The Public Safety Spectrum Trust, while still favoring a national 700 MHz public safety license, has agreed to explore whether the FCC instead should allow regional licenses in hopes of attracting multiple carriers to build what still would be a national network. Harlin McEwen, chairman of the PSST, was at the FCC Tuesday, at the PSST board’s direction, to explain the evolving PSST stance to key agency staff, he told us.
Motorola last week demonstrated and submitted a prototype beacon to the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology as part of the commission’s consideration of whether to allow the use of unlicensed mobile devices for Internet access using the TV white spaces. The commission could require the use of beacons to help protect mikes, which already use the white spaces.
The FCC is questioning whether carriers offering dual-mode phones so subscribers can make calls using traditional phone service or via Internet come under rules for E-911 and VoIP as the agency implements the NET 911 Improvement Act. That’s in part bad news for T-Mobile, which in 2005 sought FCC clarification on that issue, before launching its Unlimited Hotspot Calling service. T-Mobile hoped that the FCC would address the issue apart from a broader VoIP 911 rulemaking. The good news for T- Mobile is that the FCC backed down from a proposal circulated by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin tentatively concluding that dual mode phones should face the VoIP rules. A majority of commissioners opposed adopting that conclusion, sources said. “It would turn the Act on its head to force providers like T-Mobile, which already have proven access to 911 infrastructure as CMRS providers, to rely instead on the newly-created infrastructure access mandated by the Act for interconnected VoIP providers,” T- Mobile said in a recent filing. The FCC adopted an NPRM on implementing the NET 911 Act but has not released the text. The order was the lone item for Friday’s agenda meeting before it was cancelled Friday morning. Late Thursday, the FCC announced that the item making revisions to FCC roaming rules had, as expected, been deleted from the meeting agenda.
The FCC agenda meeting was still officially on for Friday late Thursday. Chairman Kevin Martin’s office asked other offices Thursday which commissioners would in Washington for the meeting, agency sources said. But FCC officials still expected the meeting to be called off. Most commissioners want Martin to delay a vote on a proposal to change automatic roaming rules. Neither commissioners nor their aides have seen the final text of a proposed rulemaking notice on the NET 911 Improvement Act, another item set for a vote.
T-Mobile is resisting FCC efforts to change its handling of 911 calls over the Internet on its Unlimited Hotspot Calling service by callers with dual-mode phones. The FCC has had a T-Mobile petition for clarification of the matter since 2005, before the company started the Wi-Fi/GSM service. T-Mobile fears the FCC may require changes in carrying out the NET 911 Improvement Act, which gives VoIP providers better access to the 911 system, it said.
The National Emergency Number Association, APCO and Verizon Wireless together proposed revised E-911 location rules with new targets and a new timetable. The rules would apply the same standard to GSM and CDMA networks and allow an exception for heavily forested counties where systems wouldn’t work as well as elsewhere. Industry sources said the plan emerged in talks between public safety groups and the two largest carriers - AT&T and Verizon Wireless -- held at the urging of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. AT&T didn’t sign on to a letter that Verizon Wireless and the associations filed at the FCC. AT&T is expected to submit a separate letter on the proposal.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin doesn’t have the three votes he needs for an order making changes to the agency’s automatic roaming rules approved a year ago, agency officials said. A majority of commissioners want more time to address concerns about the in-market exclusion provision raised by numerous carriers. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless offered an additional concession on roaming as it sought FCC approval of its purchase of Alltel.
The White Spaces Coalition went on the offensive against wireless microphone makers Tuesday. The group told the FCC in a letter that recent white-spaces field tests show many microphone users violating agency rules. Microphone makers led by Shure have been among vocal opponents of opening the TV white spaces for use by unlicensed portable devices to access the Internet. Shure said in response that the coalition was trying to deflect the commission’s attention from how white spaces devices did in the tests.
Council Tree won support for its federal court challenge to FCC designated entity rules from other DEs and public interest groups, which filed an amicus brief in the case. Council Tree, Bethel Native Corp. and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to vacate the AWS-1 and 700 MHz auction results. The court has not set oral arguments in the case, pending there in one form or another more than two years.
In a campaign launched Monday, complete with YouTube testimonials, Google argued to open the TV white spaces to unlicensed mobile units accessing the Internet. Google officials and others hope FreeTheAirwaves.com, a campaign aimed at generating mass support for the position, will remind the FCC that the issue is important to middle America, they told reporters.