Aloha Partners, the largest holder of 700 MHz licenses in the U.S. until it sold AT&T its spectrum for $2.5 billion, is back. This time it’s pursuing white spaces spectrum that could be used to offer mobile TV. Aloha President Charles Townsend, who met in August with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, is trying to defeat any move to open the spectrum for unlicensed use, as advocated by Microsoft, Intel and Google and other high-tech heavyweights.
Some small carriers are notifying the FCC they will sit out a new program for sending emergency alerts to cellphones and other wireless devices. Participation in the program, whose existence is mandated by the WARN Act, is voluntary, but carriers must give customers “clear and conspicuous notice” if they elect not to take part. Filings are due Sept. 8, with many more carriers likely to opt out of the alerts, industry sources said Tuesday.
Leading public safety groups last week urged the FCC to wrap up a decision on a deadline by which Sprint Nextel must clear so-called 800 MHz interleaved channels. That’s a key unresolved issue in the 800 MHz rebanding aimed at separating commercial and public safety operations in that band. APCO, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the International Association of Fire Chiefs signed the letter, which one official said shows that the groups continue to work together on many issues such as 800 MHz rebanding.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., asked the FCC to field test beacons before it mandates their use to protect wireless microphones from interference by devices surfing the Internet using TV white spaces. Motorola has submitted a beacon device to the FCC, but the agency has not committed to field or lab tests of the technology. “My most fundamental concern about beacons is that, to my knowledge, no one has ever seen one --not in the laboratory, not at the Commission, and certainly not on the Las Vegas Strip,” wrote Berkley, who represents Las Vegas. “How a ‘coming attraction’ device can be considered an interference protection solution without any laboratory or field testing requires a leap of faith I am unable to take … Any such device must be thoroughly tested to determine if the beacon can accomplish what sensing technology failed to do in terms of protecting broadcast and professional wireless microphone operation.” Beacon tests are possible, an FCC spokesman said Friday. “We received beacons from Motorola and Adaptrum only recently,” he said. “We are studying the proposed characteristics, and are considering what tests, if any, may be useful to further inform the record.”
The FCC should keep the de minimis rule as part of broader hearing-aid compatibility rules, said TIA, Motorola and CTIA. But advocates for the hearing-impaired are expected to ask the FCC to end the exception. Under the rule, a handset maker need not offer a hearing aid-compatible unit if it offers fewer than two models per air interface. That allowed Apple to debut its first handset, the iPhone, without offering a hearing-aid compatible version. The FCC asked interested parties to file comments.
Leap Wireless accused Verizon Wireless and Alltel of refusing to answer the many questions Leap has raised about Verizon’s buy of the smaller carrier. The Rural Telecommunications Group called Verizon’s commitment to rural America “disingenuous.” Other small carriers and groups that represent them similarly slammed the $28.1 billion deal now before the FCC, in reply comments filed at the commission.
CTIA is hitting significant local government resistance as it petitions the FCC to clarify federal authority over cell towers and wireless facility siting. The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors are among those asking the FCC to extend by 60 days a Sept. 15 deadline set by the Wireless Bureau for comments on the petition. This week CTIA asked the FCC to stick with the bureau’s deadlines of Sept. 15 for comments, Sept. 30 for replies.
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.