ORLANDO, Fla. -- The U.S. needs a “coherent, cohesive and comprehensive” national broadband strategy so it can restore its place as the world leader in telecom, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said in a Tuesday PCIA Conference keynote. “Even though we have made strides, I am concerned that we are not keeping pace with our global competitors,” he said. “U.S. consumers are paying twice as much as Japanese customers for connections that are twenty times as slow. This isn’t just a public relations problem, it’s a real productivity problem, and our citizens deserve better.” Adelstein also gave his audience a brief update on FCC designated entity and special access plans.
T-Mobile told the FCC it should seek comment on a petition filed by Sprint Nextel, the Association for Maximum Service TV, the NAB and the Society of Broadcast Engineers asking for a 29 month extension of a deadline for moving broadcast auxiliary services (BAS) licensees from the 2093- 2110 MHz band. T-Mobile said any decision has implications for its ability to use advanced wireless services spectrum it bought in last year’s auction. “The BAS migration and deployment of AWS A Block spectrum are linked and a solution needs to be addressed in conjunction with the BAS plan,” T- Mobile said.
Leap Wireless and MetroPCS filed petitions for reconsideration at the FCC, asking the agency to change provisions in its roaming rule under which a carrier doesn’t have to honor a request from another carrier with spectrum holdings in a particular market. T-Mobile also filed late Monday.
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia handed down what amounts to a nondecision in a Council Tree lawsuit against the FCC that could have overturned the advanced wireless services auction. The court said it lacks jurisdiction because Council Tree filed its challenge before the auction order was final. The decision left the firm free to mount another challenge, and Council Tree indicated it will pursue its case against the FCC.
Google is talking with “a variety of folks” about various options and strategies of using the 700 MHz C-block spectrum including “some who have opposed us vociferously at the FCC,” Richard Whitt, Google Washington telecommunications and media counsel, told a joint luncheon of the Federal Communications Bar Association wireless and cyberspace practice groups. Some of the strategies include “a joint bidding consortia” or forming joint ventures post auction, Whitt said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The joint board on universal service will send the FCC broad proposals by early November for a total revamp, one board chairman said. Elements will include killing the equal-support rule and adding limited eligibility for broadband and wireless, said Ray Baum, state chairman of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service. He spoke late Monday at the National Exchange Carrier Association Expo. Baum, also a member of Oregon’s Public Utilities Commission, told us later that the board had made good progress in a Monday weekly conference call, but wouldn’t elaborate on the recommendations.
The successful bidder in the D-block nationwide 700 MHz license shouldn’t face default if network sharing negotiations with the public safety licensee fail, AT&T, Frontline Wireless and Cyren Call told the FCC in petitions for reconsideration filed late Monday. Separately, public- safety agencies nationwide want the FCC to rethink a decision to pay only for 700 MHz narrowband gear deployed before Aug. 30 (CD Sept 4 p9).
Frontline Wireless wants the FCC Wireless Bureau to put two check-off boxes on its 700 MHz auction short-form. The boxes would let would-be bidders alert commission staff that, if successful, they will have more than 70 MHz in a single market or more than 45 MHz below 1 GHz in a single market, it said in a filing late Friday. The move would help show “which applications merit particular scrutiny,” said Frontline. The agency rejected “an absolute bar” on carriers whose holdings would exceed the 70 MHz limit if successful in the 700 MHz auction, said Frontline, “but it did not give incumbents carte blanche to acquire spectrum without regards to competitive concerns. And it did not, and could not, diminish, let alone discharge, the commission’s obligation to engage in a public interest review.” According to Frontline, AT&T already holds 70 or more megahertz of spectrum in five markets; if it gets the 10 MHz D-block nationwide license it will exceed the 70 MHz threshold in 61 markets. Verizon, at 70 or more megahertz in seven markets, will cross the 70 MHz line in 20 markets if it wins the D-block license, Frontline said. “Acquisitions of spectrum licenses that threaten to create or enhance market power will violate the antitrust laws in the same manner as a merger of horizontal competitors,” it said.
The FCC sought comment on proposed service rules for the 2155 to 2175 MHz band, the spectrum that had been sought by M2Z and NetfreeUS. Several options for the spectrum are possible, it said Wednesday, including an auction that would be the third in a series for advanced wireless services (AWS). Industry officials said they were reviewing the rulemaking.
The FCC “missed the train” when it put open access conditions on the 700 MHz auction, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said at the Goldman Sachs Conference, webcast from New York. It will be “very difficult to make [conditions] work” to create more competition,” he said. The FCC “didn’t need to impose government intervention to create market structure,” he said. Seidenberg discussed major wireless carriers’ interest in rurals. Majors will keep buying rurals, provided rurals want to sell, he said. SunCom’s Monday sale to T-Mobile followed a Rural Cellular sale to Verizon, Dobson Cellular sale to AT&T, and Alltel’s sale to private equity. Verizon didn’t act on Alltel’s desire to sell because the Bell has spectrum in most Alltel markets, Seidenberg said. Nor did Alltel’s size and price “fit what made sense,” he added. Verizon’s three-state wireline spinoff to FairPoint “will get done” by the end of Q1 2008 “at the latest,” he said. Verizon and FairPoint have shareholder approval and are working at getting state approvals, he said. Seidenberg said Verizon and Vodafone have a “very good operating relationship,” but the CEO declined to comment what that relationship may look like in the long term.