FCC

What Twitter Told Me This Week

February 10, 2012

I get a lot of articles off twitter. Too many to write about all of them so I am just going to drop some on you here.

Please be advised that the FUSF rate for Q1 of 2012 has increased from 15.3% to 17.9%. For further information regarding FUSF Fees and rates please see the FCC website.

RebTel is #2 behind Skype with 15M users doing 2 billion minutes of international calling. [venturebeat]

Both Florida state and federal lawmakers are trying to overturn the NFL blackout rules.

Posted in CLEC, FCC, mpls, twitter, unified communications, voip

FCC is Busy!

February 7, 2012

The FCC is really busy!

The FCC is still working on Inter-Carrier Compensation. It ordered Rural Call Completion.

It approved TWC's $3B bid for Insight. "Time Warner Cable last August agreed to buy Insight for $3 billion in cash. The nation's No.

Posted in CLEC, FCC, broadband, cableco, compliance, politics, spectrum

FCC Rules on Rural

February 7, 2012

Following Congress sending him a letter, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has finally issued a ruling on Rural Call Completion [pdf].

ATIS and NTCA have been hounding the FCC as complaints went from about 100 a month in 2009 to over 1000 a month in late 2010. A group of them sent a letter to the FCC [pdf], which stated:

"the Rural Representatives identified a variety of concerns, including but not limited to: (1) calls that ring for the calling party, but not at all or on a delayed basis for the called customer of the RLEC; (2) calling parties who receive incorrect or misleading message interceptions before the call ever reaches the RLEC or the tandem it subtends; (3) calls that appear to "loop" between routing providers, but never reach the RLEC or the tandem it subtends; and (4) incorrect caller ID that displays to called parties."

Many carriers point the finger at their underlying network operator - another carrier that they dump the rural traffic on. MagicJack and Google Voice have a reputation for not completing calls to high expense rural areas.

The underlying problem is Inter-Carrier Compensation. Rural telcos not only get USF funds to operate, but also get many pennies per minute for call termination.

Posted in FCC, telco, wireline

It's a Mobile Monday

January 30, 2012

It's a mobile Monday as I get set to pack up to head to ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami Beach.

Yahoo was being Yahoo! this morning as it announced - in the same breath - that it has launched a "Mobile First" mindset, then shut down 10 mobile apps. Granted, some of them were not doing well (like Yahoo itself), but it's schizophrenic to do it on the same day.

Patent house Klausner Technologies sues MetroPCS for Visual Voicemail Infringement. That's always fun - and profitable for the patent house. Hopefully, in this case, it doesn't mess up the consumers' experiences.

AT&T is now supporting DISH Network at the FCC on its deployment and usage of spectrum in the 2 GHz range that it acquired from bankruptcy court via TerreStar Networks and DBSD North America.

Posted in FCC, apps, cellular, politics, spectrum, wimax, wireless

The Lightsquared Predicament

January 9, 2012

Lightsquared is facing numerous obstacles on its way to launching a nationwide (*cough*cough*) 4G network with its spectrum.

One obstacle: MONEY! Sprint gave them until next month to start or lose the Sprint investment (which Sprint needs to continue to fund Clearwire).

2nd obstacle: GPS! Studies show that the spectrum - which abuts the GPS spectrum - interferes with GPS about 70% of the time.

3rd obstacle: Congress. A new Defense bill in Congress will make it harder for Lightsquared to use the spectrum. The bill requires the FCC to wait until all issues with interference are cleared up. That could take a while - if ever, since no one checks power output on radio transmissions.

Posted in FCC, cellular, spectrum, wireless

Lots of News (I Can't Cover in Detail)

December 5, 2011

Dag Peak explains the difference between BroadTouch and BroadCloud by BSFT.

That Carrier IQ key logging software has Sprint and AT&T caught in lawsuits. This privacy issue reminds me of the cigarette suits -- keep suing and when you win one, you crack the whole thing open and huge sweeping change must follow. So lawyers start your engines and get out those lawsuits! (Like I have to tell you to.)

Obama names new FCC nominees for Senate approval. Copps is term limited and Meredith Baker left for a lucrative job at Comcast! (No conflict of interest there, just part of the revolving door in DC.)

CenturyLink adds broadband caps to compete better with Cox, who does too.

I'm still working on my blog post about this: FCC Releases Connect America Fund Order, Reforms USF/ICC for Broadband

It's a week where SAP feels like Ron Paul, because its cloud acquisition got about 90 seconds of space.

Posted in FCC, broadband, broadsoft, politics, privacy

A Bad Day for AT&T

November 30, 2011

The FCC released its order today declaring that the AT&T-T-Mobile merger was not good for consumer, public good or competition. And AT&T was not pleased that the FCC released the Staff Analysis - all 157 pages of it.

AT&T probably didn't like Commissioner Copps blasting them for wasting serious staff hours and expense analyzing this transaction over the last 7 months.

The findings - in summary - are as follows:

The big 1: this merger would put control of cellular - 75% - in the hands of 2 carriers.

There are "substantial and material" questions about its competitive effects on roaming, wholesale, and resale services, backhaul, and handsets.

It would likely NOT produce jobs, despite AT&T claims. (When has a merger resulted in job creation? How about some perjury charges for these claims!)

"Here is something else worth highlighting: T-Mobile has built a business model targeting budget-conscious consumers. "With lower-income consumers increasingly thinking of mobile as their only broadband service, and with no guarantee the new entity will continue to serve this population, many consumers may find themselves priced right out of broadband.

Posted in FCC, cellular, mergers, wireless

AT&T Sneaks One In

November 27, 2011

AT&T sneaks in a note that says they set aside $4B for a break-up fee during the Thanksgiving break. AT&T withdrew its petition from the FCC as they wait to see what happens with the DOJ and the lawsuit.

UPDATE:

AT&T is in a tiff with the FCC over the merger application withdrawal. The FCC may not let them withdraw it now. This should be interesting.

Posted in FCC, mergers, politics

Do You Need an Audit?

November 4, 2011

The FCC wouldn't have spent so much time this year on Bill Shock if it wasn't a growing problem. The other billing problem is cramming or third party billing to your phone bill. Again so big that the FCC had to workshop the issue after three dockets - 09-158, 11-116, 98-170 (from 1998!!).

Members of the Society for Telecommunications Consultants perform audits, assessments and even TEM (telecom expense management). Agents (and VAR's) should be offering audits and assessments as a way to break into a prospect.

Posted in FCC, agents

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