Telecom Policy Report articles from November 2004

Telecom Policy Report archives from November 2004

Another Rural LEC Group Pushes IC Reform.
November 3, 2004... EPG Says Plan Will Meet Digital and Packet-Based Network Needs Intercarrier-compensation reform continues to be one of the thorns in the FCC's side as it tries to come up with a plan that will level the bumpy competitive playing field. A...

NTCA Backs EPG, ARIC Plans.
November 3, 2004... The EPG plan is the third detailed intercarrier-compensation reform plan filed with the FCC and the second proposal developed by a group of rural carriers. Other proposals have been filed by the Intercarrier Compensation Forum and by the...

Covad And Copper: Making Lemonade From FCC Lemons.
November 3, 2004... Last week, as part of its decision to grant fiber relief to the incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) clarified a key issue under its Triennial Review Order. It retained legacy-loop unbundling...

USAC Accounting Still Under Fire; USF In More Trouble?
November 3, 2004... Last month at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) "voiced her concern" that schools and libraries could lose important access to the FCC's E-Rate funds, designated for broadband and other telecom technology...

VoIP Ruling Creates Distinct Opinion Camps.
November 10, 2004... Industry Likes It, Hates It Or Says More Regs Are Needed Vonage Holdings Corp., the pioneer in offering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services under the name DigitalVoice as an alternative to traditional landline or wireless phone...

Aussie Regulators Look At VoIP.
November 10, 2004... The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) has published a "discussion paper" to elicit comment before it sits down to draft regulations for the technology. So far, voice over IP (VoIP) has made only minor penetration into the consumer...

FCC Extends, Expands Broadband Reporting Requirements.
November 10, 2004... Vonage wasn't the frying pan on the front burner this week at FCC headquarters. At this week's open meeting, the FCC also unanimously approved a decision to extend and broaden the data that it collects from broadband service providers regarding...

BPL Rules Published.
November 10, 2004... The FCC's approval of rules governing broadband over powerline (BPL) early last month was followed last week with the release of the formal regulations that had been approved - a 86-page document that includes such details as the precise...

Microsoft's Full-Court Broadband Press.
November 17, 2004... Gates Says He Will Partner With Carriers, But For How Long? The sweeping changes overtaking the telecommunications sector, spurred by the growth of voice-over-IP (VoIP), are drawing a powerful player into the mix: Microsoft. The technology...

VoIP Update: FCC Ruling Court-Proof?
November 17, 2004... At press time, a panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn., was in the midst of listening to oral arguments regarding an appeal by MCI and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and their contention that carrier...

No Consensus Regarding IP-Based Services And CALEA.
November 17, 2004... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will find little guidance and much to ponder as it sifts the second round of comments regarding the possible expansion of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA) to cover...

FCC Bureau Chief Touts 10 Years Of Telecom Cost-Cutting.
November 17, 2004... Telecommunications policy issues increasingly are global in nature and spurring the Federal Communications Commission to forge and deepen cooperative working relationships with foreign regulators. According to Donald Abelson, chief of the...

NARUC Amends Telecom Policy Framework.
November 17, 2004... At the final business session of this week's 2004 Annual Convention of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in Nashville, the NARUC Committee of Whole approved 21 resolutions, including six...

Public Safety Gets COTS Broadband Transmitter-Gear Nod.
November 17, 2004... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in an effort to allow public- safety agencies to use commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) wireless technology for broadband communications, unanimously approved a report and order identifying two...

FCC Vets First SDR Product.
November 17, 2004... Phoenix-based Vanu Inc. says its Vanu Software Radio GSM Base Station is the first device to pass muster regarding the FCC's certification process governing software radio devices. Such certification paves the way for commercial sales of the...

Verizon Wireless Pressed To Modify 'Anytime, Anywhere' Claims.
November 17, 2004... At press time, the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc., the advertising industry's self-regulatory forum, urged Verizon Wireless to "modify or discontinue" claims made in its ad campaign pushing...

Election Post-Mortem: Who's Spent The Most For Favor?
November 17, 2004... Now that the dust has settled and the re-elected Bush Administration is in the midst of planning for the next four years, it's time to take a look at how much money companies with definite telecom special interests spent on the candidates of...

All Sides Gear Up For Re-Write Fight.
November 24, 2004... Though Telecom Act Action Is Months Away, Players Are Talking Congress doesn't reconvene until late January 2005, but with lawmakers contemplating the biggest overhaul of the nation's telecommunications laws in nearly a decade, lobbyists,...

Sen. Allen And Broadband's Future.
November 24, 2004... Following the passage last week of final technical modifications to his Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act (S. 150), which now goes to the House, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) is setting his sights on next year's revisitation of the 1996...

FCC Issues 'Alien Ownership' Bible, But Don't Quote It.
November 24, 2004... The Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) International Bureau issued an early Christmas present for junior associates belonging to the federal communications bar in the form of an instructive 35-page guidebook to navigating the arcane...

Beating The Odds, Adelstein Wins Second FCC Appointment.
November 24, 2004... FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein will keep his seat on the five-person agency panel, thanks to a Senate nod to his confirmation for a second five-year term that runs through June 30, 2008. Many observers had considered his tenure in...

Live From Nashville: The Look Of Things To Come.
November 24, 2004... by Hugh Carter Donahue, Ph.D. Policy makers, industry players and scholars gathered in Nashville's Opryland Convention center for National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' (NARUC's) 116th annual convention last week to...