The long-term impact of Hurricane Katrina on most telecom companies is expected to be minimal. Moreover, some companies are expected to benefit from the storm. Equipment vendor Alcatel, for instance, saw its shares rise more than $1 to the $12.75 range in the days following the disaster, partly on investor sentiment that the company would be providing gear to the affected phone companies.
On an ABC special following President Bush's speech from New Orleans, Ted Koppel interviewed two former members of the 9/11 Commission, led by Tom Kean, about emergency preparedness. Kean took the opportunity to push Congress to pass Senator John McCain's SAVE LIVES bill, which calls for the return of broadcasters' analog spectrum by 2009, or 2007 if McCain has his way, in part to turn over to first responders, Kean did not name the bill, but said the lack of spectrum for emergency workers was one of the problems identified by the commission after 9/11 that had not yet been rectified and Congress had yet to act on a bill. Kean and nine other former commissioners held a press conference earlier in the week pushing for return of analog spectrum, and Kean told Koppel Thursday night he thought lives had been lost because of the inability of emergency workers to talk to each other.
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As crews rush to restore basic telephone and Internet services to areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, some executives, academics and analysts are urging a more ambitious approach: Make New Orleans and the surrounding areas super-connected communities, with advanced services that surpass what is available anywhere in the country, if not the world. With many poles and wires reduced to sticks and spaghetti, cell towers down, miles of streets still flooded, and parts of the region uninhabitable for the near future, these experts see the perfect opportunity to deploy new systems that otherwise might be too expensive or disruptive to build. The result, they say, could be a bonanza of higher technology at lower prices for businesses and consumers, more robust emergency-responder systems and an ability to provide high-speed Internet access to poorer segments of the population often left off of the information highway. "The area ought to be a beacon for 21st-century communications in the United States," said Rey Ramsey, chief executive of One Economy Corp., a nonprofit organization that helps bring high-speed Internet service to inner-city communities. "We ought to go state of the art, and state of the art with a purpose."
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FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will propose a new Public Safety/Homeland Security Bureau to "coordinate public safety, national security and disaster management activities within the FCC," he said at the FCC meeting in Atlanta. "The Bureau will develop policies and rules to promote effective and reliable communications for public safety, national security and disaster management," he said. The new Bureau will have responsibility for: (1) Public safety communications, including 911 centers and first responders. (2) Priority emergency communications. (3) Alerts to U.S. citizens. (4) Continuity of government operations. (5) Infrastructure reporting and analysis during emergencies. (6) Disaster outreach. (7) Communications infrastructure protection. (8) Network interoperability and reliability. (9) Network security. The FCC also will provide $211 million in universal service funding to the disaster area, Martin said. "We will work through 4 existing programs to provide this support," Martin said: (1) The Low Income Program will help those who have been cut of to reestablish their communications lines. (2) Using FEMA disaster assistance, the FCC will provide support for wireless handsets and packages of 300 free minutes for hurricane survivors. Those eligible for FEMA disaster assistance also will be eligible for FCC assistance to pay for reconnecting to networks as the affected area is rebuilt. (3) Through the Rural Health Care program, the FCC will support the region’s emergency health care services, doubling discounts on telecom service from 25% to 50%. (4) Via the E-Rate program, the FCC will help reconnect Gulf Coast region schools and libraries. "We will treat schools and libraries struck by the hurricane at the highest level of priority (90%) for Funding Year 2005 and 2006," Martin said: "The Commission can authorize $96 million in E-rate funds for the approximately 600 schools and libraries in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama hit by the hurricane."
(Not available online)
See FCC release: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-261096A1.doc
* Martin Proposes New Public Safety Bureau
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6257329?display=Breaking+News...
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* FCC Eyes USF To Aid In Katrina Relief
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-TUCL1126826735143.html
* FCC Hopes to Learn From Effort to Rebuild
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR200509...
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* FCC Seeks Crisis-Response Changes
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112682715676642336,00.html?mod=todays...
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* F.C.C. Chief Offers Plan to Get Phones to Hurricane Victims
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/business/16phone.html
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* FCC plans $211M to rebuild communications
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20050916/katrinafcc16.art.htm
On Thursday, the FCC held an open meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, hearing from telecom industries affected by Hurricane Katrina. Devastation of the Gulf Coast spurred unusual collaboration among competing communications firms, and sometimes put the FCC in odd roles, such as helping to guard a broadcast station's fuel deliveries. The most emotional testimony came from Gulf Coast area broadcasters, who told of workers wading into alligator-laden swamps to fix generators and of Clear Channel helping to keep Entercom's all news WWL(AM) on the air. Diane Newman, operations dir. of Entercom's WWL(AM) in New Orleans, said her station's joint operation with Clear Channel to broadcast from Baton Rouge was an "unprecedented cooperation between broadcasters." Speakers touched on familiar issues. Hearst-Argyle TV News Vp Fred Young said the Gulf Coast situation made him wonder how there could be push for early return of analog spectrum. During a crisis like this, it's important that all viewers get information, he said. Willis Carter, first vp of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, said more action is needed by government agencies and Congress to protect public safety. Carter told of harrowing experiences as he visited dispatch centers in affected areas. Employees often were living in the centers, working with damaged towers, low fuel and an inability to communicate. He said he saw "devastation and despair" in all of them. Speakers praised the FCC's speedy approval of waivers that legitimized some cooperative efforts, also describing how FCC personnel filled unusual roles, such as finding government security forces to protect employees working in communications facilities. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin used the forum of the meeting to reveal plans to help communications firms and customers and better prepare for the future: 1) Creation of an FCC Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau; 2) Directing $211 million in relief to affected areas through universal service support, working through existing programs such as the high-cost program and E-Rate; and 3) Creation of a panel of public safety and communications industry experts to study Katrina's impact on the communications infrastructure and suggest ways for the FCC to improve disaster preparedness, network reliability and first responders communications.
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See also:
* Bigger Was Better in Katrina, Suggest Media Execs
It was Big Media companies' interconnectedness, vast resources and creative partnerships (the latter may have been called collusion in other circumstances) that helped provide vital local information during Hurricane Katrina's strike and aftermath, several broadcasters told the FCC Thursday.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6257351?display=Breaking+News...
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A recently released University of Connecticut survey says large corporate enterprises believe the proposed $16 billion SBC Communications/AT&T and the $8.5 billion Verizon Communications/MCI mergers will have a "strong negative impact" on pricing, innovation, quality of service and levels of competition in the business telecom marketplace. UC's Center for Survey Research and Analysis (CSRA)  commissioned by the Alliance for Competition in Telecommunications (ACTel) that opposes the "mega-mergers"  says it interviewed 100 telecom managers random-sampled from Fortune 1000 companies "to candidly assess the attitudes of America's largest businesses on the impact of the proposed mergers." The CSRA survey, "Views of The Proposed AT&T/SBC and MCI/Verizon Mergers: From the Perspective of Fortune 1000 AT&T and MCI Customers," was conducted from July 21 to Aug. 22. Of the companies interviewed, 79 percent were AT&T customers and 49 percent were MCI customers. "The most damning aspect of the survey findings is that these fears are expressed by AT&T's and MCI's own customers. This should be a wakeup call for policymakers  the marketplace is not happy with these mergers," says Heather Gold, senior vice president of government relations at competitive carrier XO Communications (a leading member of ACTel).
News Corp. is considering the sale of all its smaller stations -- representing a quarter of its station portfolio -- for as much as $800 million. Such a deal would relieve News Corp. of assets that aren't crucial to its high-margin, big-reach strategy, cut down on overhead, and simplify its operations. The targets are all Fox O&Os outside the top 25 markets. But “small†by News Corp.’s standards doesn't mean they’re all small towns. Included in the potential sale: Kansas City, Mo. (the 31st-largest TV market), Milwaukee (No. 32) and Salt Lake City (36).
[Commentary] Of all the indecency fines levied by the FCC in radio in the years 2000-03, a full 96% were imposed against four of the nation's largest radio-station ownership groups: Clear Channel, Viacom, Entercom and Emmis. Yet those companies owned only 12% of the total radio stations, with a 48% recent share of the national radio audience. In contrast, the 88% of the nation's radio stations not owned by these four station groups, with a combined national audience share of 51%, were responsible for just 4% of FCC indecency violations. The data also show a repeated pattern: Following the elimination of ownership limits in 1996, a local station would be sold to a large station-ownership group, which then eliminated local content and replaced it with an edgy/raunchy show that it produced in another market, causing the station to receive an FCC indecency fine for the first time in its history.
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Operators are experiencing delays in their attempts to transfer ownership of Adelphia Communications Inc. systems to Time Warner Cable in California, where regulators say they need more information before approving the transactions. Local officials use the transfer process to resolve lingering operating issues and Adelphia has a lot of baggage. For example: Fern Taylor, chief of telecommunications franchising for Los Angeles County, which has 13 sizable Adelphia franchises, said officials there want to conclude negotiations over franchise-fee audits before approving a transfer to another operator.
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Local telecom regulators converge in Washington this week for the annual National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors conference amid challenges to their power as the Bells push for national video franchising. A number of bills before Congress this session would crop the authority of local regulators, but NATOA leaders say such measures have sprung up before. NATOA President Coralie Wilson said change in the regulatory landscape is inevitable, but called it a "cheap shot" to say cities are the stumbling block to deployment of advanced services. Concerning rights of way she reminded, "One of the things that people forget is the public rights of way are in my front yard. You can't have the FCC or the state Public Utilities Commission managing it." Congress should recognize that as new services roll out technical and consumer issues will persist: "Who do these folks call if they have a billing problem? Is the FCC going to take these phone calls? I don't think so." Local governments want Congress to give such issues serious consideration before passing laws, she said. Public, educational and government (PEG) access channels have been a key tool for local governments, said Wilson, and they are under threat. SBC and Verizon have been pushing at the state level to eliminate not only local franchising but also support for PEG, she said. "They appear to be pursuing that goal at the federal level" as well, she said. "I hope that we will be able to impress upon leaders in Washington how important it is to preserve PEG."
(Not available online)
For more info on the NATOA conference, see:
http://www.natoa.org/bottom_frameset.html?go=conference
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