FCC Comr. Powell “remains the clear front-runner” to be next agency chairman and expects to be tapped this week, House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) told reporters at TechNet lunch Fri. “I talked with him last night,” Tauzin said. “He said he hadn’t heard yet.” Addressing rumors Powell might be holding out for another Bush Administration position, Tauzin assured reporters: “He wants it.”

FCC hit Callais Cablevision with $133,000 fine late Fri. for repeatedly violating Commission’s cable signal leakage rules, largest amount ever assessed against cable operator for such problems. Agency found that Callais, which runs cable system in Grand Isle, La., violated leakage standards in tests on 3 separate days early last year, interfered with FAA aircraft approach frequencies, didn’t perform leakage tests on time and didn’t install necessary equipment to correct problem in time. FCC said Callais system, unlike MediaOne Detroit system fined $55,000 for signal leakage violations last year, deserved record fine because it showed “almost complete disregard for the rules designed to protect air traffic safety, including failure to offset frequencies and failure to make annual measurements to verify compliance with the basic leakage performance criteria.” Callais has 30 days to challenge fine.

Qualcomm signed royalty-bearing CDMA modem card license agreement with Matsushita Electronic Components, terms not disclosed. Qualcomm said pact covered patents to build and market modem cards for existing and 3rd-generation applications, including Wideband CDMA, cdma2000, TD-SCDMA.

Police in Vancouver, B.C., said they used satellite tracking device for first time to follow bank robber who left scene of crime in taxi equipped with global positioning system. Suspect was arrested minutes after robbery after police called taxi company, which tracked vehicle.

Conn. Dept. of Public Utility Control (DPUC) granted application of SNET Personal Vision (SPV), cable TV subsidiary of Southern New England Telecommunications Corp.(SNET), to wind up its cable business in state (CD Aug 14 p5). In draft decision released Jan. 19, DPUC left open possibility of competitive cable providers’ leasing network elements and colocating equipment within company’s facilities. Dept. said it lacked statutory authority to compel SPV to continue to provide competitive cable service. To make SPV’s exit from cable business nondisruptive and fair to customers, DPUC asked company to credit each subscriber $50 instead of $40 offered by company to defray charges to connect to new video provider and provide 2 separate notices to customers. It accepted company’s proposal to fund its community access providers for one additional year based on subscribership as of Aug. 11. Pointing out that forced transfer of SPV’s modified franchise agreement would raise level playing field concerns, DPUC deferred ruling on request by Conn. Broadband, subsidiary of Conn. Telephone & Communication Systems, that it order transfer of SPV’s network and its franchise to company (CD Sept 22 p8). Dept. said it made modifications in SPV’s franchise in 1999 to allow company to serve only in areas where it already provided service until it found viable alternative technology to HFC. Issues such as those will arise in any cable franchise, it said. Although federal and state law mandate that SNET’s telephone subsidiary make leased access available to competitive providers of voice and data services and not cable operators, DPUC urged company to lease facilities to cable providers either by tariff or by special arrangement “that would allow competitive provisioning of video services.

Lucent plans to seek buyers for 2 of its 4 U.S. factories in next 6 months to cut costs. Company said it planned to contract out manufacturing in Oklahoma City and Columbus, O., which together have 8,400 employees. Lucent is in midst of major cost- cutting effort that began last year.

Ohio PUC found Ameritech Mobile and AirTouch Cellular guilty of violating regulatory requirements that they separate their wholesale and retail operations and offer their wholesale services on nondiscriminatory basis to all cellular resellers. PUC in case 93-1758-RC-CSS ruled on complaint by wireless reseller Cellnet alleging Ameritech and AirTouch had provided their retail reseller affiliates with favorable rates and terms that they denied to unaffiliated resellers, allowing affiliates to unfairly undercut Cellnet in retail markets. PUC in 99-page order dismissed companies’ multiple defenses and held them guilty of discriminating against Cellnet. Agency acted after determining it had jurisdiction because case involved rate discriminatory conduct, not rate challenge. PUC ordered companies to cease unlawful conduct, but since this was companies’ first offense it declined to impose any penalties. In another matter, PUC set Feb. 7 hearing to collect public comment on whether customers in Columbus 614 area code preferred geographic split or overlay for code relief. Split plan would put Columbus and its outer suburbs into separate area codes. Current code is projected to run out of numbers in fall 2002.

SAN JOSE, Cal. -- Standards for broadband wireless access (BWA) are necessary but shouldn’t delay “time to market” for new developments in BWA technology, said Sheldon Fisher, asst. vp- architecture and technology for Sprint’s Broadband Wireless Group in Wireless Communication Assn. (WCA) keynote here Fri. Industry “can’t wait” for standards process that takes 12-18 months, Fisher said, and such delays will impede innovation. Standards don’t “destroy innovation,” said WCA Task Force on Standards Chmn. Gary Smith of WorldCom, but standards process should be sensitive to industry’s rapidly developing new technologies.

Spain’s Telefonica Moviles Espana said it handled 339 million short message service (SMS) transmissions in Dec., for average of 26 SMS messages per client. For year, total of SMS messages reached 2.276 million, up 322% over 1999, carrier said. It said messages were being used by broader demographic than younger users with prepaid cards, with more than half of SMS transmissions involving subscribers with contracts.

Scientific-Atlanta (S-A) said its net earnings more than doubled to $70.8 million in 2nd quarter ended Dec. 29 as bookings rose 52% to $707.3 million and sales climbed 69% to $631.4 million, driven largely by equipment maker’s broadband business. S-A, which announced big gains in subscriber bookings and smaller gains in transmission bookings over previous 2nd quarter, said it shipped 1.11 million Explorer digital cable set-top boxes in 2nd quarter, up from 1.03 million in first quarter, and received orders for more than 1.5 million boxes. Company said backlog at end of quarter exceeded 2.1 million units. S-A, which now has shipped nearly 5 million Explorer set-tops, also announced plans to boost production capacity to 1.5 million boxes per quarter by end of March.