State government officials were joined by Bell Atlantic Corp. in supporting a proposal from the state of Connecticut to create a service-specific area code for wireless customers. The rest of the wireless industry opposed the proposal in recent comments filed at the Federal Communications Commission. The Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control has asked the FCC to waive its rules against service-specific overlays and allow it to institute a new area code for customers who subscribe to wireless services.
The Federal Communications Commission is being asked to revise its proposed rules implementing the new universal licensing system because of harmful impacts the new rules would have on some public-safety and private wireless users. In comments filed recently at the FCC, the American Petroleum Institute and public-safety officials from the Washington, D.C., area, said the proposed rules could lead to harmful interference and fraudulent abuse.
The Federal Communications Commission should not impose the same rules on the fiercely competitive commercial mobile radio services industry as it imposes on the monopolistic local wireline industry, several parties told the agency last week in comments filed on the use of customer proprietary network information. CPNI is the data collected by all telephone carriers about their customers. CPNI includes a customer’s name, address and phone number, as well as calling habits comprising who they call and how long they talk.
The House Commerce Committee last week subpoenaed records of Tennessee developer Franklin Haney and several companies he controls in connection with the panel’s investigation of the 20-year, $400 million lease the government signed to relocate the Federal Communications Commission to the Portals. In addition, the Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) said he plans to subpoena records of former Tennessee senator James Sasser, who before becoming U.S. ambassador to China, lobbied for Haney on the Portals project. The committee is expected to issue more subpoenas next week and possibly could set a date for hearings.
