A working group of the FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture delivered its final report to the larger group Tuesday, calling for the creation of a local state government advisory committee to oversee how PSAPs are funded. The report also suggests consumers pay 911 fees based on the bandwidth in their contract with an ISP to ensure PSAPs get funding needed to modernize their systems.
Sprint said it won't take part in the TV incentive auction, becoming the first major player to announce it will definitely sit it out. Industry officials said Monday that the Sprint announcement Saturday raises new questions for the FCC, but wasn't a surprise. The departure of Sprint could also be a net win for T-Mobile and other competitive carriers that now have a clear path to buy the 30 MHz of reserve spectrum set aside for providers with significant low-band holdings in what is expected to be a large number of markets, industry observers said.
FCC designated entity bidding credits in spectrum auctions should be scrapped, said Doug Brake, telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in a blog post emailed to us Wednesday. Brake said the DE program to foster small business wireless entry hadn't worked well and he questioned whether it even made sense in today's mobile market, where size matters. He said the DE program was a good example of a dynamic described in "The Miasma of Regulation," a 1987 essay by Robert Reich (who later became U.S. labor secretary), which laid out "the cat-and-mouse game" in which regulators write rules and the regulated push the envelope, with the back-and-forth generating more complicated rules that confound American business. Brake said the recent controversy over Dish Network's relationship with two entities in the AWS-3 auction is just the latest controversy. The DE program may have made sense in the 1990s when it started, Brake said, but small businesses today face bigger challenges in launching a network and competing with entrenched national wireless carriers. "I have a hard time seeing a small business breaking into this market in a meaningful way, even with steeply discounted spectrum," which is "just a small fraction of the cost" of building a network, he said. "New entrants to the broadband access business will be the ones with radically disruptive technology, not a discount on one input. The DE program has a history of either being manipulated by large companies, or heaping largess on individual insiders who reap the upside with large profits and incomes."
LAS VEGAS -- The FCC should wrap up an order creating a dedicated USF mobility fund, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn urged, speaking Thursday at the Rural Wireless Association conference at the CTIA convention.
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to take a stab at video and spectrum policy in hearings in the coming weeks. Commerce is tentatively eyeing Sept. 30 for a full committee hearing on the future of video and Oct. 7 for a full committee hearing on spectrum policy, both starting at 10 a.m. The dates circulated among industry lobbyists. Congress returned from its monthlong August recess Tuesday, and neither hearing has been announced.
The FCC is helping unleash the next generation of competition, Comptel CEO Chip Pickering said in an interview to be shown on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Pickering, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi, credited the commission under Chairman Tom Wheeler with promoting market forces through net neutrality, interconnection, transaction and wireless auction policies. “We’re seeing gains in all areas for competition,” he said last Wednesday. “That is the new foundation for another 10-20 years of sustaining competition very vibrantly. This commission has taken a lot of shots because they’ve been so active, but these are huge decisions with great consequences.”
Kathleen Ham, an expert on spectrum auctions, was named senior vice president in charge of T-Mobile's Washington office, T-Mobile said Wednesday. Andy Levin, former general counsel at Clear Channel, is leaving the company after being named to head the office 13 months ago (see 1407160038), T-Mobile said in a news release. Ham was widely viewed as a leading candidate to replace Tom Sugrue after he retired in April 2014. Ham has been at T-Mobile since 2004, after 14 years at the FCC. She's a former deputy chief of the Wireless Bureau and was the first chief of the agency’s Spectrum Auctions Program, overseeing the first PCS auctions.
Congress has an opportunity this year to pass bipartisan legislation forcing additional spectrum auctions, after next year’s TV incentive auction, former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said Wednesday on a call with reporters. McDowell said he's told by his Capitol Hill contacts that new legislation will premier later this month when Congress returns to Washington. CTIA and some of its major members are making a big push for legislation this year, industry officials told us. That's expected to be one of the hot topics next week at CTIA’s annual show in Law Vegas.
Staffers on Capitol Hill foresee a tall order in the 911 legislative recommendations that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler laid out last week at APCO’s conference (see 1508190056), which aren't yet manifested in any package or set for the fall agenda to anyone’s knowledge. Several Hill staffers weren't familiar with outreach from the FCC on the legislative package that Wheeler described, which he said would be critical for the implementation of Next-Generation 911 and should factor into the congressional calendar in future months. Former FCC officials agreed the issues deserve serious and expedient Hill attention.
Industry consolidation has been a dominant factor overhanging how the wireless industry is regulated, especially on transactions policy. The FCC under President Barack Obama's appointees repeatedly has drawn a clear line at four national wireless carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. Industry observers disagree whether that makes sense in the current market.