BALTIMORE -- Public safety licensees, working with Sprint Nextel, the FCC and the Transition Administrator have made steady progress on 800 MHz rebanding the past year, officials said Thursday, the last day of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials annual meeting. Though many licensees likely won’t complete rebanding by the FCC’s June 2008 deadline, the mood at the conference was markedly brighter than at the 2006 APCO meeting, when crisis seemed near.
The FCC voted Tuesday to require carriers to offer automatic roaming to other carriers’ customers on a just, reasonable, and non-discriminatory basis, applying Communications Act sections 201 and 202 to roaming. The requirement includes data that touches the Public Switched Telecom Network, such as text messages, and push-to-talk service. The FCC also agreed to launch a rulemaking examining whether to extend the protections to all data, including wireless broadband, a major concern of some small carriers.
BALTIMORE -- FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said the 800 MHz transition may not be 100 percent complete by next June, the deadline for rebanding, but the FCC will push public safety licensees and Sprint Nextel hard to move it along as far as possible. Resolving border issues with Canada and Mexico could be the biggest challenge, Martin said at the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials meeting Tuesday.
The U.S. Trade Representative late Monday let stand the International Trade Commission’s June decision banning new handsets manufactured by Qualcomm because the company had infringed Broadcom patents. An agreement by Verizon Wireless to pay licensing fees to Broadcom of up to $200 million so that it could import new handsets appeared to weigh heavily in USTR’s decision. USTR also said Broadcom had dealt with public safety issues raised by the ban.
BALTIMORE -- Public safety licensees shouldn’t expect waivers from the FCC if they blow 2008 deadlines on striking a deal with Sprint Nextel and reconfiguring 800 MHz radios, FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Derek Poarch warned Association of Public Safety Communications Officials. Parties to rebanding, including Sprint Nextel and public safety licensees, must work more efficiently to finish the job in 2008, as stipulated, he said.
AT&T Government Solutions faces tough competition as one of 29 companies selected for the federal government’s Alliant contract, but with $50 billion at stake over 10 years potential revenues are significant, John Klebonis, AT&T vice president-professional services, told us. “For us this was an important opportunity,” Klebonis said. “Obviously there are a lot of large integrators selected for this,” he said. “AT&T feels it also has some strong past performance and capabilities and can play in this game.” Last week, the General Services Administration awarded contracts to 29 of the 66 companies that applied to be part of the Alliant program. The contracts are a kind of prequalification to sell information technology (IT) solutions and services to government agencies. AT&T and other winners still have to bid on various other contracts offered under the program. Klebonis said competition for government contracts is already tough and he doesn’t expect additional pricing pressure. AT&T has historically provided the federal government with IT services. The division has some 4,000 employees. “This is a business that AT&T has been in for over 40 years,” Klebonis said. “For software engineering and IT services, certainly we're a large player,” he said. “Certainly, we're expanding within the federal government.” AT&T was a recent winner of the two big telecom contracts to fell the government services -- the Networx Enterprise and Universal contracts. John Okay, a government contracting expert and former top GSA official, said Friday the contract is a good compliment to the Networx contract. “AT&T in addition to being a world class telecom carrier has a fair amount of experience in IT services,” he said. “AT&T has nurtured and grown its capabilities,” Okay said. “It provides services you'd more associate with Computer Associates or SRA than you would a telecom carrier.” Okay noted that GSA asked all competitors for references from past contracts and made calls to verify past performance was acceptable.
Sprint Nextel sought a rehearing at the FCC on a Public Safety Bureau order that Washoe County and the city of Sparks, both in Nevada, can recover specified costs of the 800 MHz rebanding. Sprint challenged Washoe’s recovering the costs of using MCM software for inventory management and tracking of end-user radio equipment. The case bears similarities to Sprint’s well publicized challenge of a ruling that the carrier must replace NPSPAC-capable radios in Tazewell County, Ill., in the 800 MHz rebanding, said Alan Tilles, the attorney for the licensee in both cases (CD June 4 p3). Tilles and other attorneys for licensees say such appeals are expensive for their clients and aren’t a recoverable cost under the FCC’s 800 MHz rebanding order. “We're certainly disappointed that Nextel chose to appeal this decision, which we felt was well reasoned,” Tilles said. “Obviously, this will delay the ability of Washoe County to timely complete its rebanding.” It will also drive up the cost of rebanding, he said. “I thought reasonable costs are recoverable. Why is this not a recoverable cost?” But Sprint Nextel said the bureau erred. “Throughout the order, the Bureau arbitrarily and capriciously applied the Commission’s standard for what constitutes a reasonable, prudent and minimum necessary cost during the 800 MHz configuration process,” the company said.
The FCC Thursday delayed by 60 days the Aug. 10 deadline by which wireless carriers had to have in place backup power for cellsites. The requirement applies only to nationwide carriers with more than 500,000 subscribers. The delay will give the agency more time to investigate concerns raised by CTIA, AT&T, USTelecom and other industry groups concerned about the deadline, which was approved as part commission’s June Katrina Panel order.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has yet to schedule the FCC’s August meeting. Selecting a date could be complicated since several commissioners will be at the Aspen Institute communications conference Aug. 15-18, sources said. In addition, several commissioners are scheduled to attend a broadband summit in Arkansas on Aug. 28. Several commissioners also have vacations planned for August. No major issues have emerged as likely subjects of the meeting, through the FCC did pull a long-awaited roaming order from the July meeting agenda.
Alltel CEO Scott Ford declined to take analysts’ questions during a brief call Wednesday announcing the carrier’s results for the second quarter. The call came as Alltel is being sold to TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. They announced plans in May to take private the nation’s fifth-largest wireless carrier. “The necessary regulatory approvals are progressing well,” Ford said. “While we are waiting to hear from the FCC more definitively on the timing of their approval process, we expect a favorable FCC vote this year.” The Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period on the merger expired July 5, proxy statements were mailed to shareholders July 25 and a shareholder meeting called to approve the merger is scheduled for Aug. 29. Ford said he had received many questions from investors and analysts about the $27.5 billion deal in light of tightened credit markets. “Our merger agreement… provides that the obligations of TPG-Goldman Sachs to acquire Alltel are not conditioned on financing,” he said. “We have no reason to believe that these firms will not honor their obligations… So despite the noise in the financing markets, we are pleased with the progress we have made on this transaction to date and expect that it will close by year end.” Alltel said it had added 181,500 subscribers net to finish the quarter with 12.24 million. Churn was 1.7 percent, down from 1.9 percent a year earlier. Earnings fell 54 percent to $195.7 million, but revenue was up. Earnings were down only because Alltel had benefitted a year earlier from asset sales and income from discontinued operations. Without those special items, earnings would have been up 25 percent, Alltel said. Revenue was up 12 percent to $2.18 billion.