Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Acknowledging that public broadcasters were faced with a “very difficult fight” to prevent steep cuts in federal funding for their programs, the Assn. for Public TV Stations (APTS) has begun a coordinated effort with stations to mobilize grass-roots support. “We have received some very adverse numbers in the House on almost all of our programs and we are in a very difficult fight to prevent our programs from being cut,” APTS Pres. John Lawson said. One of the challenges for public broadcasters is to link the growing concern among legislators for locally controlled media with the need to back funding for public TV, he said in an interview.

An FCC spokesman confirmed Wed. that the agency planned to investigate allegations that MCI had engaged in access charge fraud (CD July 29 p1). The spokesman wouldn’t elaborate other than to say the Commission would share the results of its Enforcement Bureau investigation with the House Commerce Committee. The Committee sent a letter to the FCC Wed. asking whether the agency planned to investigate the allegations “and enforce the FCC’s rules.”

DENVER -- Incumbent and competitive panelists at a NARUC workshop on the FCC Triennial Review order here Sun. urged state regulators to coordinate as much as possible their hearings, evidence discovery requests and protections for proprietary data in order to complete the very difficult job of competitive market analysis within the tight 9-month time frame prescribed by the FCC. With cooperation by all parties, speakers said, the task would be difficult but feasible..

The FCC agreed to make several changes in its regulatory fees for FY 2003, for example giving wireless messaging companies a break and changing the way LMDS was categorized for regulatory fee purposes. Comrs. Copps and Adelstein, while praising the agency’s efforts to seek fairness in fee payments, still filed concurring statements because they said the Commission’s overall method of setting fees didn’t meet the requirements of the Communications Act.

Acknowledging that the FCC might not be able to correct an imbalance in the number of minority broadcast owners by itself, a key Commission official said the agency might need to turn to the private sector for help, particularly for funding minority-owned businesses. Jane Mago, chief of the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis and leader of a newly announced federal advisory committee on diversity, told a conference of the Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC) Mon. that the panel would draw on expertise from the private sector for its membership but also could need private enterprise help in confronting a lack of capital for minority businesses.

At its final meeting Thurs., the FCC’s Public Safety National Coordination Committee (NCC) agreed to the finishing touches on a standard for 700 MHz wideband interoperability channels. The charter of the panel, led by Kathleen Wallman, expires July 25. The Commission created the committee in Jan. 1999 to submit for FCC approval an operational plan to achieve nationwide interoperability for the 24 MHz of spectrum set aside for public safety at 700 MHz and to recommend certain interoperability standards. At a general membership meeting Thurs., the group agreed to recommend that followup work be handed off to the National Public Safety Telecom Council, which would meet without the formal Federal Advisory Committee Act mandate that the NCC has had. The Telecom Industry Assn. (TIA) has been working on a standard for wideband data operations at 700 MHz based on Motorola- developed scalable adaptive modulation (SAM) technology on 50 kHz channels. Glen Nash, a past pres. of the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials and NCC technology subcommittee chmn., said TIA had made a “Herculean effort” to develop standards given the expedited timeline. The NCC earlier had worked on Project 25 as the narrowband digital voice standard for the 700 MHz interoperability channels, which the FCC adopted in 2001. Participants have said one challenge of the wideband data interoperability standards was that such operations were new in the band, so no equipment existed as the standards work was coming together. John Oblak, chief engineer of E.F. Johnson, who represented TIA at NCC meetings, said TIA had published documents on 6 of 7 standards for wideband air interface operations, including those connected to the physical layer and packet data specifications. Work for now isn’t moving ahead on a text messaging document because there are no open industry standards in that area on which the group could draw. “We found nothing available in the public domain,” Oblak said. There were no open protocols since services available were based on proprietary protocols, he said. Nash said that while the documents were based on 50 kHz channels, they were scalable up to 150 kHz channels based on future technology advances. In other areas, interoperability subcommittee Chmn. John Powell presented recommendations on state roles. The group said FCC rules should clarify the role of states in State Interoperability Executive Committees (SIECs), which administer interoperability channels at 700 MHz. “There are several examples where state governments are using their SIEC to control the interoperability channels,” the subcommittee said. It said the rules should require that SIECs or similar regional bodies include representatives from all levels of public safety agencies. Wallman ticked off a list of events that had occurred since the group began its work, including the Sept. 11 attacks, 2 wars, a new national alert system and a new Dept. of Homeland Security. “You should be very proud of the accomplishments you have achieved over the last 4 years,” she said.

Top U.S. govt. and private sector officials involved in the World Radio Conference (WRC) that ended July 4 in Geneva said Wed. that the WRC sent signals on how certain new services involving secondary allocations could be handled in the future. In a lunch sponsored by the D.C. Bar and Federal Communications Bar Assn., several officials underscored the need for quick FCC follow-up now that the WRC was over. One success was trimming the agenda for the WRC in 2007 to 21 items, including a proposal on spectrum for 3G systems and future generations, said Karl Nebbia, deputy assoc. administrator in NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management.

With release of the FCC’s Triennial Review order on network unbundling policy said to be imminent, state regulators believe they're about to see the fruit of their months of preparation for addressing unbundled network element platforms (UNE-Ps) and the other complex network unbundling issues that the FCC order is referring to the states.

The FCC last week considered proposed options for where to relocate federal spectrum users in the 1.7 GHz band to make way for advanced wireless services (AWS). Last fall, the agency adopted a spectrum allocation order and proposed service rules for 2 blocks of 45 MHz spectrum, including the 1710-1755 MHz that the Dept. of Defense agreed to clear for advanced services such as 3G. The other block was 45 MHz of the 2110-2170 MHz now occupied by nongovt. users. In its latest rulemaking, the FCC proposed to: (1) Let DoD use 2025-2110 on a co-equal, co-primary basis with nonfederal govt. operations for earth stations at 11 sites that supported military space operations. (2) Roll back the recent establishment of Wireless Communications Services (WCS) at 2385-2395 MHz, let federal and nonfederal flight test stations operate at 2385-2395 MHz and no longer make 2390-2400 MHz available for use by unlicensed PCS devices. That 2nd change would allow DoD to relocate all aeronautical mobile systems out of 1710-1755 MHz, “which is a major objective for facilitating the introduction of AWS.” The proposal said that over time DoD access to 2025-2110 MHz for uplinks for military space operations -- known as tracking telemetry and command operations -- could make more spectrum available at 1755-1850 MHz for “absorbing certain DoD systems displaced from the band 1710-1755 MHz.” The plan would permit military services to use fixed and mobile stations, except aeronautical mobile services, at 2025-2110 MHz, on a secondary basis at 6 sites in the Southwest. As part of those spectrum relocation possibilities, which look for places to move federal users to in spectrum that’s under the purview of the FCC, the WCS and unlicensed PCS proposals would provide replacement spectrum for DoD and commercial flight test stations, the Commission said. Those stations may lose access to 35 MHz at 1525-1535 MHz and 2320-2345 MHz shortly. The Commission said it licensed 2025-2110 MHz to Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS). During the comment period, NAB and MSTV told the FCC they didn’t oppose the idea of relocating some federal operations to the band as long as broadcasters weren’t deprived of essential BAS services. “We believe that this action would provide a reasonable opportunity for clearing the band 1710-1755 MHz for new nationwide AWS uses and that permitting DoD earth stations access to the band 2025-2110 MHz would also provide greater use of the band 2025-2110 MHz without a significant impact on incumbent operations,” the proposal said. The proposal is expected to have a minimal impact on unlicensed PCS use at 2390-2400 MHz, where federal and nonfederal use of 2390-2395 MHz is expected for a “limited” number of aeronautical telemetry ranges in remote areas. “We have reviewed our files and have found that no unlicensed PCS device has been authorized in the band 2390-2400 MHz,” the proposal said.

Top FCC officials said Wed. at the Wireless Communications Assn. (WCA) show in Washington that they expected decisions by early next year on a series of interlocking spectrum issues, including efforts to solve public safety interference at 800 MHz. The outcome of the 800 MHz proceeding has implications for replacement spectrum that Multipoint Distribution Service (MDS) operators seek in the planned reallocation of some MDS spectrum for advanced wireless services.