GSM Assn. reached agreement with TDMA wireless group Universal Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC) to include TDMA interoperability with GSM as component of GSM Global Roaming Forum. Point of forum is to foster interoperability of GSM and non-GSM technologies with goal of intrastandard roaming among carriers. Groups said GSM and TDMA interoperability, through GSM/ANSI-136 Interoperability, has been under discussion since 1999. Agreement between 2 wireless groups brought development work under purview of roaming forum. Forum develops technical requirements for terminals, networking and commercial standards for services, billing and financial settlements.

Now that FCC finally has approved AOL’s takeover of Time Warner (TW) with additional regulatory conditions, cable operators, consumer groups, phone companies, state and local regulators, ISPs, broadcasters, DBS providers, cable overbuilders and others already are girding for next big fights over extending those regulations to rest of cable industry. Likely new battle fronts include 2 separate FCC proceedings on cable open access issue and interactive TV (ITV) rules, each of which covers part of leading conditions imposed on AOL-TW by FTC and FCC. Another new battle front could be expected bill in new Congress that would create comprehensive regulatory scheme for all broadband services, whether delivered by cable, telephone, satellite or wireless technologies. “It’s going to be more diffuse,” said Precursor Group CEO Scott Cleland. “The progress will still be made but it will be more difficult to track.”

Canadian Minister of Industry Brian Tobin planned auction of additional PCS spectrum Jan. 15. Qualified bidders reportedly include arm of Sprint PCS Canada Holdings, Bell Mobility subsidiary of BCE, Microcell, Rogers Wireless, Telus, Thunder Bay Telephone.

Latest DTV station on air is WTLV-DT (Ch. 12, NBC) Jacksonville, which carries DTV on Ch. 13. Station is 173rd to carry DTV, NAB said.

House Telecom Subcommittee Democrats still were sorting out changes in their jurisdiction with Republicans’ decision to split consumer protection and telecom (CD Jan 12 p1), but they seemed not displeased when contacted Fri. “It’s a major change,” Rep. Boucher (D-Va.) told us of GOP’s action. “We've always had consumer protection within the Telecom Subcommittee.” He wouldn’t discuss which subcommittee he would gravitate toward, but conceded that he would be watching moves of Telecom Subcommittee ranking Democrat Markey (Mass.) carefully. Markey’s staff didn’t return calls by our deadline. If he leaves Telecom Subcommittee to be ranking Democrat on full Resources Committee, or if he chooses Consumer Protection panel, Boucher would be next in line for Telecom. If Markey stays, Boucher could be candidate to take ranking slot on Consumer Protection. “Markey’s always been interested in consumer protection issues,” one lobbyist said, and heads Congressional Privacy Caucus. Boucher said that even if he and other leaders on privacy chose Telecom panel, they would remain interested in privacy and still could be driving forces on privacy legislation. Democrats probably won’t organize their membership until later this month, perhaps as late as week of Jan. 30, Boucher said.

Iowa Utilities Board gave Qwest permission to geographically rebalance its retail basic business rates to reflect cost, revenue and market shifts arising from recent board decision to geographically deaverage Qwest’s unbundled loop rates into 3 cost zones. Qwest is to file tariff with new basic business rates by end of Feb. Loop deaveraging plan adopted by board Jan. 10 will create spread exceeding $26 between lowest and highest loop cost zones. Qwest said loop deaveraging without retail rate rebalancing would create artificial wholesale-retail price disparities that would give CLECs opportunities for uneconomic arbitrage that would unfairly damage Qwest’s position in urban markets while simultaneously discouraging rural competition. Board said Qwest’s case was valid for basic business services, but it said Qwest carried argument too far when it attempted to apply same principle to residential and nonbasic business services. Retail residential rates are below lowest deaveraged loop rate, board said, making uneconomic arbitrage impossible, and company under its price cap plan already had broad pricing flexibility for optional and discretionary business services. Board limited rate rebalancing to single-line and multiline business basic exchange, business trunk services, payphone access lines, Centrex and business ISDN services. Rebalancing will reduce rates in low-cost urban areas and increase them in higher cost suburban and rural areas, but board also put 20% limit on rate increases for any particular service.

FCC seemed to please no one with its compromise instant messaging (IM) conditions on its approval of AOL takeover of Time Warner (TW) last week (see separate story). Despite pleas of Democratic Comr. Tristani, agency chose not to require AOL-TW to provide immediate interoperability for competing IM providers, even when IM services were provided over TW’s cable platform. Instead, it mandated interoperability on hypothetical future IM services such as streaming video, which it labeled “advanced, IM- based high-speed services (AIHS).” AOL-TW also must file progress report with FCC every 180 days on steps it has taken toward IM interoperability. Competing IM providers immediately criticized conditions as ineffective, while many said FCC should have imposed no conditions at all.

Justice Dept.’s Telecom Task Force asked for input on how to improve its merger review process. Task force chief Donald Russell sent letter to 50 communications attorneys inviting them to March 1 private meeting to participate in “informal, off-the- record discussion.” Discussion topics listed in Jan. 10 letter: (1) Do initial task force investigations lead to “success in efficiently distinguishing between transactions which raise substantial competitive concerns and those which do not?” (2) How can task force best improve its “understanding of commercial or technological considerations relevant to our competitive analysis.” (3) How would attorneys compare task force merger review and processes with FTC, FCC, other sections of DoJ’s Antitrust Div., foreign antitrust agencies. (4) How could “second-request process be modified to promote the efficient and focused production of relevant information and documents.” Russell’s letter said those were just suggestions, and other issues can be raised at meeting. Russell said 2 moderators would help direct discussion: Verizon attorney John Thorne and Kevin Sullivan of King & Spaulding. Russell also encouraged attorneys to communicate with him directly, if they choose, by phone or e- mail. Letter went to Who’s Who of communications lawyers such as Richard Devlin of Sprint, James Rill of Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White, Mark Rosenblum of AT&T, Charles Rule of Covington & Burling, Michael Salsbury of WorldCom, Philip Verveer of Wilkie, Farr & Gallagher. Letter said all of them had worked for at least one client on important transaction reviewed by task force.

Broadcasters and cable should simplify video encoding to make captioning easier, said Steven Blumenschein, pres. of XOrbit Software. Firm developed UltraCast software, which it said eliminates need to reduplicate shows, and provides flexibility to modify captions without re-encoding tapes.

Crown Castle International announced IPO of 12 million shares of common stock at $26.25 per share to raise $315 million. Company said offering was expected to close Jan. 17. Crown Castle said it planned to use proceeds for “general corporate purposes” such as capital spending and for acquiring shared communications infrastructure.