Broadcast and wireless industry representatives agreed that additional stations probably will look at taking part in the spectrum auction the FCC sought in the National Broadband Plan. Speaking at a Media Institute lunch Tuesday, President David Donovan of the Association for Maximum Service TV and CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe agreed that the voluntary approach the commission is taking to the mobile-future auction is best. They agreed on little else and often interrupted each other and occasionally moderator Richard Wiley.
The FCC should reform the intercarrier compensation system “as soon as practicable” and any transition period should be “as short as possible,” MetroPCS General Counsel Mark Stachiw said during a meeting with Wireline Bureau officials. The company also asked the agency to put in place safeguards “to assure that traffic exchanged under existing reciprocal compensation arrangements, including de facto bill-and-keep arrangements, continues to be exchanged at rates no higher than the rates in place on the date that the National Broadband Plan was adopted,” said an ex parte filing. “MetroPCS also advocated that the Commission move at this time to a Report & Order based on the extensive record that has already been compiled rather than injecting additional delay into the process by seeking further comment.” Stachiw also met with Wireless Bureau officials to discuss spectrum proposals in the broadband plan, as well as “the critical need for additional paired spectrum to be offered in manageable spectrum block sizes and geographic areas to meet substantial unsatisfied needs” and the FCC’s proposal on incentive spectrum auctions.
A Universal Service Fund revamp passed by Congress would do more than an FCC overhaul of the fund, and would leapfrog possible limits to the commission’s legal authority, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., at a National Journal event Tuesday on Capitol Hill. The National Broadband Plan suggests an overhaul that wouldn’t require legislation. A USF bill may be passable on a bipartisan basis, said Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. Both legislators reaffirmed support for the FCC plan, but Stearns said he has concerns about how the FCC sees its role in spurring the marketplace.
The FCC’s National Broadband Plan is expected to contain provisions that would require carriers to offer free broadband, as a condition on spectrum licenses up for sale in future FCC auctions, FCC officials said Wednesday. The FCC is also working with NTIA to find spectrum to pair with the AWS3 band, the spectrum originally sought by M2Z for a proposed free network.
The FCC should write a bold National Broadband Plan with a clear vision and policies that can ensure wider broadband access, adoption and competition, public-interest groups said Wednesday during a briefing on Capitol Hill. Speakers from the Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Consumers Union and other organizations praised FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s goal of offering 100 million homes 100 Mbps Internet access by 2020, to give the U.S. the world’s largest market of ultra-broadband users.
The NTIA and the FCC would work together on a plan to make more spectrum available, under President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2011. A big surprise in the budget, released Monday, was its call for the elimination of the Telecommunications Development Fund (TDF), a program that has traditionally had the strong support of important Democratic constituencies including the Congressional Black Caucus. The proposed budget also would cut two programs that helped support public broadcasters’ transition to digital.
Carrier wireless networks are growing rapidly and technological advances are not a substitute for allocating more spectrum for commercial use, Rajiv Laroia, Qualcomm senior vice president of technology, warned at an FCC workshop on spectrum Thursday. FCC staff heard the same message from other panelists as they explored what’s expected to be a key focus of the FCC over the next year, especially with no major spectrum auctions on the FCC horizon.
Small businesses suffered from FCC decisions that lacked proper Regulatory Flexibility Act analyses, said Teletruth and the New Networks Institute. In comments filed Monday at the commission, they asked it to open a rulemaking to revamp the FCC’s “methodology, process, data collection and analysis” regarding the act. The commission hurt telecom, broadband, Internet, wireless and media competition by not taking the act’s obligations “seriously” for more than a decade, the groups said. “It has cost America trillions of dollars in potential economic growth, harmed innovation and slowed America’s technological edge, not to mention closing down thousands of competitors. It also resulted in higher prices, slower broadband speeds, and a lack of choice for customers.” The groups cited several decisions they said violated the law, including a 2004 order on incumbent unbundling rules and a 2005 order that dropped a requirement that incumbents share wireline broadband Internet services. The groups also urged the FCC to open a rulemaking to investigate fraudulent small-entity discounts in wireless- spectrum auctions.
Eliminating telephone excise and Universal Service Fund taxes are options that the Congressional Budget Office suggests lawmakers consider as they works on future federal budgets, a new report said. The options are two of 188 in a report sent to the House and Senate Budget Committees last week to help Congress set priorities in its annual budgets, said CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf. The ideas in the report aren’t recommendations and they aren’t given in order of priority, he said in the report’s preface.
Three members of the House, including the chairman of the telecom subcommittee, introduced legislation (H.R. 3019) late Wednesday designed to speed up the transfer of spectrum from the government to commercial users. The bill is informed in part, industry sources said Thursday, by the difficulty T-Mobile and other buyers of AWS-1 spectrum have had clearing the spectrum so they can use it in their networks.