The 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, Thurs. rejected a call by Council Tree, Bethel Native Corp. and the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council to halt a coming advanced wireless services auction. The court ruled only a day after oral arguments, setting the advanced wireless services auction back on track for its scheduled Aug. 9 start.
Howard Buskirk
Howard Buskirk, Executive Senior Editor, joined Warren Communications News in 2004, after covering Capitol Hill for Telecommunications Reports. He has covered Washington since 1993 and was formerly executive editor at Energy Business Watch, editor at Gas Daily and managing editor at Natural Gas Week. Previous to that, he was a staff reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Greenville News. Follow Buskirk on Twitter: @hbuskirk
Preventing interference at 2.5 GHz, especially in light of growing satellite activity in that band in Asia and the Middle East, is likely to be one of the biggest topics during WRC 2007 when it gets under way next Oct., speakers agreed during a panel discussion Thurs. at the Wireless Communications Assn. conference. Industry officials said the U.S. appears to be making progress in protecting the band, which is a priority of the U.S. high tech sector.
PHILADELPHIA: Judges gave mixed signals in their questions and reactions to attorneys as the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, Wed. heard oral arguments on the FCC’s designated entity order. Arguments unfolded over nearly 90 minutes in a case that will determine whether the long-awaited advanced wireless services auction will begin as expected Aug. 9. Lawyers watching the proceedings said the court’s direction was difficult to augur.
Wireless carriers using traffic studies as an alternative to paying USF safe harbor percentages must submit the studies to the Commission, the FCC decided. There was doubt last week as to whether the FCC would toughen its stance in this area, when the Commission approved a report and order and NPRM addressing interim steps the agency is taking to shore up the USF. Text of the order was released at our deadline. “We take an additional step to ensure the accuracy of reported revenue data,” the FCC said: “Mobile wireless providers have incentives to bias any traffic studies to minimize their amount of interstate and international end-user revenues and thereby minimize their fund contributions; there are no countervailing market forces to offset these incentives. Consequently, we now require any mobile wireless provider that uses a traffic study to determine its interstate end-user revenues for universal service contribution purposes to submit the study to the Commission and to USAC for review.” In the order the Commission also raised the wireless safe harbor from 28.5% to 37.1%. Carriers are allowed to submit traffic studies to show the actual percentage of interstate calls versus intrastate calls made by subscribers falls below the safe harbor.
Nextel cofounder Morgan O'Brien, chmn. of recently formed Cyren Call, accused the CTIA of “baloney” Tues. in a debate on Cyren Call’s push to dedicate 30 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum to a nationwide wireless network for public safety rather than sell the spectrum at auction. Carriers need the 700 MHz spectrum and have shown they are the nation’s most efficient users of spectrum, CTIA Asst. Vp Paul Garnett retorted.
Comr. Adelstein said Tues. he is “troubled” by several decisions the FCC made as it established rules for Aug.’s advanced wireless services auction (AWS), which could potentially “undercut” the auction. Adelstein called special attention to a decision requiring blind bidding, under which bidder identity likely won’t be known as the auction progresses, unless the auction meets a test for competitiveness.
Except for XM and Sirius, comments overwhelmingly support a request by Wireless Communications Service (WCS) license holders to delay buildout deadlines for companies that want to offer broadband wireless at 2.3 GHz, the WCS Coalition told the FCC. Unless the FCC agrees with the coalition, the WCS licensees face a July 2007 deadline for substantially building out networks using the spectrum, sold by the FCC in 1997 auction (CD June 13 p5).
The FCC is teeing up a notice of apparent liability (NAL) against a data broker for violating customer proprietary network information (CPNI) rules. It’s to be voted on at the FCC’s July 13 agenda meeting. The data broker item is expected to be the highlight of the meeting, which also will include a notice of proposed rulemaking on telecom relay services (TRS) and an order and NPRM addressing rules for wireless medical devices, sources said Fri.
NARUC pressed members of the Senate to vote for an amendment by Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) that would remove from Sen. Stevens’ (R-Alaska) legislation provisions further limiting state regulatory oversight of wireless carriers. NARUC began to circulate a letter from state regulators late Fri. The Rockefeller amendment is expected to be one of the most contentious amendments set for debate when the Commerce Committee’s markup of the bill gets under way again on Tues.
The Senate Commerce Committee narrowed the preemptions in its sweeping telecom reform bill, at least in regard to state control of VoIP, as it began debate of the legislation Thurs. The committee agreed to amendments by Sen. Sununu (R- N.H.) that clarify that Congress is limiting only economic regulation of VoIP by the states, and won’t in any way prohibit the ability of the states to protect consumers, including on privacy and by passing anti-child pornography laws. The committee is expected to continue the markup Tues., in a session likely to extend into Wed.