With the FCC to vote in a week on rules for a 700 MHz D- block reauction, all is quiet at the commission. Relatively few parties have met with commissioners or top staff since Chairman Kevin Martin gave details of the plan a Sept. 5 call with reporters. Release late Thursday of the expected FCC sunshine notice will cut off lobbying.
FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Derek Poarch Tuesday provided a few additional details on Chairman Kevin Martin’s proposal for a 700 MHz D-block reauction, during testimony before a House Homeland Security Committee panel. Poarch explained why the FCC will propose offering 58 regional licenses. That number is based on the 55 public safety regional planning areas, with three additional areas to be auctioned covering Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, American Samoa, and the Gulf of Mexico, he said. Poarch also explained that public safety would be allowed to designate up to 35 percent of the network sites as “critical,” which would then trigger enhanced backup power obligations, including eight hours of battery back up and 48 hours of generator back up. The FCC is scheduled to vote on revised rules for the D- block auction at its Sept. 25 agenda meeting.
New York City has broad support from other major cities for its proposal that the FCC give the 700 MHz D-block to public safety directly so cities can build their own networks, rather than try again to auction the band, Deputy Police Chief Charles Dowd told a House Homeland Security panel Tuesday. Dowd also said the city will make a filing this week at the FCC asking for permission to use the D-block for a “proof of concept” trial project.
Wireless carriers took a hit at the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last week, which upheld San Diego County’s limits on the design, placement and size of wireless towers and poles in a dispute with Sprint Nextel. In an unusual action, an en banc panel of judges reversed a decision by the court itself and by a federal district court, which had permanently enjoined the county from enforcing the ordinance.
Cellphone location data that carriers store are protected by the Fourth Amendment, a federal district judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania affirmed this week. Judge Terrence McVerry upheld a magistrate’s decision that police need a warrant to access such information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the case seems to be the first in which a judge has confirmed that authorities need warrants to get a wireless carrier to turn over data on a cellphone’s location.
The Wireless Bureau is asking a battery of additional questions about Verizon Wireless’s acquisition of Alltel, which it forwarded Wednesday to attorneys for the two companies. The questions largely probe the promised benefits to consumers the companies laid out when they announced their merger. The bureau posed 17 questions, often with multiple parts, in a document sent to former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and former NTIA Administrator Nancy Victory, attorneys for the companies.
NCTA Wednesday laid out a six-point plan for resolving cable industry concerns as the FCC moves closer to a vote on whether to open the TV white spaces for other uses, including wireless access to the Internet. A letter sent to the FCC comes as officials on both sides await a key report from the Office of Engineering and Technology analyzing recently concluded lab and field tests of white-spaces prototypes.
Major wireless carriers said in letters to the FCC they plan to offer subscribers alerts via cellphone and other wireless devices starting in December 2010, when the Commercial Mobile Alert System launches. But carriers may not be able to guarantee service to all customers in all markets by that date, they warned. Sprint Nextel noted a problem alerting millions using its unique iDEN network. Many smaller carriers have advised the FCC they don’t plan to provide alerts (CD Sept 3 p5). Letters declaring whether carriers will participate in the alert system were due at the FCC Monday.
The Public Safety Spectrum Trust plans to ask the FCC not to cap at $5 million what businesses would pay public safety yearly for use of its block of 700 MHz spectrum, trust Chairman Harlin McEwen said Monday. That amount is one-tenth of earlier estimates of a lease payment for the spectrum. McEwen met with FCC officials Monday to discuss the revised 700 MHz D-block proposal that Chairman Kevin Martin discussed Friday during a call with reporters (CD Sept 8 p1).
The 700 MHz public safety D-block’s future remains in question entering what are likely the last five months of Kevin Martin’s chairmanship. Among the main problems facing advocates of a public-private partnership is seeming reluctance by some of the nation’s largest systems to take part, as seen at an FCC en banc hearing on the D-block (CD July 31 p1). Public safety sources say many first responders still don’t understand the benefits offered by a broadband wireless network, and may not until the network is built.