Iridium asked to modify its space station authorization for its Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit Mobile Satellite Service constellation. Iridium would like the authorization to include the Iridium Next second-generation satellites, it said in its application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/1ajs049). In a separate application, ViaSat requested FCC consent for the assignment of Intelsat’s authorization “to operate the Ka-band payload on the Galaxy-28 satellite in the 19.7-20.2 GHz and 29.5-30.0 GHz bands” at 89 degrees west, the bureau said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/19xv7LF).
The Federal Aviation Administration chose six unmanned aircraft system research and test site operators across the U.S., the agency said Monday (http://1.usa.gov/19xp7CB). The sites will be run by the University of Alaska, the state of Nevada, Griffiss International Airport in Rome, N.Y., the North Dakota Department of Commerce, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Virginia Tech.
Communications Daily won’t be published Wednesday, Jan. 1, in observance of the New Year’s Day holiday. Our next issue will be dated Thursday, Jan. 2.
Morgan Murphy Media agreed to renew its retransmission consent agreement with Time Warner Cable for KLXY-Spokane, Morgan Murphy Media said in a news release Friday. Morgan Murphy Media also operates WISC-TV Madison and WKBT LaCrosse in Wisconsin, and KAPP Yakima-Kennewick in Washington.
Submitting refined study area boundary maps, necessary for implementation of the FCC’s Connect America Fund benchmarking rule, “would require a very substantial, industry-wide effort with (at best) speculative results,” and in any case cannot be completed by Jan. 13, Verizon told the FCC in a filing Monday (http://bit.ly/19AIKUt). Verizon was writing to support a Dec. 17 petition by several ILEC associations -- including USTelecom, of which Verizon is a member -- to stay the requirement, or grant an extension of time to reconcile study area boundaries (CD Dec 19 p12). The Wireline Bureau’s proposal that ILECs review an online map of aggregate study area boundary data and resolve and recertify overlaps and voids is “an extensive process” that can’t realistically be performed by the requested deadline, Verizon said. It’s not even clear that the data will be needed at all, the ILEC said, given that it’s intended for use as an input to the quantile regression analysis, which may itself be eliminated (CD Dec 18 p2). Even if the commission continues to use the quantile regression analysis, the Jan. 13 deadline doesn’t give ILECs and state commissions enough time to reconcile and revise their study area boundary data, Verizon said.
Several associations for deaf and hard of hearing people supported a request by cvideo relay service providers for a one-year waiver of the daily measurement of speed of answer (SoA) requirement, they told the FCC in a letter Saturday (http://bit.ly/1cij9iY). The rule and associated penalties are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The groups “appreciate the stronger SoA requirements but are concerned that significant rate reductions were imposed in the same order without taking in account the costs for the new SoA requirements,” they said. SoA measurements should be calculated daily, but meeting this requirement in the next year “may not be feasible” in some instances, and could cause providers to incur “significant costs through overstaffing” to meet the requirements, they said. The groups, including Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the National Association of the Deaf, recommended implementation of the new 30-second SoA requirement without penalty as a “testing phase” for one year.
CaptionCall -- a subsidiary of Sorenson -- wrote to the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Friday to explain the measures it will take to comply with new IP Captioned Telephone Service rules (http://bit.ly/K9V9Ix). CaptionCall noticed many “conflicts” between the text of the final order and the codified rules, it said, such as when users must be registered. The rules are also “ambiguous” as to the permitted and excluded categories of third-party professional certifications, CaptionCall said, or what is meant by “business relationships,” “family relationships,” or “social relationships.” CaptionCall detailed a meeting with bureau staffers in July to seek clarification, but has not received guidance, it said. “Should the Commission disagree with any of the compliance measures CaptionCall intends to implement, CaptionCall requests immediate guidance and clarification."
A New York state senator told the FCC she’s “greatly concerned” with the impact the FCC’s prison calling order will have on county jails in her district (http://bit.ly/K9W6Rl). Elizabeth Little asked that the implementation date be postponed from Feb. 11 to “a later date,” because county governments “have acted on their budgets for the year and have not accounted for the loss of funding that will be incurred due to this rule change.” She said the order is “especially worrisome for smaller county jails that experience high turnover rates of inmate populations.”
The FCC is seeking comment on several requested exemptions from its closed captioning rules, the commission said in a public notice Thursday (http://bit.ly/JxrFUx). Comments and oppositions are due within 30 days. “Petitioners claim that compliance would be ‘economically burdensome,'” said the PN. The entities requesting exemptions are Curtis Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga.; Gerald Bryant TV in Chicago; First Lutheran Church in Albert Lea, Minn.; Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham; Gray Publishing in Soldotna, Alaska; and First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Ark.
Comcast petitioned to be excluded from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for seven communities in Virginia, said a filing posted in FCC docket 12-1 (http://bit.ly/KamafB). The petition cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The proposed deregulation would affect about 23,000 households, including the communities of Bridgewater, Harrisonburg and Elkton.