The U.S. Appeals Court, D.C. rejected claims by AT&T that the FCC should have launched a proceeding before allowing Sec. 272 safeguards to sunset with respect to Verizon’s long distance operations in N.Y. The decision was important to the extent that the N.Y. case was the first to be addressed in federal court. If the court had ruled otherwise the decision could have been very disruptive for Verizon and other Bells, officials said. The question in the case was straightforward: Under the Act, when a Bell receives permission to offer long distance services under Sec. 271 for 3 years long distance and local services must be separate, including separate offices and service trucks. But after 3 years, unless FCC deems otherwise, that requirement ends. In the N.Y. case the requirement ended and AT&T sued. Judges appeared skeptical of AT&T’s arguments in April (CD April 16 p7), so the decision wasn’t a surprise. “In this action, petitioner AT&T Corp. contends that the FCC acted arbitrarily and violated its duty of reasoned decision-making when it issued a public notice stating that the Sec. 272 safeguards sunset for Verizon’s operations in New York ‘by operation of law,'” the court said in an opinion issued Tues.: “AT&T argues that the record here demonstrates that Verizon retains significant market power, justifying the need for continued application of the Sec. 272 safeguards in New York. Thus, according to AT&T, the FCC was obliged to provide a reasoned explanation for its failure. We reject these claims.”
The U.S. will find itself defending its stance on ultra- wideband against much of the rest of the world when the 3rd ITU-R Task Group International Meeting on UWB takes place in Boston starting June 9. A key U.S. objective will be ensuring others don’t subject UWB to regulation or get it on the 2007 World Radiocommunication Conference agenda. The Boston meeting for the first time is expected to receive substantial input from UWB promoters on the technology’s benefits.
The high-profile investment of wireless pioneer Craig McCaw in ITFS spectrum has raised the stakes as the FCC considers a proposal to revise the rules for ITFS/MDS spectrum. McCaw is expected to have more to say about his plans and the business he’s building in a speech Wed. at the Wireless Communications Assn. meeting in Washington. McCaw met with FCC Chmn. Powell in April to talk about his views on ITFS. He’s viewed as being a force behind a pending FCC proposal to take 6 MHz from ITFS, combine it with another 6 MHz, and offer the spectrum for sale through auction for advanced services.
The FCC has yet to reach a decision on whether Nextel will get the spectrum at 1.9 GHz it covets, or at 2.1 GHz, as part of a 800 MHz rebanding plan with debate continuing within the Commission, Nextel Pres. Timothy Donahue told shareholders Thurs. Donahue repeated, as he had at a Lehman Bros. investment conference earlier this week, that Nextel wouldn’t accept anything but 1.9 GHz spectrum.
FCC work on a National Programmatic Agreement (NPA)that would streamline permitting new and replacement wireless phone towers is moving more slowly than expected, with a final agreement unlikely for several more months. The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed comments at the FCC Tues. that set off alarm bells among wireless carriers who have been closely monitoring the negotiations.
Leading education groups are ramping up pressure on the FCC to back away from a plan to take 18 MHz away from ITFS as part of a final rule on the MMDS/ITFS spectrum allocation (CD May 26 p4). Education groups met with Comr. Abernathy Wed. and hope for meetings with the other Commissioners by June 3, when the Commission has to decide whether to put an ITFS order on the June 10 meeting agenda.
Wireless carriers raised strong objections to a proposed requirement that they file information on service outages, saying in comments on the FCC proposal that the filings could harm the national security they're supposed to bolster. But wireless sources told us Wed. they believe the FCC appears likely to impose the requirements regardless of industry objections. Carrier sources also said they worry the filings could be the start of more FCC intrusion in the area of wireless service quality.
Groups that hold ITFS spectrum are seeking a last-minute meeting with FCC Chmn. Powell to head off a proposal that they give up 18 MHz of spectrum as part of a final rule on the MMDS/ITFS spectrum allocation, which is being circulated at the FCC for a possible June 10 vote. Sources in the ITFS community said Tues. they were caught off guard by the proposal that they give up bite size chunks of spectrum as part of the order.
NTCA, OPASTCO and USTA late Tues. asked the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., to reject the FCC’s order requiring nationwide wireless local number portability (LNP), which took effect Mon., largely uneventfully. In general, small carriers view the courts as their best chance to reverse the LNP mandate. The Small Business Administration is expected to file an amicus brief in support of the rural arguments. Oral arguments in the case are set Nov. 18. “The FCC did not consider calibrating its new rule to the economic needs and realities of small business [local exchange carriers],” the groups said in their pleading. “The FCC failed to consider either the disproportionate expense or the minimal competitive benefit that application of its new intermodal porting requirements would bring if applied to those small entities, or whether there were ways to tailor the new rule to meet the agency goals with less impact on small businesses.” The groups argued that the LNP violated the Administrative Procedure Act by adopting a new intermodal number portability rule without first asking for comments through a rulemaking. The 3 parties said the mandate failed to follow procedures required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act. “The FCC hardly confronted and never resolved the basic issues of law and policy that would make intermodal number portability possible,” the groups told the court. “In resolving those issues in the order, the FCC imposed new, enforceable obligations and costs without following the procedures that federal law mandates.”
The FCC has started to circulate a proposal to reform the MMDS/ITFS spectrum allocation, with an eye to a vote at the June 10 meeting. The proposal is viewed as significant since it could open up 190 MHz of spectrum in the 2500-2690 MHz bands for mobile broadband. The FCC has also started to circulate for a potential vote a petition for reconsideration of one section of the Triennial Review Order (TRO) and a rulemaking on the Big LEO satellite band.