WASHINGTON-Members of an association representing small and minority-owned businesses have banded together with local attorneys and several C-block personal communications services auction winners in a campaign to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to push back the D-, E- and F-block PCS auctions for at...
Does anyone have any common sense any more? (And if they do, are they willing to auction it off to the highest bidder?)While the GOP-led Congress debates what to do with TV channels 60-69-should they auction them, should they keep them for broadcast transmission...
ProNet Inc. paid Motorola Inc.'s Messaging Information and Media Sector $43 million cash for its 931.9 MHz nationwide one-way paging license and associated Embarc system equipment, announced the companies."This nationwide license provides us a great deal of flexibility for expansion purposes as well as...
WASHINGTON-Fifty-eight arts, education and consumer groups signed off on a July 11 letter to five congressmen to "express*...*profound dismay" on their recent letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt advocating free distribution of spectrum to broadcasters.The Center for Media Education, the Media Access...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission's fiscal 1997 budget was frozen at this year's $185.6 million level by the House Commerce Appropriations Committee last week, leaving the agency without the $30 million it sought to relocate its headquarters to The Portals.The FCC budget approved by the...
WASHINGTON-After an explosive beginning to the re-auction of 18 C-block personal communications services licenses, the original pool of bidders decreased last week to seven, and no one bidder is dominant.While there was some thought that the re-auction would be over by last Friday, the...
WASHINGTON-The broadcast auction issue has reappeared on the political radar screen with the same intensity and fanfare that nearly upended the telecommunications reform bill earlier this year.This time around, with that legislation signed into law, the controversy has shifted to the Federal Communications Commission...
NEW YORK-Electric utilities are taking a close look at wireless communications as a means to enhance revenues and operating efficiencies in their recently deregulated and competitive business environment.A variety of wireless opportunities and applications are under review or newly in use among electric power...
Carriers that were big winners during the last 10 years of cellular growth won't necessarily be successful in this new decade of wireless, cautioned John DeFeo, the former leader of U S West NewVector Group Inc."The market has moved," DeFeo said in a recent...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is crafting a politically correct auction plan that would convert TV broadcast spectrum into a launching pad for new wireless telecommunications services.The initiative, briefly mentioned by FCC Chairman Reed Hundt at a Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing last week and...
WASHINGTON-The Associated Public Safety Communications Officials-International Inc. weighed in favor of a possible Federal Communications Commission advanced-television proposal that would reallocate UHF channels 60-69 to the benefit of public-safety radio communications.In a July 1 letter to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, Ronnie Rand, APCO's executive...
Airadigm Communications Inc. is one of the few small business ventures that endured the delays, lawsuits, rule changes and exorbitant bidding prices of the C-block Federal Communications Commission auction for personal communications services and emerged a winner, unscathed and primed to fulfill the entrepreneurial...
Could the obstacle-plagued auction that took forever to start be near its end?It seems so, although a part of me believes the C-block auction for personal communications services will never end.For the record, the C-block auction was originally scheduled to begin in the spring...
WASHINGTON-Federal regulators and the wireless telecommunications industry appear close to a compromise on a hybrid radiofrequency radiation exposure guideline, marking a major policy and lobbying shift that sources attribute to pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency.The hybrid RF standard the Federal Communications Commission plans...
WASHINGTON-A terse, two-line order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave the Federal Communications Commission the go-ahead it needed to begin the July 3 re-auction of 18 defaulted C-block personal communications services licenses.And for C-block giant NextWave Personal...
WASHINGTON-Of the 89 winners of C-block personal communications services licenses last May, only four were singled out by seven other entities who seek to have the Federal Communications Commission either deny their licenses or to institute hearings on their suitability to own spectrum.DCR PCS...
WASHINGTON-The National Paging and Personal Communications Association is leading an effort to challenge new rules that tighten financial requirements for small business bidders in the D, E and F block personal communications services auction scheduled for Aug. 26.The group is weighing several options, including...
WASHINGTON-As expected, Los Angeles specialized mobile radio operator James Kay, with whom the Federal Communications Commission has had a running dispute over 152 licenses since 1994, has petitioned the agency to "reverse and remand" a recent summary judgment against him. Kay has asked for...
Ralph Haller, former Wireless Telecommunications Bureau deputy chief and chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Private Radio Bureau, has been a private citizen for almost a month now, following his retirement June 10 after 25 years of public service. Since his retirement, he has...
If a 911 Public Safety Answering Point agrees to receive 911 calls from phones that have never been activated on a cellular network, wireless operators are obligated to pass the call, according to new government rules.Cellular operators who are not happy about that say...
Bob Foosaner, Nextel Communications Inc.'s regulatory vice president, said something funny to me when we bumped into each other at a recent association regulatory conclave.Apparently, Bob had noticed that the number of reporters covering the sessions had dropped significantly when compared with years past,...
WASHINGTON-Previous Federal Communications Commission auction winners and near winners plus a few new faces were accepted as qualified bidders for the July 3 auction of 18 C-block personal communications services licenses that were taken back from two winners that did not meet their financial...
Oh, the shifting winds of Washington.The bill-and-keep interconnection proposal has been called the greatest issue facing the cellular industry this year. And when the Federal Communications Commission last December an nounced it would propose reforms that would no longer force commercial mobile radio service...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission, growing increasingly concerned about whether proposed wireless-wireline interconnection rules could withstand legal scrutiny, appears ready to change course and address the matter within the context of a broader interconnection rulemaking mandated by the new telecommunications law.The FCC, according to sources,...
