If you’re in Pittsburgh, you’ll have you chance to join the masses donning torches and pitchforks to attend an FCC forum on July 21st. I wish the Thirdpipe team could attend, but we are in fly over country in Texas (we would attend if someone wanted to sponsor our trip). For those of you who can, we encourage you to attend and  let the commissioners know that they are not serving your interests.

 The FCC has announced (pdf) that they’ll be holding a public hearing on “broadband and the digital future” on July 21, at 4PM EST, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The FCC has recently held hearings on network neutrality at both Harvard University and Stanford University. This particular hearing will instead focus on competition and broadband deployment. (Broadband Reports)

Ruuuh-Roooh is right! The FCC has handed Verizon the equivalent of a cease and desist order on customer retention efforts. It was not a suggestion, or even a tradeoff. It is stop or we the FCC will find some appropriate action –

No more letters. No more presents. No more anything.

The federal government, speaking on behalf of former Verizon phone service customers, yesterday sent the communications company a stern message: Stop trying to woo back those consumers who have opted for a new provider. They’ve moved on.

Verizon had been using its proprietary data to contact former customers and try to persuade them to give the company another try. But a majority of members of the Federal Communications Commission yesterday said such practices are illegal and infringe a consumer’s privacy.

“Today we carry out Congress’s unambiguous mandate to protect consumer privacy,” said Robert M. McDowell, a Republican commissioner. Two Democratic and two Republican commissioners voted against Chairman Kevin J. Martin, a Republican. The chairman had pushed for the agency to rule that Verizon’s use of phone numbers to contact its departing customers was legal, despite complaints from cable service operators.

Verizon yesterday evening requested a stay on the FCC decision.

It is surprising in its action. The FCC usually does not have the commissioners issuing action statements like this. That is usually handled as a parliamentary action by the enforcement bureau. Not only that but issues of customer interaction is not generally handled by the FCC either. So for all these forces to converge in this means that there are many complaints on file and some serious pressure on the Commission from the Hill.

I take this two ways. First, glad to see the Commission act for once rather than worry about political aftershocks. They appear to be taking a consumer oriented action. Second, I have concerns here. The primary one being the primacy of free choice in contract law. If a parting customer wishes to hear the retention pitch, its their right.

The crux of course is Verizon overplayed its hand for sure. If having tendered an offer the parting customer say ‘No’. That should be the end of it. Not the continued barrage of emails and letters. The cable guys should not be to overjoyed by this either. For once having spoken the Commission will have to promulgate rules to support the action. Most likely they will apply to them as well as the Telcos. To do otherwise will run foul of 14th Amendment provisions. Oh, an you can fully expect Verizon to run this into the 1st DC Appeals.

More here.

The FCC demurs on the request by the MPAA to extend the comments period. We have till July 30 for further comment. For the MPAA this is a a crucial step for being prepared to bypass the channel providers. Eliminating the SOC provisions permit them to offer services to direct. Request here.

Wonder how many takers they will have that in the same period the MPAA is trying to strip the viewers of their rights. Linky. Personally I would not spend a dime if the MPAA attempts that in the courts.

We reported that AT&T got out of the payphone business last year. Well Verizon is getting out of the Calling Card business this year.

Applicants: Verizon California Inc., Verizon North Inc., Verizon Northwest Inc., Verizon South Inc., and GTE Southwest Incorporated (d/b/a Verizon Southwest)

On May 21, 2008, Verizon California Inc., located at 112 Lakeview Canyon Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362; Verizon North Inc., located at 8001 West Jefferson Boulevard, Fort Wayne, IN 46804; Verizon Northwest Inc., located at 1800 41st Street, Everett, WA 98201; Verizon South Inc., located at 201 N. Franklin St., One Tampa City Center, Tampa, FL 33602; and GTE Southwest Incorporated (d/b/a Verizon Southwest), located at 600 Hidden Ridge, HQE04H12, Irving, TX 75038 (collectively Verizon or Applicants), filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) requesting authority, under section 214 of the communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. § 214, and section 63.71 of the Commission’s rules, 47 C.F.R. § 63.71, to discontinue the provision of certain domestic telecommunications services in Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, areas of Pennsylvania within Verizon North Inc.’s operating territory, and areas of Virginia within Verizon South Inc.’s operating territory.

Anyone who is an insider knows that the areas affected are fGTE territories. Is this a big shucks in the telecom industry? Eh, not really. The cards were designed as a convenience factor in support of pay phone use. (I know, I was on the design team.) We of course know where the pay phone biz has gone in the era of cell phones.

FCC filing here.

Only a hyper arrogant government bureaucracy would actually be willing to admit to such an irrelevant shift in policy. The fact is that 768KBPS is so far away from the world class standard for broadband this calls into question the ability for said agency to serve competently as the regulating body for this market. Rather than being good public servants, the agency is once again proving themselves to be good lap dogs for the duopoly.

The FCC has shifted the definition of broadband from 200kbps to 768kbps, probably not as high as it should be, but a vast improvement. The agency says they’ll also start tracking both downstream and upstream speeds and will scrap the zip code tracking methodology for more substantive census-track level reporting. Carriers still won’t be required to release data on the prices they charge for different speeds. (Broadband Reports)

Commissioner Martin is pushing ahead with offering up a free tier radio spectrum. We don’t see how the plan works as tendered but we applaud the effort. They have had to delay the vote but he intends to push ahead –

“The chairman remains committed to advancing a proposal that will provide a broadband lifeline for Americans who currently do not have Internet access on what would be a portion of the band that would provide that service for free,” said an FCC spokesman. Martin has been a target of criticism because the U.S. trails more than a dozen countries in broadband penetration.

The agency spokesman added: “The chairman also believes that more time is needed to examine concerns on the interference issue, but he does not agree with some critics who are pushing for an interference standard that is more cumbersome than the restrictions that were set forth for both the AWS-1 spectrum and the 700 MHz spectrum in those respective auctions. The plan is to include this item on a July open meeting agenda and thereafter set auction rules and commence an auction perhaps as early as December 2008.”

Martin had planned to vote on rules to auction frequencies at 2175-2180 MHz and 2155-2175 MHz — advanced wireless service bands 2 and 3 — at the June 12 open meeting. The spectrum is adjacent to AWS-1 spectrum auctioned by the FCC in 2006. T-Mobile USA Inc., the smallest of the four national wireless carriers, was the top bidder in that auction after purchasing 120 licenses for nearly $4.2 billion. The carrier recently launched AWS I (1.7 GHz/2.1 GHz) operations in New York and plans to rollout service in that band in other markets as well this year.

Now T-Mobile raises some proper concerns on guard bands. We have suggested this before. Like we have said before — open it up Martin! Put some minor restrictions as to power usage and proper spread spectrum rules and maybe even a split of the band logistically. But in return the Commission gains a few advantages — a) We will stop b!@@#$#@ about it b) The legal entanglement of the old guard bands/white space issue will disappear. c) I will force some level of down pressure on competition for other wireless services.

More here.

Art Earl, director of strategic development at the tech firm Hypres in Elmsford, N.Y., offered an outside-the-box idea in an FCC proceeding in which everything is on the table for discussion.

“My idea is for the government to deregulate the 700 MHz band and just give it away for a few years for small businesses to develop new revolutionary technologies and give the U.S. a technology booster shot without spending any money,” Earl said. “If you have to compromise on deregulation, then perhaps only devices blessed by the PSST and FCC could be used at this frequency range. This will help stimulate innovation in a significant and meaningful way and perhaps pave the way for the U.S. to re-emerge as a significant global power in broadband wireless. Look at how much the prior deregulation of 5 GHz and 2 GHz bands have stimulated the economy.”

Actually I could support that kind of plan. Especially if the FCC is going to continue with any sort of private-public stupidity like the last auction. Fact I would go so far as to recommend the following –

Three Bands —

• One Opened but licensed band for any sort of experimentation/development.
• A guard band.
• A closed license band for Metro - Public service use.

Doing it this way solves a lot of problems. The Commission avoids a nasty legal battle with the NAB. US industry/inventors get a band to develop new technologies with given appropriate power and spectrum usage. The Metro wireless might get a new lease on life. The convenient factor is that most of the first responder orgs are city departments for the most part anyway. Using spread spectrum technology and appropriate software it would be quite possible to leverage the use of the band for both public and private use.

More at RCR.

This 3 panel cartoon more than all the words spilt over Net Neutrality, IP law and Copyright encapsulates all that is wrong with the law giving in this area. They know not what they are doing and should have left well enough alone years ago.

If at first you don’t succeed, ask for more feedback. Or at least that is how the FCC is proceeding with the reauctioning of the ‘D’ block that did not sell the first time around. But that is not a knock, but how the FCC must proceed as a Congressional functionary in the Federal Space.

If you want to chime in here’s where you start. If you have been following our postion, you know of course that we think the auction route is not the best interests of the US populace.

Value City and Toy’s r Us have been fined $216k and $248K respectively for failure to place stickers on analog TV sets that they won’t operate next February. You have to sell a heck of a lot of TV’s to overcome the loss of revenue from these kind of foopahs. Clearly the stores were not following the rules which at this point are pretty clear. Most of the retail industry is well aware of the requirements.

Target question is — will those fined sue if the Commission has to delay for 6 months to a year when the DTV transition blows up in their face? My other question is why has the Commission not banned the importation of analog sets and driven the fines up the food chain? These retailers are getting the TV’s from somewhere right?

Value City.
Toys R Us.