Uncategorized Related Posts

Posted June 19, 2012

A document recently made public, provides insight into a bugaboo of telecom regulatory policy – the so-called terminating access monopoly.  The theory of the terminating access monopoly is that for all traffic which must terminate to a specific end user device who is served by a single provider, that provider has a monopoly and can…

Posted June 18, 2012

The history of the 2.3 GHz Wireless Communication Services (WCS) spectrum band is a tortured one.  The Commission originally auctioned 128 licenses in April 1997 and from the very beginning, concerns were raised about whether WCS licensees could peacefully co-exist with neighboring licensees in the Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (SDARS) band.  The years following the auction saw…

Posted June 15, 2012

At the Communication Exchange Committee today in Washington, DC, AT&T’s Jim Cicconi spoke about the importance of transitioning to an all-IP network. Following are his remarks as prepared for delivery.

I think we are in a unique position here today – a position of consensus, or at least near-consensus. I believe the timing of this session, and its theme, are important because increasingly three things are becoming obvious to us.

That the communications market is very quickly evolving to a broadband, IP market where the traditional services simply become applications riding on an IP infrastructure… and where consumers not only have thousands, of different ways to interact with each other digitally, but they are in control of what they use and how they use it.

That this move to IP is a very good thing, and that it’s in the public interest it move even faster.

And that the traditional regulatory approach – whereby individual services were each regulated by their own set of rules inside of a regulatory silo – has been totally overtaken, and made virtually nonsensical, by this new IP world.

So we are all here today to discuss how are we going to make this great leap from POTS to Internet, from TDM to IP, from a voice network to a broadband network where voice is just one of many communications applications riding on that infrastructure.

So while it may seem obvious, we have to get the policies right, we have to create the right incentives to get the infrastructure built and we have to preserve a marketplace where consumers are in control of how, when and the means by which they communicate with one another. And I’d submit that policymakers have got to move faster lest the old laws, regulations and mindsets that are still in place warp or even damage this vital transformation.

Posted June 12, 2012

By Jim Bugel, AT&T Assistant Vice President of Public Safety and Homeland Security Earlier today, my colleague, AT&T Vice President of Public Safety Solutions Mel Coker, announced at the NENA conference that AT&T will launch a trial for Text to 911 later this year with a goal for a nationwide launch in 2013.  AT&T has been…

Posted June 8, 2012 • 1 comment

Earlier this week, I wrote about the special access order circulated at the Commission and explained why a backwards looking focus on legacy, practically-obsolete technology would lead to less fiber infrastructure investment, less innovation, less job creation and would be completely contrary to the Obama Administration’s goals in each of those areas.  Today, I am…

Posted June 5, 2012 • 2 comments

The FCC has circulated an order that would undo more than 12 years of Clinton-era, deregulatory pricing policy on legacy non-packet services.  The services in question are called “special access” services – 95% of which are slow 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps) TDM (think POTS) services.  That is not a misprint.  We are not talking about 100…

Posted June 1, 2012 • 1 comment

Today, opening comments are being filed in the FCC’s recently initiated 700 MHz interoperability proceeding.  As our comments fully demonstrate, the interference challenges in the lower 700 MHz band are real and material.  The high power broadcasts permitted in broadcast TV channel 51 and in the 700 MHz lower E block create the potential for…

Posted May 24, 2012

By Carol Wilner, AT&T Vice President of Federal & National Third Party Affairs Because I grew up in a military family, Memorial Day has special meaning to me.  My dad was fortunate to live a long life, but some military families are not so lucky. So, when the flags are planted at each gravesite at…

Posted May 22, 2012

The following may be attributed to an AT&T spokesperson:  “FCC Chairman Genachowski made an important statement today in support of usage-based pricing.  This isn’t the first time the chairman has recognized the need for flexibility in broadband pricing, but his words today come at a time when one company has been pushing the FCC to…

Posted May 16, 2012

Senator Charles Schumer today introduced the Device Theft Deterrence Act of 2012 (S.3186), which would make it a federal crime to tamper with the unique identification number of a cellphone.  The following statement may be attributed to Tim McKone, AT&T Executive Vice President of Federal Relations: “AT&T applauds Senator Schumer for his efforts to help…