Bidding in FCC’s C- and F-block PCS auction rose to $14.57 billion Wed., vs. $14.2 billion Tues. Salmon PCS, designated entity with Cingular Wireless investment bid $3.06 billion, followed by AT&T Wireless-backed Alaska Native Wireless with $2.42 billion. Competition remains strong for 3 N.Y.C. licenses, all of which now have surpassed $1 billion mark. In 43rd round, Verizon Wireless bid $1.42 billion for one license there, Salmon PCS $1.13 billion for another and Alaska Native Wireless $1.04 billion for 3rd. Other high bidders in auction of 422 licenses that began Dec. 12 include DCC PCS with $966.4 million, Cook Inlet with $486.8 million, VoiceStream with $385.9 million, Leap Wireless with $336.8 million. Of top 15 bidders, 13 are designated entities, with Verizon Wireless and VoiceStream representing exceptions. Next highest bid for single license after N.Y.C. is $519.7 million for L.A. license by DCC PCS, subsidiary of Dobson Communications.
Most recent round of DTV standard tests was flawed, COFDM backer Sinclair Bcst. said in memo we obtained Wed., day before start of closed-door DTV summit in Washington. Sinclair said COFDM tests inadvertently were conducted with receiver that lacked front-end filter, causing set to be overloaded in many situations. At very least, mistake and test results indicated that NAB and MSTV should go ahead with 2nd round of testing on DTV systems, Sinclair Vp-New Technology Nat Ostroff said in memo. Other broadcast officials didn’t immediately comment on memo.
StreamAudio will provide audio streaming and revenue-sharing ad insertion technology for all 83 Cox Radio stations under new agreement with Cox Radio Interactive. Cox is 4th largest radio owner in U.S., based on revenue.
Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) urged FCC to reject NCTA and Time Warner petitions for reconsideration of agency’s cable-ready labels for new DTV sets (CD Nov 29 p5). Signaling no letup in battle between consumer electronics and cable industries over DTV set labels and other DTV-cable compatibility issues, CERC argued that real problem was OpenCable specifications for advanced digital cable set-top boxes and integrated TV sets, not set labels adopted by Commission. In 10- page filing with FCC, CERC criticized cable industry for not supporting digital cable boxes “capable of competition with the MSO-distributed products now on the market.” Group said it was “cable industry compliance, not the labels, that needs to be reformed.” CERC also said NCTA was seeking to “turn this labeling proceeding into a substantive mandate that all OpenCable-reliant DTV receivers must include the ‘1394’ interface” favored by cable and broadcasting industries for digital sets. CERC said cable industry’s own focus group studies showed that “the labels previously recommended by NCTA are… not good enough.”
German govt. awarded 8 major regional spectrum licenses to provide fixed wireless and broadband services to ArcTel, joint venture of Teligent and Mannesmann Arcor. Licenses in 26 MHz band cover Berlin and Hamburg, increasing total population coverage of ArcTel in Germany to 31 million, companies said. Mannesmann Arcor is fixed-line telecom arm of Vodafone Group. Companies said ArcTel now holds more than 200 licenses in Germany.
New Edge Networks said orders for its broadband services increased more than 60% in last 2 months of 2000 because it picked up customers of competitors that were scaling back or in jeopardy of going out of business. New Edge said it took in record 1,700 orders in last week of Dec. alone.
Lucent Technologies is to supply fiber network to China’s Liaoning Province for subsidiary of China Telecom under $15 million contract announced Wed. Equipment is to be deployed by May. Lucent’s WaveStar OLS-400G has capacity of 400 Gbps, is capable of handling 5 million simultaneous phone calls or 80 one- page e-mails per sec., company said.
OPASTCO urged FCC to set higher benchmark for prices charged by rural CLECs for access because their costs were higher. Commenting on FCC public notice that asked about effect of benchmarks on rural CLECs (CC Doc. 96-262), OPASTCO said it supported idea of benchmarks to hold down CLEC access charges but “a single benchmarked rate would not be suitable for all CLECs.” Higher cutoff should be established “for CLECs serving rural or high-cost areas that suitably reflects their higher costs of providing service,” OPASTCO said. Assn. said all of its members were rural telcos and about 1/3 of them operated CLECs.
Texas Instruments (TI) plans to offer royalty-free licenses under TI patents needed to implement wireless home networking standard called IEEE 802.11g. Offer needs ratification of TI proposal for higher speed wireless local area networks in 2.4 GHz. TI said proposal would double data rate of 802.11b products to 22 Mbps.
Helgi Walker, aide to FCC Comr. Furchtgott-Roth, will move to White House as assoc. White House counsel and special asst., his office said. Walker, who specialized in mass media and cable issues, will be replaced by Ben Golant of FCC Cable Bureau.