The record developed so far supports the wisdom of the FCC’s proposal to permit personal/portable unlicensed operations in a 6 MHz channel of the duplex gap after the TV incentive auction, Google said in comments filed in docket 12-268. Opponents of unlicensed devices in the gap make some wrong assumptions in pointing to potential problems, Google said. Opponents “assume unjustifiable receiver-sensitivity levels,” fail to take account of expected attenuation and “arbitrarily handicap LTE performance to suggest" LTE devices "are more susceptible to interference than real devices,” Google said.
NCTA said on its policy blog it's “particularly puzzled” by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s comments to congressional committees that cable companies are blocking access to utility poles by competitors. “For starters, cable operators are not denying access to poles" and often "do not even own poles,” the post said Thursday. “Rather, like other competitors, they attach their facilities to poles owned by electric utilities and telephone companies. We are unaware of any case where a cable operator has denied pole access to another company and it is unfortunate that the Chairman continues to suggest otherwise.” NCTA said also the net neutrality order would allow pole owners to “demand higher pole rental fees from cable broadband providers.” The agency didn't comment.
Representatives of CTIA disputed arguments by Google, NCTA, Federated Wireless and various public interest groups that the FCC should “effectively bar” LTE-unlicensed from the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. The FCC is moving toward final rules for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band and tweaking its rules after several comment rounds (see 1502050049). In meetings with officials from the FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, a filing in docket 12-354 said, CTIA said: “It is not the agency’s role to make technology choices. LTE-U is a promising new technology and one possible solution that does not preclude other air interface solutions that meet the FCC’s technical requirements.” The order also should support devices that are tunable across the 3.5 GHz band and encourage investment by Priority Access Licenses that pay for better access to the band, it said.
The FTC “halted two Canada-based schemes that defrauded small businesses and nonprofits” in the U.S. by billing them for “unwanted listings in online ‘yellow pages’ business directories,” said a commission news release Thursday. Commissioners unanimously voted in favor of a proposed stipulated order for permanent injunction and monetary judgment against Oni Nathifa Julien and several of her companies, which contacted organizations “under the guise of confirming contact information in a directory” and then billing the organization $479.95 or more. If the invoice was disputed, the defendants would use deceptive collection tactics such as “playing altered or incomplete audio recordings to give the false impression that an employee of the organization had authorized a directory listing,” the FTC said. Julien is prohibited from misrepresenting any good or service and from collecting money from past customers or profiting from or keeping their personal information. The $3 million judgment against Julien was suspended due to her inability to pay. Julien could not be reached for comment. The commission also unanimously voted in favor of authorizing staff to file a complaint against American Yellow Browser; American Yellow Group; Distribution H.E.P., also doing business as American Yellow Distribution and Medical Yellow Directories; Official Yellow Guide; Publication A.A.P., also d/b/a All American Pages and Official Yellow Guide; Publication A.Y.B., also d/b/a American Yellow Browser, American Yellow Group and All American Pages; Publications A.Y.D.; Ivan Chernev, also d/b/a American Yellow Corp., General Credit Protection and Credit Bureau Recovery; and German Lebedev, also d/b/a American Yellow Directories, for sending unsolicited invoices for $480.95 or more for a one-year directory listing. The invoice named someone from the targeted organization and showed the listing as it was to appear in a directory, and suggested someone had previously agreed to buy the listing, the FTC said. “Those who ignored the invoices received more of them with statements such as ‘COLLECTION WARNING’ and ‘LAST CHANCE TO PROTECT YOUR CREDIT SCORE IN GOOD STANDING!!!’” and were asked to pay larger amounts such as $2,385.95. Those who refused to pay were sent dunning notices from the defendants, who posed as third-party debt collector General Credit Protection.
NTIA’s proposed exclusion zones for the 3.5 GHz band remain overly conservative, even after being dialed down considerably, Michael Calabrese, director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project, told us Thursday. NTIA recently filed at the FCC documents proposing much smaller “exclusion zones” along the coast than previously for the band, targeted by the FCC for sharing and small cells (see 1503250062). “Since the original exclusion zones assumed transmissions 1,000 times more powerful, shrinking them is simple common sense,” Calabrese said. But even these smaller zones make the 3.5 GHz band less commercially viable, he said. “The Navy told us their primary interference concern is a cumulative rise in the noise floor, within sight of the coastline, which can occur only from widespread and dense deployment of the very low-power, Wi-Fi like devices FCC is authorizing,” he said. “ Because this will take years, and because the geolocation database system governing minute-to-minute access to the band can limit the number of devices authorized to transmit within sight of Navy radar, it’s likely that passive sensing tied to the database will be deployed long before the noise floor endangers naval radar. In short, these exclusion zones are unnecessary and unduly restrictive.” Calabrese is a longtime member of the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee.
Comments are due April 24, replies May 11 on The Compliance Group’s Jan. 27 petition for a declaratory ruling to clarify the exemption for systems integrators from USF contribution obligations, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Tuesday. It said Compliance wants a clarification on whether the exemption applies to the resale or provision of interconnected VoIP when resold or provisioned by a systems integrator.
Comcast now expects government review of its proposed buy of Time Warner Cable to be completed in mid- 2015, said Executive Vice President David Cohen at the Center for Media Law and Policy of the University of North Carolina Tuesday, according to a blog post on Comcast’s website. “Given the FCC's recent decision to pause the shot clock, we have recently reassessed the time frame,” Cohen said. Comcast will continue to describe the public interest benefits of the deal while it waits for the review to be completed, Cohen said.
The American Cable Association isn’t inconvenienced by Senior Vice President Ross Lieberman being blocked from access to confidential information connected to Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV deals, said a joint filing from content companies. Lieberman can’t look at confidential information on the deals because of an objection that the content companies, including CBS, Disney and Viacom, filed against his seeing video programming confidential information. The structure of the FCC protective order for the deals means those blocked from VPCI are also blocked from other levels of confidential information, attorneys have told us. ACA has nine other representatives who are able to access the information, the content companies said. Though ACA had pointed to a Comptel in-house counsel's being allowed access to the information as evidence that Lieberman’s blocking was unfair, the content companies said they refrained from blocking the Comptel lawyer because the matter is connected with a pending U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision. “If the Court-ordered stay is lifted, the Content Companies expressly reserve the right to assert appropriate objections to any request to access VPCI filed while the stay was in place,” said the content companies.
The FCC’s “erratic” recent history with broadband reporting could have consequences for the national broadband map, NCTA said in a blog post Wednesday. It pointed to the agency’s shift from defining broadband as 4/1 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps as evidence of the commission’s lack of consistency in broadband reporting. “Inconsistent and spotty reporting using an ever-shifting set of metrics is hardly conducive to sound analysis,” NCTA said. It challenged FCC credibility in broadband reporting. “Under Section 706, the FCC has an interest in highlighting problems rather than successes because the statute gives the FCC authority to take immediate action if it reaches a negative finding in its annual report,” NCTA said. The open Internet order and the new Broadband Opportunities Council “mark a new level of government involvement in the operation of the broadband marketplace,” NCTA said. The White House created the council to spur broadband investment and adoption, it said Monday (see 1503230064).“With increased government oversight and participation comes an increased responsibility for government to be a resource for factual and impartial data.”
The FCC should file the results to proceedings on the terrestrial low-power service demonstrations held at the agency’s Technology Experience Center in March, said Gerst Capital in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 13-213. Those TLPS measurement results should include resolution bandwidth, video bandwidth, center frequency and frequency span, Gerst said. The measurements are required to “validate Globalstar’s claim that all devices will only require ‘firmware modifications’ to support TLPS,” the letter said. It said the measurements could impair channel 14/TLPS, which would bring the claim into question. If the problem does exist at the access point, it will exist for almost any LTE-enabled smartphone, too, Gerst said. Globalstar has said Gerst is a short-seller that profits from creating doubt, and defended its tests (see 1503230030).