The FCC shouldn’t try to regulate foreign mobile termination rates (MTRs), at least for now, many U.S. and foreign telecom carriers agreed in comments. Commenters said national regulatory authorities (NRAs) in many countries have taken actions to lower MTRs. They said the NRAs were better positioned than the FCC to determine whether the rates charged in their countries were too high. Parties urged the Commission to give the relevant foreign regulators time to address the issue in their markets before taking any actions. CompTel/Ascent, AT&T, MCI and Sprint disagreed.
LAS VEGAS -- VoIP executives said Wed. they don’t tremble at the prospect of cable operators offering their own VoIP services. Speaking at the Pulver.com summit that opened the Consumer Electronics Show here, the officials said they view VoIP as offering advantages over wireless phones, which they said are unlikely to become the complete substitute for the public switched telephone network, given quality of service and other issues.
Cable industry officials expressed little surprise at the FCC’s opposition to Paxson’s mandamus petition to the U.S. appeals Court, D.C. (CD Dec 22 p 8). Although the FCC’s opposition was widely expected, some cable attorneys praised the Commission for considering the matter in context of the overall industry. “The FCC is clearly not just sitting back on its heels,” said cable attorney Seth Davidson “The FCC did a good job of urging the court not to look at the petition in isolation.”
Competitive ISPs and VoIP providers spoke with one voice, urging the FCC to deny a BellSouth petition seeking forbearance from application of Computer Inquiry and Title II common carrier requirements to the transport component of its broadband services. They said the market for underlying broadband transmission services wasn’t competitive, contrary to the BellSouth claims. They said ILECs retained significant market power in the wholesale telecom services broadband market, and competitive carriers had to acquire such services from them.
The FCC should reject NATOA’s proposal for revising cable TV rate regulation, NCTA said in supplemental reply comments to a June 2002 rulemaking. NATOA’s proposal would “eliminate entirely or eviscerate” the FCC’s streamlined network upgrade rate rule, the comments said. This would prevent cable operators from recovering costs of upgrades in regulated basic tier service rates, NCTA said: NATOA’s proposal is “facially inconsistent with congressional policies implemented in the Commission’s rules and fundamentally unfair to cable operators who relied upon Commission rules and invested to upgrade their service offerings and to improve basic cable services,” the cable group said.
Cal. became the first state to set energy efficiency standards for CE products as the Cal. Energy Commission (CEC) adopted new regulations Wed. by a 5-0 vote. Claiming the move will hamstring technological innovation, the industry also worried this would fuel legislation in other states. Advocates called the step a major boost to energy efficiency efforts and said the Cal. regulations would guide lobbying efforts next year.
High tech companies, anxious to open up more spectrum for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed uses, strongly supported an FCC proposal to allow the use of “white spaces” between TV channels, in comments on a proposed rulemaking. In general, high tech companies view the lower-frequency spectrum as especially valuable for unlicensed use because of its superior propagation characteristics. As expected, broadcasters slammed the plan. Cable operators cited a potential threat to their operations.
Congress must address important issues not contained in the Nov. 22 FCC Media Bureau report (CD Nov 22 p2), which concluded a pay per channel regime wouldn’t reduce most consumers’ costs, the American Cable Assn. said Wed. The FCC report to Congress found the average cable household would see rate increases under an a la carte scheme. ACA said the FCC report didn’t address: (1) How cable operators can offer more programming choice and lower costs while dealing with the wholesaling practices of media conglomerates. (2) Independent networks’ facing media conglomerates’ wholesale tying and bundling practices. “The FCC may have a continuing role in addressing some of these issues in specific rulemakings,” said ACA Pres. Matthew Polka, “but basically the focus will shift back to Congress to review and digest the report and review telecom laws beginning in 2005.” Polka said he recognized Congress probably wouldn’t complete legislation next year, but at least “earnest” study of the issues would get underway. “Would we like to solve these issues tomorrow? Sure. But we are prepared to raise these issues for the long term.”
The Cal. Energy Commission (CEC) won’t adopt energy efficiency standards for appliances and consumer electronic (CE) products Wed. as originally proposed, a spokeswoman said: “We have received numerous comments on our proposal and are going to be reworking it slightly. So on Wednesday we will not be adopting anything.” She said the CEC would shortly issue modified proposals, incorporating issues raised in public comments, along with a date for adoption shortly: “We do not anticipate adopting anything until some time in December.” The CE products targeted are TVs, compact audio players, DVD players/recorders and DTV adaptors. The CEC decided it would take up energy efficiency standards for cable and satellite set-top boxes in a separate rulemaking next year. None of the CE products are now subject to state energy efficiency standards. A Davis Energy Group study commissioned by the CEC said the biggest factor working both for and against mandated standards was the very high rate of change in consumer electronics. That makes it easy to incorporate design changes in new equipment, as design cycles can be a year or less, the study said. But rapid changes in features and functions make manufacturers reluctant to commit to fixed standards on equipment that may soon need new functions, with unknown standby power implications. That concern can be reduced by confining the standard to basic equipment, the study said, but it may have the unintended consequence of encouraging manufacturers to add functions to evade standards.
BOSTON -- Addressing the VoIP industry in a packed room at the VON conference here, FCC Chmn. Powell stressed that realization of the “Internet consumer freedom” principles he outlined this year and subjecting VoIP to exclusive federal jurisdiction were key to promoting the VoIP revolution. In an emotional speech interrupted several times by applause, Powell compared migration to IP technology with “the great American Revolutions” and said as he was giving his keynote he had “a sense of how our first President, General George Washington, would have felt standing before the Minutemen that would form the Continental Army.”