FCC wants 2-way radios to tighter bandwidth

　　And with more and more communications gear vying for a spot on this electromagnetic seashore, the FCC is requiring first responders to use a smaller radio frequency footprint, or bandwidth, beginning next year.

　　The effort is called narrowbanding, and it's nothing new. Police, fire and public works departments nationwide have known about the Jan. 1, 2013, deadline since the late 1990s.

　　But FCC officials and the companies that install and maintain two-way radios say they are expecting difficult days come autumn as the deadline approaches and municipalities scramble to meet it. Private businesses, such as school bus and ambulance companies use the same affected frequencies and are also are under the gun to meet the deadline.

　　This isn't something that just fell out of the sun, said Mark Crosby, president of Enterprise Wireless Alliance, a major national consultant in the wireless communication industry, noting that it's been known about since the late 1990s.

　　About 40 percent of the people have it done, and another 40 percent are in the process of getting it done, said Crosby, who has dozens of clients in Connecticut. So that leaves 20 percent.

　　Experts say that in just about every case, municipalities won't have to replace their telecommunications equipment outright, but rather have it reprogrammed to the new 12.5 kilohertz standard. This is because all two-way radio gear manufactured since Feb. 14, 1997, was built so it could be easily reprogrammed to the new standard. Gear made before then probably needs to be replaced anyway, they say.

　　At some point in the future, the FCC plans to switch two-way radios to an even narrower bandwidth, 6.25 kHz. But this is at least a decade or more away, the FCC says.

　　Narrowbanding does involve an expense for municipalities, which typically have scores of hand-held and mobile radios, in addition to three or more base units -- police, fire and public works. For the most part, it's an unfunded federal mandate, although Bridgeport had its new system paid for under a U.S. Justice Department Community Oriented Policing Services grant.

　　It harder for a lot of these small fire departments to get the funding to do this, Crosby said.

　　Many area emergency responder departments used this as an opportunity to update their communications systems. Monroe, for example, which has 25 police car radios, 45 handheld units and two base stations for its police department alone, undertook a $2 million upgrade of its police, fire, Emergency Medical Service, public works and school district radio systems between 2004 and 2009.

　　Fairfield is typical of a number of towns in Connecticut in that its Police Department has completed its narrowbanding effort, but work remains on the Fire and Public Works department radios, a spokesman there said.

　　Reprogramming a typical portable or mobile radio runs about $25, and usually has to be done by technicians in the field.

　　Once we're plugged into the radio, the process only takes two or three minutes, but the coordination to get everybody together can be very difficult, said Julie Reibold, president and CEO of Northeastern Communications And if there's a major emergency going on, well, logistically, it's a challenge.

　　Northeastern has service contracts with about one-third of the police, fire and public works departments in Connecticut, Reibold said.

　　I would say that October, November and December are going to be insane, she said. It's something that nobody wants to deal with, but if they don't do it, they won't be able to buy replacement radios.

　　Industry insiders say that if municipalities wait too long to get into compliance, there might not be enough technicians to go around come autumn.

　　There's only so many people out there with the training and experience to do this kind of work, Crosby warned.

　　To add to the workload, some communities are using this opportunity to upgrade to a digital communications system, although a traditional analog signal will still work fine on the narrower bandwidth, experts say.

　　So what will happen on Jan. 1? Two-way radio operators on the old bandwidth will still be able to operate, albeit illegally.

　　FCC lawyer Roberto Mussenden said enforcement will take place when violators begin interfering with other radio operators who are newly licensed to operate on the adjacent channels. In a congested place like Connecticut, those new channels will be licensed rather quickly, he said. It'll be a complaint-driven process. If we get an interference complaint, and we find that the town hasn't switched over to 12.5 yet, we'll have to look immediately at what steps we'll need to take, and what the town needs to do to take to get it into compliance.

　　Mussenden said he's urging communities not to wait after Jan. 1 to narrowband.

　　You might be able to get away with it for a time, but you can also go to Mohegan Sun and throw the dice, he said.

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FCC announces goes to re-examine regulatory fees

　　The Federal Communications Commission announced plans to re-examine its regulatory fee structure, citing the rapid transformation the telecommunication industry has undergone since 1994, when the FCC first began collecting assessments.

　　Mandated by Congress, the FCC's regulatory fees are collected to offset the agency's costs associated with industry enforcement, policy writing, rulemaking, among other administrative functions.

　　In a May 4 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 12-48), the five-member independent regulatory agency announced it will address a bevy of issues related to regulatory fees in separate proceedings.

　　The 68-page NPRM indicates the FCC will undertake changes to its assessment processes in two phases. Phase I will consider allocation percentages of core bureaus involved in regulatory fee activity and how the shares are derived. Phase II will address other outstanding substantive and procedural issues, according to the rulemaking notice.

　　Given the breadth and complexity of the issues involved, the issuance of two separate Notices of Proposed Rulemakings will permit more orderly and consistent analysis of the issues and facilitate their timely resolution, the NPRM reads. We will issue a report and order finalizing our decision on all the issues raised in the Reform Proceedings, including new cost allocations and revised regulatory fees in sufficient time to allow for their implementation in FY 2013.

　　For fiscal year 2012, FCC has proposed collecting roughly $339.8 million in regulatory fees, during a September filing window.

　　For the calculation of FY 2012 fees, the FCC seeks, among other proposals, to maintain the Interstate Telecommunications Service Provider (ITSP) fee rate at the FY 2011 level of $0.00375 per revenue dollar.

　　This fee reflects the Commission's decision to limit the increase in ITSP regulatory fees given the continuing decrease in the revenue base upon which ITSP regulatory fees are calculated, the notice reads, noting that last year, the commission announced it would rebalance ITSP regulatory fees in the context of more fundamental regulatory fee reform that the commission will address in future rulemaking.

　　The commission, in its May 4 notice, also said it is seeking general comment on improving its payment collection procedures and processes, and requiring wider use of its online filing system.

　　In FY 2012, the commission will continue to promote greater use of technology (and less use of paper) in improving our regulatory fee notification and collection process, the notice reads.

　　Comments to MB Docket 12-116 are due to the FCC by May 31, and reply comments by June 7, 2012.

　　Regulatory fee payments for wireline (common carrier) services, including audio-bridging services, must be made for FCC authorizations granted on or before Oct. 1, 2011.

　　The commission said it determined unit fees by allocating the total amount of regulatory fees outlined in the FCC's Annual Appropriations Act across the agency's fee categories and then dividing the allocated amounts by the number of estimated payment units in each fee category.

　　In its NPRM, the commission said it estimated the number of payment units using licensee databases, industry and trade-group projections, as well as prior-year payment information.

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Faster fibre broadband turn ons in Singapore as Opennet ups quota

　　Users in Singapore who have been asking when they can sign up for fibre broadband services may be happy to hear that more homes will soon be connected or turned on for the speedy Internet services each month.

　　From next month, as many as 3,100 customers will be connected each month by Opennet, the contractor rolling out the fibre optic network throughout the island. Previously, it had only been obligated to connect 2,050, in its contract with the government, which funds part of the setup.

　　The quota was not enough, because service providers such as SingTel, StarHub and M1 were signing up more than 5,000 users at quarterly IT bazaars with attractive deals. This meant many users waited for weeks to get hooked up even though the fibre optic cable had been installed in their homes and offices.

　　Facing these unhappy users, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) had pushed for changes in its contract with Opennet in February, a year and a half earlier than a review was due.

　　Though it stopped short of stating how many customers should be connected, it specifically said that Opennet should not be charging extra for the additional rollouts each month, because it is paid by service providers for each rollout.

　　On Tuesday, the IDA stood by that, after hearing comments from Opennet and some disgruntled service providers, who rely on Opennet's cables to sell fibre broadband services.

　　One of them had pushed for as many as 5,000 connections a month. The IDA disagreed, pointing out that 5,000 was peak demand and thus not reflective of everyday requirements (read IDA's decision here).

　　The government regulator seems to have agreed with Opennet that 3,100 was the reasonable quota. The increase will likely help shorten the time to turn on homes and offices which already have the cable installed but are waiting for it to be literally lit up.

　　The IDA, however, has not included any possible penalties should Opennet be found responsible for poor connections or failed connections which could cause delays for users or result in additional on-site support for service providers.

　　Of late, Opennet has been the subject of some complaints from the public, including a case where it said a connection was down because its cables were bitten by rodents.

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CONNECTORS / TERMINATIONS WITH FIBER GLOSSARY (6)

　　Loss: Attenuation of optical signal, normally measured in decibels. The amount of a signal’s power, expressed in dB, that is lost in connectors, splices, or fiber defects.

　　Modal Dispersion: Dispersion arising from the differences in the times the different modes take to travel through multimode fiber.

　　Mode: An Electromagnetic field distribution that satisfied theoretical requirements for propagation in a waveguide or oscillation in a cavity (e.g., a laser). Light has modes in a fiber or laser. A single electromagnetic wave traveling in a fiber.

　　Multimode (Multi Mode): Transmits or emits multiple modes of light. An optical waveguide with a much larger core (50mm+) than the singlemode waveguide core (2mm to 9mm) and which permits approximately 1,000 modes to propagate through the core compared to only one mode through a singlemode fiber.

　　Multimode Dispersion: Dispersion resulting from the different transit lengths of different propagating modes in a multimode optical fiber. Also called modal dispersion.

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CONNECTORS / TERMINATIONS WITH FIBER GLOSSARY (5)

　　Jumper Cable: A short fiber cable with connectors on both ends used for interconnecting other cables or for testing.

　　Kevlar(registered trademark): A very strong, very light, synthetic compound developed by DuPont which is used to strengthen optical cables.

　　Light ARMOR Cable: A cable assembly with ruggedized plastic jacketing providing fiber protection for semi-harsh environment, commercial, or industrial applications.

　　Loose Tube: A protective tube loosely surrounding a cabled fiber, often filled with gel. A type of fiber optic cable construction where the fiber is contained within a loose tube in the cable jacket.

　　Loose Tube vs. Tight Buffered: Fiber optic cables are constructed in two ways: loose tube and tight buffered. Both contain a type of strengthening member, such as aramid yarn, stainless steel wire strands or gel-filled sleeves. Each, however, is designed for very different environments.

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CONNECTORS / TERMINATIONS WITH FIBER GLOSSARY (4)

　　Electromagnetic Interference (EMI): Noise generated when stray electromagnetic fields induce currents in electrical conductors (fiber is immune to EMI).

　　Fiber Optic Cable: A cable containing one or more optical fibers.

　　Fiber Optic Ribbon: A coherent optical fiber bundle in which the configuration is flat rather than round giving an output in a line.

　　Graded-Index Fiber: A fiber in which the refractive index changes gradually with distance from the fiber axis, rather than abruptly at the core-cladding interface.

　　Jacket: The outer, protective covering of the cable. Also called the cable sheath.

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CABLE DESIGN

　　There are 2 basic cable designs in fiber optics, loose-tube cable and tight-buffered cable. The loose-tube cable is used in most of the outside plant installations with the tight-buffered cable being primarily used inside buildings.

　　The loose-tube cable will usually have up to 12 fibers per buffer tube with a maximum per cable fiber count of more than 200 fibers. These are modular in design and can be all-dielectric (insulated) or have the option of being armored.

　　LOOSE TUBE CABLE In the loose-tube cable design, color-coded plastic buffer tubes house and protect optical fibers. A gel filling compound impedes water penetration. Excess fiber length (relative to buffer tube length) insulates fibers from stresses of installation and environmental loading. Buffer tubes are stranded around a dielectric or steel central member, which serves as an anti-buckling element.

　　The cable core typically uses aramid yarn as the primary tensile strength member. The outer polyethylene jacket is extruded over the core. If armoring is required, a corrugated steel tape is formed around a single jacketed cable with an additional jacket extruded over the armor.

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