M2Z accused CTIA and its members of conducting a “relentless campaign” to “further delay the AWS-3 proceeding.” The charge came in a filing at the FCC. Now that NTIA has ruled out pairing the 1755-1780 MHz band with the AWS-3 spectrum, the FCC should auction the AWS-3 band by itself, as recommended in the National Broadband Plan, M2Z said. The company has long sought the band in order to offer free and low-cost wireless broadband service supported by advertising revenue. “CTIA’s renewed call for FCC delay in issuing AWS-3 service rules is flatly inconsistent with the National Broadband Plan,” M2Z said. “NTIA, to its credit, has expeditiously conducted its analysis and concluded that the 1755-1850 MHz band is not available for commercial reallocation. … The time has now come for the FCC to similarly move with dispatch and fulfill its commitment to promptly license AWS-3 as a stand-alone spectrum band.” The commission’s focus has shifted to an examination of the 1675-1710 MHz band for pairing with AWS 3 spectrum (CD June 1 p1). Uzoma Onyeije, M2Z’s vice president of regulatory affairs, told us that CTIA had shifted its focus to the band only once 1755-1780 MHz appeared to be off-limits. “The association seems to change its position to fit new facts,” he said. “We note in our ex parte that CTIA, a week before NTIA declared that 1755 was off limits, changed its advocacy to state ‘pairing in and around 1.7 GHz band.’ It seems a very prescient comment or they had someone leaking info to CTIA which seems to go counter the FCC’s new spirit of transparency.” CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman McCabe said the filing “is another effort by M2Z to try to game the system so that there is a designer spectrum allocation for them.” The National Broadband Plan, contrary to M2Z’s arguments, discusses pairing AWS-3 spectrum with federal spectrum, not a specific band, Guttman-McCabe said. But that point is not clear in the filing and M2Z inserts bracketed information in a way that distorts the record, he said. Guttman-McCabe conceded, “We would prefer it be 1755-1780 MHz.”
AT&T, CTIA and TIA endorsed an FCC proposal to launch an online clearinghouse for information-sharing about products and services that promote access to devices tailored to people with disabilities. In a post May 17 to the FCC’s Blogband, the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau asked for comments on the clearinghouse by Thursday. The post followed up on a recommendation in the National Broadband Plan.
The ongoing fight over whether broadband should be reclassified as a more heavily regulated “telecom” service has resulted in chaos for the broadband industry, FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker said Thursday at the annual Broadband Policy Summit, sponsored by Pike & Fischer. Baker also said work on the “third way” reclassification plan by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has distracted attention from the National Broadband Plan. Another danger is that increased FCC regulation of the Internet could lead to more government control of the Internet in other nations, she warned.
With a week to go before a June 17 FCC vote on a broadband reclassification notice of inquiry, leading broadband and high-tech companies said Wednesday they're starting the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (TAG). That gives reclassification opponents another potential arrow in their quiver. This new group is being chaired by former commission official Dale Hatfield, who logged time last year as a member of the Obama Administration’s FCC transition team. The move comes as some members of Congress pressure the FCC to rethink changing how broadband is regulated (CD June 9 p1). Members include AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Dish, EchoStar, Time Warner Cable and Level 3, said a news release.
The FCC dismissed a California amateur radio operator’s request to change decades-old rules, to take account of changes in technology and amateur practice. Gordon Schlesinger of San Diego said in a petition filed in September 2009 that Section 97.1 of the rules, laying out five basic principles for the service, is outdated. The rule was adopted by the FCC in 1951. The commission modified its rules in 1989 but declined to change Section 97.1. “With regard to your contention that Section 97.1 is outmoded due to changes in technology and practices, and that it diverges from the practical realities of the amateur service today, we note that the basis and purpose of the amateur service was not intended to reflect any particular technology or the practices of a particular time,” the FCC said. “Rather, Section 97.1 is intended to provide guidance as to the accomplishments the Commission expects of the service and to assist in international negotiations affecting the service.” Nothing in the petition “demonstrates that the Commission’s expectations for the amateur service have changed or are not being met, or that the rule is in some way hampering international negotiations that affect the amateur service,” the FCC said.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to face increasing pressure from Congress this summer to back down from a proposal to partially reclassify broadband as a Title II service, in favor of seeking compromise with industry. Even members of Genachowski’s own party have expressed reservations about the “third way” reclassification plan he proposed a month ago (CD May 7 p1), which would reclassify broadband transport from a lightly regulated information service under Title I of the Communications Act, to a common carrier service under Title II and forbear from all but six of that title’s 48 sections.
The new Public Safety Alliance, representing leading public safety associations, unveiled a national advertising and grassroots campaign Monday urging Congress to reject an FCC move to auction the 700 MHz D-block rather than allocate it to public safety entities for a national broadband network. Ads are running in print and online this week in major Capitol Hill-focused publications. The group also put together a new website.
Alpine PCS asked federal appeals judges to reverse the denial by the FCC of a waiver of its license-cancellation rule and overturn the commission’s later finding that the company was in default of its payment obligations from a 1996 auction. Alpine questioned why it was treated differently from NextWave, a huge player in the auction that was allowed to sell its licenses at a profit. Alpine said unless the FCC order is reversed, the company might owe the government $39 million. The FCC countered that it had followed its rules and asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the challenge. Oral argument hasn’t been scheduled.
Public Knowledge proposed Thursday that the federal government “zero base” the federal “spectrum budget,” requiring every agency to reapply for the spectrum it needs, “including specific details with regard to spectrum utilization.” The group proposed government rules allowing agencies to offer on the secondary market spectrum they don’t use. Both proposals were debated at a Public Knowledge forum in Washington.
The NTIA has determined that pairing the 1755-1780 MHz band with AWS-3 spectrum for a mobile broadband auction won’t be possible, at least in a quick timeframe, based on its preliminary review, Administrator Lawrence Strickling told a Public Knowledge spectrum conference Thursday. He said the nearby 1675-1710 MHz band offers more hope (CD June 3 p1), but more must be known about how that spectrum is being used before the agency can make any recommendations.