Despite protests from public interest groups, Comcast’s unsolicited $58 billion offer for AT&T Broadband stands good chance of earning federal regulatory approval if it gets that far, according to public policy analysts. They said Justice Dept. (DoJ) and FCC were likely to allow proposed deal to go through largely unscathed, especially if AT&T shed its 25.5% stake in Time Warner Entertainment (TWE) as Comcast pledged. They also predicted that FCC’s expected new horizontal cable ownership cap shouldn’t be problem for proposed combination of nation’s largest and 3rd largest MSOs, assuming Comcast won AT&T’s consent. Nor did they see either govt. agency imposing such conditions as open access and interactive TV nondiscrimination on deal, even though those obligations were placed upon AOL’s recent takeover of Time Warner (TW) and AT&T and Comcast co-own Excite@Home, nation’s largest cable ISP.

BOSTON -- Implications of sagging financial markets raised at Wireless Communications Assn. convention here this week ranged from difficulty in renewing ITFS leasing agreements to FCC delay in setting auction date for 24 GHz market. Winstar Chmn.-CEO William Rouhana, in first comments before industry group since company’s Chapter 11 filing in April, assailed “schizophrenia” that has beset telecom sector, pitting perception of “overvalued” assets of broadband providers against growing consumer demand for services. “There is this incredible schizophrenia that has taken hold,” he said Tues.

Voluntary outage reporting program for nonwireline service providers, including satellite-based operators and wireless carriers, still is trying to attract more participants, AT&T Network Vp P.J. Aduskevicz said. In Thurs. conference call sponsored by Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), Aduskevicz and other network efforts described voluntary trial that’s being carried out, in part, to find out if there are ways to track such information in way that could stave off future regulatory mandates. FCC agreed to voluntary one-year trial that started Aug. 1. In effort organized by Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC), participants are reporting to National Communications System’s National Coordinating Center. Aduskevicz said one hurdle to participation that has been resolved in recent months involved agreements to protect proprietary information from Freedom of Information Act requests. Participants include nonwireline service providers such as wireless carriers, satellite, cable, data networking, ISPs. She declined to disclose names of participating companies or how many were taking part from each sector. They agreed on recent memorandum of understanding to allow information to remain confidential, so “proprietary data” weren’t leaked, said Gary Pellegrino, pres. of CommFlow Resources. Bernie Farrell, mgr. of NCC, said “scrubbed” data would be released later, with names of company and locations removed. Pellegrino said goals of trial included: (1) Finding ways to assess impact of reported outages on public. (2) Identifying reporting similarities or differences across industry segments. (3) Showing “industry has the initiative to recover outage information without government involvement.” One slide shown during presentation indicated “failure to participate” could lead to mandatory reporting requirements or rulemaking. Farrell said: “These concerns or issues should not be seen as holding a hammer over your head to participate, but they are things to at least consider.” Data will be analyzed and “we are hoping that this will give us some next steps in this process,” Aduskevicz said. Trial also aims to ensure that right types of data are collected in first place. “We strongly advocate best practices,” she said. “NRIC has been doing work on best practices. Industry has used these to help improve the reliability of their processes.” One advantage among nonwireline service providers is that NRIC has nearly 8 years of data from wireline arena that has helped improve services, she said. As examples of types of information that are part of trial, Aduskevicz outlined “alert situation criteria” for wireless carriers of system failure affecting customers and preventing new calls for period of at least 30 min. Because of initial challenges in allaying confidentiality concerns, officials in conference call said proposal was before NRIC to extend trial to Nov. 15 from scheduled Aug. close.

FCC officially opened its 8th annual video competition inquiry, once again asking cable operators, DBS providers and cable overbuilders to document their growth, spell out their new services and detail their costs. In notice of inquiry (NoI) approved unanimously Wed. and expected to be released in next few days, Commission said it also planned to seek such new information as cable and DBS provision of streaming video, interactive (ITV), other convergence services. Agency also said it would explore how many households “rely on over-the-air reception of local television stations on one or more of their television sets.” Finally, FCC said that for first time it would treat new breed of broadband service providers as separate category distinct from traditional cable overbuilders.

Imposing DTV must-carry on cable would violate First Amendment and Fifth Amendment prohibition on “taking” property, Cablevision Systems said in latest comment on rulemaking (98-120). It said DTV must-carry “would place the broad diversity of programming offerings that cable consumers currently enjoy in extreme peril.” It said it invested billions of dollars in upgrading systems, but bandwidth already was fully utilized. American Cable Assn. said there was “serious malfunction” in market since TV networks were tying retransmission consent to requirements to carry “unwanted programming.” Group asked for FCC investigation into retransmission consent, and prohibition on nondisclosure obligations imposed by networks. Fox affiliates said FCC should reverse earlier decision not to require dual carriage, saying cable operators had “stranglehold” on DTV transition. As result, affiliates said, “only those companies with significant economic leverage have any chance of securing carriage of their digital signal.” They said DTV must-carry would survive court scrutiny because it was narrowly tailored. If FCC doesn’t think it has authority to impose DTV must-carry, affiliates said, it should ask Congress for legislation. Disney said multicasting was among DTV technologies that would “transform the way consumers relate to and interact with television,” and most recent FCC decision wouldn’t guarantee all multicast channels would be carried on cable: “Unless the Commission alters its present construction of the must-carry statute, consumers likely will be denied the benefits of diverse enhanced digital services that broadcasters otherwise could provide.”

In bid to give national scope to historically local controversies, environmental groups are mounting campaign at FCC to compel more detailed environmental reviews of wireless towers. Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Forest Conservation Council have filed petitions to deny on near-weekly basis at Commission since late March, holding up final approval on 31 sites. Groups also want FCC to not approve future wireless towers until it conducts environmental assessment of its own antenna licensing program. Sudden influx of petitions -- on towers proposed by American Tower, Crown Castle, SBC and others -- appears to be new tactic by groups, which haven’t engaged in such national effort before, sources said. One FCC official said that in last 4 years, only handful of such petitions had been filed, with most centering on historic preservation issues. But recent petitions run much broader gamut, criticizing lack of detail from tower constructors on impacts ranging from migratory bird traffic to potential human health effects from radiofrequency (RF) emissions.

New FCC Cable Bureau Chief Kenneth Ferree said he was focusing first on retooling Bureau to make it more efficient and forming group of staffers to grapple with complex broadband and convergence issues. Questioned in his 3rd floor office at agency hq Thurs., Ferree expressed his aversion to regulating such new cable services as high-speed data and interactive TV (ITV), preferring to let free market rule. He also showed little desire for Commission to intervene in such issues as DTV-cable compatibility standards and copyright protection issues. But he indicated interest in extending and possibly expanding cable program access rules, now set to expire next year.

Media lobbyists were active on Capitol Hill last week as members of Network Affiliated Stations Alliance (NASA) made rounds of congressional leaders seeking support in their fight with Big 4 TV networks to retain 35% TV station ownership cap. One of NASA’s main goals is seeking bipartisan letter from several lawmakers (and perhaps legislation on issue) to FCC Chmn. Powell telling Commission not to “disturb” -- as one lobbyist put it -- cap or increase it to 50% or higher, as sought by networks. Broadcasters were calling on many of same members of Congress also lobbied last week by cable industry in opposition to DTV must-carry (CD May 17 p3). Networks, meanwhile, continued to press for relaxed ownership limits.

FCC is seriously looking into idea of adopting period of regulatory forbearance or creating “safe harbor” for new, cable- related technologies. Departing Cable Bureau Chief Deborah Lathen told us her staff had done “some additional work” on proposal “at the chairman’s request” after she floated general concept at Commission’s Feb. meeting (CD Feb 23 p2). “We've been doing work on forbearance,” she said in interview between clearing out her 3rd floor office at agency hq Wed. “This is food for thought.”

Twenty-four senior cable network executives representing more than 70 channels fanned out over Capitol Hill Wed., lobbying key lawmakers against imposing digital must-carry requirements on cable operators. Meeting with 40 members of Congress, including most members of House and Senate Commerce Committees, cable programmers sought to counter increased lobbying and regulatory push by broadcasters for mandatory dual carriage of analog and digital broadcast signals during current DTV transition. “We know our competitors in the marketplace have been lobbying very actively on the Hill,” said A&E TV Networks Pres. Nick Davatzes, who chairs NCTA’s satellite networks committee. “We haven’t been spending enough time on the Hill.”