Fierce

Verizon is defending a protest to a Federal Communications Commission request that the company should be allowed to notify wholesale and retail customers of copper retirement plans by providing them an electronic hyperlink instead of a paper copy. In December, Verizon petitioned the FCC to clarify its copper retirement notification requirements by confirming that telcos can provide interconnection partners and local public utility commissions a paper copy of the notice and a hyperlink to a searchable online list of addresses or locations where copper is to be retired in lieu of a paper copy of the address list.

Cohen, Dippell and Everist (CDE), a Washington (DC) telecom and engineering firm, raised concerns that the rise in cyberattacks could put electronic notifications of copper retirement in danger. “This firm and I as an individual have a long and continuous association with Verizon and if and when Verizon makes a decision for copper retirement it should do it at the minimum by mail to that individual,” said Donald Everist, President and Secretary of CDE, in an FCC filing. “If Verizon wishes to complement the notice of copper by other modern communication venues also with the notice by mail, then Verizon is free to do so.”

Carolyn Tatum Roddy, an Atlanta-based telecom attorney, has been named as the latest member of President-elect Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission transition team. Her name appeared on Trump’s landing team page which is updated periodically with names of potential candidates for various cabinet positions.

Roddy comes to the transition team with plenty of telecom regulatory experience, working at the FCC, service providers and for various private practice law firms that specialize in communications issues. Previously, she served as an attorney at the FCC for 12 years. During her tenure with the regulator, Roddy represented the FCC in rulemaking, licensing, tariff and enforcement proceedings related to wireline, wireless and public safety communications. Roddy also has service provider regulatory experience, having served in a stint as regional regulatory counsel for Sprint in the Southeast. Additionally, Roddy served as counsel at Troutman Sanders, LLP in Atlanta and director of regulatory affairs for the Satellite Industry Association in Washington, D.C. She is a registered mediator and an adjunct professor of administrative law at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School.

Verizon’s move to kill smartphone subsidies and raise activation and upgrade fees will increase profit margins, according to analysts, but it risks losing customers and lowering ARPU. The nation’s largest mobile network operator confirmed last week that it will kill subsidies and two-year service contracts to new and existing customers, and instead will require all customers to sign up for its equipment installment plan. Verizon also raised its activation and upgrade fees from $20 to $30. Handset subsidies from carriers have plummeted precipitously in recent years as operators have moved away from contracts in favor of installment plans and leasing models for phones. Subsidies represented roughly 30% of phone sales last year, according to UBS, down from 46% in 2015 and 82% in 2014.

“With this move, we estimate just 10% to 15% of sales (representing business subs) will be subsidized going forward,” UBS Analyst John Hodulik wrote in a research note to investors Wednesday. “Verizon also increased its activation/upgrade fee to $30 from $20. We believe these moves will allow Verizon to maintain 2017 margins at similar levels to 2016 vs. our prior expectations for a decline. However, it will likely pressure subscriber trends as churn increases, aiding T-Mobile and Sprint efforts to take share.”

Things are looking up for Globalstar these days, with several former critics now supporting its revised proposal for providing Terrestrial Low Power Service (TLPS) and the Federal Communications Commission circulating a new proposed order among commissioners. After years in the making, Globalstar reversed course and on Nov 9 submitted a revised plan, asking for permission to use its 11.5 megahertz of satellite spectrum at 2483.5-2495 MHz to offer low-power terrestrial broadband services, dropping plans for a 22 MHz Wi-Fi Channel 14. Nearby 2.5 GHz spectrum holder Sprint was among those who expressed support for the revisions. Since then, the Wi-Fi Alliance, NCTA, CableLabs and Entertainment Software Association (ESA) have said Globalstar’s latest revisions appear to satisfy their objections.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is calling on global industry leaders, policymakers and academia to coalesce in a neutral forum to move 5G forward. The purpose of the IEEE 5G Initiative is to engage professionals worldwide to work to solve the challenges associated with 5G and lay the foundation to realize its many opportunities, according to the organization. Volunteers from both industry and academia are being sought as several working groups are being established.

“5G is not only evolutionary, providing higher bandwidth and lower latency than current-generation technology; more importantly, 5G is revolutionary, in that it is expected to enable fundamentally new applications with much more stringent requirements in latency and bandwidth," said Ashutosh Dutta, co-chair of the 5G initiative and lead member of the technical staff at AT&T. “5G should help solve the last-mile/last-kilometer problem and provide broadband access to the next billion users on earth at much lower cost because of its use of new spectrum and its improvements in spectral efficiency.”

Verizon’s ongoing copper retirement efforts may be controversial, but the telecommunication company says the process would be more efficient if it could provide the notifications electronically. In a recent Federal Communications Commission filing, Verizon asked the regulator to clarify its copper retirement notification requirements by confirming that telcos can provide interconnection partners and local public utility commissions a paper copy of the notice and a hyperlink to a searchable online list of addresses or locations where copper is to be retired in lieu of a paper copy of the address list. Verizon has also petitioned the FCC to waive any requirement that any affected party be served with a paper address list when providers instead provide a copy of the notice and a hyperlink to a searchable online list.

However, Verizon said that will “continue to send paper copies of its copper retirement notifications, excluding the address lists, to state public utility commissions, state governors, tribal entities, the Secretary of Defense, and all interconnecting entities operating in the state in which the copper retirement will occur.”

Verizon plans to offer Lifeline-supported broadband services where it offers FiOS service today, but the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) says the telecommunication company's efforts don’t go far enough. The NHMC says Verizon should offer Lifeline-enabled broadband throughout its entire footprint. “While this is a good first step, NHMC believes Verizon must better serve its low-income customers by expanding its Lifeline broadband service to its entire broadband footprint and not only where it offers FiOS,” said the NHMC.

In a filing Verizon issued earlier in Dec, the company said it plans to offer Lifeline-based broadband in FiOS areas starting in the middle of 2017 to address the broadband “affordability challenge.” “We hope that providing qualifying low-income Americans with the choice to use their Lifeline benefit for our eligible broadband Internet access services will help address this affordability challenge and will be another useful step towards closing the remaining digital divide,” Verizon said. However, the issue is that Verizon, along with other large telecommunication and cable companies AT&T and Charter, sought forbearance of Lifeline broadband Internet access service (BIAS) requirements.

CenturyLink says a request from a consortium of parties, including Microsoft, to extend E-Rate services to rural students' homes is not in line with the way the statute was written. The telecommunication company said in an Federal Communications Commission filing that if the FCC granted the petitions, the regulator would actually cause more harm than good to the E-Rate program. “Despite good intentions, however, the petitions to use E-rate funded bandwidth without cost allocation would be inconsistent with the statute, raise too many problems, create too many distortions, and create too many risks for the E-rate program,” CenturyLink said. “The petitions also cannot be granted by the Bureau on delegated authority, but need review and rulemaking by the full commission.”

T-Mobile US CFO Braxton Carter cheered the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, arguing that less regulation—including the dismantling of the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules—and less onerous corporate taxes would be “positive for my industry.” However, Carter declined to address a potential merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, a transaction that industry observers have speculated may be possible under a Trump White House. “It’s hard to imagine, with the way the election turned out, that we’re not going to have an environment, from several aspects, that is not going to be more positive for my industry,” Carter said. “I think that it’s very clear that there’s going to be less regulation. And less regulation—regulation often destroys innovation and value creation.”

[Commentary] AT&T is likely going to win the right to provide the nation’s first broadband network dedicated to public safety. FirstNet hasn’t officially announced anything yet, and no doubt it needs to let court proceedings run their course. But ultimately, it means AT&T could win a 25-year contract to use 20 megahertz of 700 MHz beachfront spectrum and $6.5 billion for designing and operating the nationwide network for federal, state and local authorities, with the right to sell excess capacity on the system.

It’s anybody’s guess what the incoming administration in Washington, D.C., will mean for the organization and its lofty goals. FirstNet has come a long way, and it’s still got a long way to go. But finally hearing a likely winner emerging is encouraging after FirstNet’s long-fought battle.