March 2011

The Federal Communications Commission has sent a letter to the National Exchange Carrier Association requesting certain basic data related to universal service and intercarrier compensation. NECA, created by the FCC as the national administrator of pooled interstate exchange carrier revenues, is uniquely situated to provide the Commission with key data to evaluate proposed universal service and intercarrier compensation reforms.

The FCC is requesting six categories of data:

1. Interstate switched access revenues, expenses, and minutes of use, reported annually for the period from 2008 to 2010 and broken out by carrier, by study area, by rate element, and by originating and terminating access.
2. Stratification of residential line counts by monthly local retail rate for year end 2010, by carrier.
3. Intrastate switched access revenues, expenses, and minutes of use, reported annually for the period from 2008 to 2010 and broken out by carrier, by study area, by rate element, and by originating and terminating access.
4. Reciprocal compensation revenues, expenses, and minutes of use, reported annually for the period from 2008 to 2010 and broken out by carrier by study area and by rate element.
5. Additional carrier-specific annual data from 2008 to 2010 detailing: local revenue, federal USF revenue, state USF revenue, interstate special access revenue, intrastate special access revenue, NECA settlement revenue, other regulated revenue, total regulated revenue, video revenue, Internet revenue (retail broadband), long distance revenue, other non-regulated revenue, total non-regulated revenue, year end penetration rates for video, Internet, and long-distance services
6. Data on long-term debt by carrier, broken out by lender, detailing: original amount, original term, interest rate, remaining balance, remaining term, annual interest, and principal payments.

The FCC is asking that NECA provide the data, in the level of granularity and specificity requested, no later than April 6, 2011.

The Public Safety Alliance will be on Capitol Hill March 30 testifying in support of a bill (HR 607) that would authorize paying broadcasters to give up spectrum as a way to free it up for auctions that would, in turn, help pay for a national interoperable broadband network.

The hearing, "Public Safety Communications: Are the needs of our First Responders being met?" is in the House Homeland Security Committee, and the alliance's answer will be: Not until you create this network, which some have been pushing for since not long after 9/11, almost a decade ago. Members of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, National Sheriffs' Association and the International Association of Fire Chiefs will together "implore" Congress to pass the bill, and do so before the Sept. 11 10-year anniversary of the attacks.

In newly uncovered audio, a Fox News executive boasts that he lied repeatedly during the closing days of the 2008 presidential campaign when he speculated on-air "about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism."

Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to "socialism" as "mischievous speculation." Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that "privately" he had believed that the socialism allegation was "rather far-fetched." Sammon's "mischief" wasn't limited to his on-air appearances. As Media Matters reported, Sammon also pushed Fox News colleagues to play the socialism card. On October 27, 2008, Sammon sent an email to staffers highlighting what he described as "Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists" in his 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father. Shortly after sending the email, Sammon appeared on two Fox News programs to discuss his research and also wrote a FoxNews.com piece about Obama's "affinity to Marxists." On October 14, 2008, Sammon said that Obama's "spread the wealth around" remark "is red meat when you're talking to conservatives and you start talking about 'spread the wealth around.' That is tantamount to socialism."

In an interview, Sammon says his reference to "mischievous speculation" was "my probably inartful way of saying, 'Can you believe how far this thing has come?'" The socialism question indeed "struck me as a far-fetched idea" in 2008. "I considered it kind of a remarkable notion that we would even be having the conversation." He doesn't regret repeatedly raising it on the air because, Sammon says, "it was a main point of discussion on all the channels, in all the media"--and by 2009 he was "astonished by how the needle had moved." Sammon notes that in the same talk on the cruise, he pointed out that George W. Bush had his own stimulus package and had spent half the TARP bailout money: "I was talking about both sides being big spenders." (True; he also told the cruise guests that "when it comes to spending money, Obama makes Bush look like a piker.")

A new deal with Cox Business and OSHEAN, a consortium of Rhode Island anchor institutions, illustrates what could be a new opportunity for cable operators.

OSHEAN, which previously acted as a connectivity buying consortium for member organizations, won a $21.7 million broadband stimulus grant to build a 350-mile high-speed network to interconnect anchor institutions throughout the state -- and the position of Cox Business as the incumbent cable operator serving 98% of the state was a big advantage in helping the company win the business. Cox Business competed against other network operators to win the OSHEAN business but had a cost advantage over those competitors because it already has ductwork and rights of way throughout the state. The primary targets for the broadband stimulus program were remote areas that lacked broadband or had broadband available only at low speeds -- and Rhode Island might not appear to fit that target. But OSHEAN won the stimulus award because “the problem was affordable bandwidth,” said Mark Scott, New England vice president for Cox Business. The OSHEAN network will have 48 strands and will pass through 38 of 39 cities in Rhode Island. Construction is scheduled to begin in May and to be completed in the spring of 2013. The agreement includes an initial 20-year indefeasible right of use (IRU) contract that can be extended for up to 40 years. Cox will be responsible for physical maintenance and cable upgrades.