170049).
The FCC proposed rules intended to improve wireless emergency alert (WEA) effectiveness in informing the public about urgent matters. At their Thursday meeting, commissioners voted 5-0 to approve an NPRM. It sought comment on allowing longer WEA messages, inclusion of hyperlinks and narrower distribution of alerts, as was expected (see 1511170049).
The FCC should approve the “Katrina Petition” and require broadcasters to provide emergency information in multiple languages “before, during, or after an emergency,” the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council said in meetings Tuesday with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief David Simpson, aides to Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, and an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday in docket 04-296. The FCC should withdraw a draft order that would update state emergency alert systems with information about which EAS participants offer their information in multiple languages and instead “take meaningful steps to preserve the lives of multilingual Americans,” MMTC said. “If the Commission revisits this issue in light of these comments, it would adopt directives that more effectively protect individuals who are not conversant in English,” MMTC said. “Discussions are underway about MMTC potentially amending the Petition to address questions that the Commission has raised.”
A draft item on accessibility for user interfaces on the agenda for the FCC's Thursday meeting contains a compromise on using voice or gesture commands to activate captions that is expected to satisfy both consumer groups and pay-TV carriers, said industry officials and pay-TV attorneys in recent interviews. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf and other groups filed a petition for reconsideration (see 1401240080) of the FCC's first user interfaces order, approved in 2013 as part of efforts to comply with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). Along with a recon order containing a captions compromise, the draft item includes an order on training and notification requirements for pay-TV carriers informing their customers about accessibility.