Air-to-Ground Order a Tough Nut for FCC to Crack
Comr. Abernathy said Wed. a pending air-to-ground (ATG) order, scheduled for a vote at the Dec. 15 meeting, presents difficult questions she’s still working through. “We are still struggling with who are the correct engineers,” she told reporters at a press breakfast: “Our goal would be multiple providers, but it may be that that’s just not technically possible and that’s what we're looking at.”
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The fight over the order pits Boeing and AirCell, which favor multiple competitive licenses, against Verizon’s Airfone, which has insisted that the FCC offer a single nationwide license to provide broadband and other communications service on commercial airliners. The Wireless Bureau reportedly has urged a single license. AirCell and Boeing have been lobbying staff in what has become a tough fight against Verizon at the Commission.
Abernathy said the ATG order is difficult because it involves conflicting technical arguments. “Clearly the Commission always prefers competition and that is because then we don’t have to micromanage, price regulate and all those sorts of things that you have to do if you have a sole source provider,” she said. “The tension with the air-to-ground proceeding has been some engineers and technology tell us, ‘Well, sure, competition’s great, but you can’t have competition in air-to-ground because there’s not enough spectrum. Others have told us there is a way to overlap.” Abernathy said she expects a decision this month.
Abernathy also said she was satisfied with the Commission’s work to wrap up the Nextel 800 MHz rebanding order. Comments about a public notice on the order are due today (Thurs.). Nextel must make a decision by Feb. 7 on whether to accept the proposal. “It’s pretty much moving,” she said. “The public notice was issued. We've had the selection of the Transition Administrator… At this point it should move along according to plan, which is you start identifying spectrum. You start figuring out how to reband. You start dealing with all of the licensees in the band.”
Abernathy said she wasn’t concerned that several recent FCC actions on indecency were directly tied to complaints from one organization, the Parents TV Council, a grassroots watchdog group that critics charge has become too powerful. “If we based our decision on who filed and the number of complaints then I think that would be a mistake,” Abernathy said. “There are legal parameters surrounding our analysis of whether or not something is indecent and it doesn’t change depending on who files the complaint and it doesn’t change depending on how many people watch the show.” Abernathy said the FCC must stick to precedent and apply the law: “That means, for example, even if we get only 20 complaints, if it appears to be indecent then we should say it’s indecent… If we get 10,000 complaints and we think it’s not indecent you can’t let the number of complaints drive your decision.”
Abernathy also elaborated on her role as chairman of next week’s Global Symposium for Regulators in Geneva (CD Nov 30 p2).