Today's report from CED/Broadband Week Staff

• EchoStar to fight FCC Ka-band license cancellation

• On Command brings on-demand to Accor Hotels

• Texas competitive cableco finalizes acquisition

• Broadband in telemedicine spotlight

• AT&T Broadband bumps up digital presence in Dallas

• Broadband briefs

EchoStar to fight FCC Ka-band license cancellation

The FCC is not only anxious to see broadband competition from America's wireline network providers, but it's trying to foster competition from skybound providers as well.

That idea was evident in a recent ruling revoking DBS provider EchoStar Communications' Ka-band satellite license. Ka-band is a new generation of communications satellites that will incorporate on-board processing and switching to provide two-way services through communication with small earth stations. Ka-band is often referred to as a "spot-beam" technology, in that the new satellites employ pencil-like beam transmissions to communicate with the station receivers set-up at user premises.

EchoStar has come out swinging after the FCC revocation, finding fault with the FCC's premise that the company had not begun construction of a Ka-band payload for one of its new satellites-a condition required under terms of the license. EchoStar vigorously defends its Ka-band payload construction schedule, claiming to be three years ahead of the launch date specified by the FCC. It claims construction of a Ka-band payload for the EchoStar IX satellite is complete, and that the company has paid almost $75 million so far in construction costs.

At the center of the FCC action is whether EchoStar has constructed Ka-band payload along a pre-defined timeline, and the company claims that it has met those requirements, and that the FCC has simply misread EchoStar's satellite contract documents. It will be up to the FCC to determine if in fact that indeed is the case.

On Command brings on-demand to Accor Hotels

In a sense, the traveling crowd has played a major role in spurring cable operators to provide more on-demand services. For years, hotel guests have been iTV guinea pigs, trying out nascent in-room interactive and video-on-demand services, and consequently wondering, "Why can't I have this at home?"

Pioneer on-demand provider On Command has been developing interactive platforms for hotels around the world, and it's extending its reach via a five-year agreement to provide in-room video-on-demand programming and entertainment to hotels under the Accor Lodging North America umbrella.

Specifically, the deal calls for On Command to provide the services to Sofitel and Novitel hotel brands in the Accor family, representing 17 hotel properties and more than 5,300 rooms in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis, Washington D.C., New York and Philadelphia.

Many of the Accor properties will get On Command's Roommate platform, which boasts a more energy efficient operating system and 400 percent increase in content capacity, which should translate into a real increase in the number of titles available to guests. On Command is also introducing a new menu system, which features a number of improvements to the user interface, and the ability for hotels to customize entire menu sections for targeted promotions.

Texas competitive cableco finalizes acquisition

At one time, the "overbuilder" model was a Wall Street darling. Today, network operators building competitive HFC networks would be lucky if venture capitalists take their call. But despite some high-profile overbuilder flame-outs, the competitive model is being market-tested in a few regions around the country.

Texas is one place competition for bundled services is heating up. Deep in the heart of Texas (specifically in the Central Texas Corridor, made up of the cities of Austin, San Antonio and San Marcos), Grande Communications offers a bundle of high-speed Internet, phone and cable TV over a spankin' new network. Today, Grande announced the completion of its acquisition of fellow Texas provider ClearSource, adding cities like Waco, Corpus Christi, Midland and Odessa to the Grande mix.

At the center of the merged company is Grande Vice Chairman and CEO William Morrow, who has ties to the founding of the former ClearSource. In a previous position with competitive cableco Knology, Morrow brought together Knology investors to create ClearSource, and served as a founding executive and board member of the new company. In 1999, Morrow left Knology to start another company-present day Grande Communications.

The new combined company will have a quarter of a million homes passed and roughly 100,000 connections. "Grande is a fully-funded EBITDA-positive company, and ClearSource's markets of Waco, Corpus (Christi), and Midland/Odessa are all EBITDA-positive markets," Morrow says. "When we combine these two companies, it's an accretive transaction, and the combined company is even stronger, from a fully-funded perspective.

Broadband in telemedicine spotlight

Broadband enthusiasts have long considered the medical community to be a potential benefactor of the technology. Now, a unique agreement forged by Hughes Network Systems Inc., the Advanced Technology Institute and the Columbia Eye Clinic promises to finally provide tangible evidence of broadband's advantages.

The three entities have launched a high-speed, satellite broadband service linking medical professionals at the Columbia Eye Clinic with patients at the Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Community Health Center in Ridgeland, South Carolina. The new service allows clinic experts to screen the eyes of patients more than 100 miles away for diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of adult on-set blindness in the United States.

Under the supervision of retinopathy experts in Columbia, patients will be seated in Ridgeland, where their retinas will be scanned using a retinal camera. The scanned image will be sent via a Hughes Direcway broadband satellite connection to high-definition computer screens in Columbia, where specialists will determine whether diabetic retinopathy is present and recommend the treatment that may be needed.

The project was organized under the auspices of ATI and its Telehealth Deployment Research Testbed, a federally funded program to identify and communicate guidelines for effective use of telehealth technology.

"With this technology, we plan to screen patients in rural areas for diabetic retinopathy, initially in the Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton area, and then throughout the state. In the future, we hope to expand to screenings for glaucoma and other diseases," said the Columbia Eye Clinic's Dr. Lloyd Clark.

The Columbia Eye Clinic serves more than 50,000 patients and performs over 30,000 eye procedures annually.

AT&T Broadband bumps up digital presence in Dallas

AT&T Broadband has launched 17 new networks on its Dallas, Texas system and intends to create two new digital packages to entice more customers to take the service.

In most Dallas-area communities, AT&T Broadband will add three new digital cable networks and 11 new premium channels to its lineup and introduce the "Digital Starter" and "Digital Standard" packages.

Customers will be treated to G4, which provides entertainment, news and information about interactive entertainment, along with Wisdom Television. Eleven new premium channel plexes will also be added to the lineup.

The new Digital Starter package includes all networks on standard cable, a digital set-top box and remote, an interactive program guide, impulse pay-per-view, 30 channels of digital music and a suite of Encore services for $42.99 per month. The Digital Standard package features standard cable, a digital set-top box and remote, the interactive program guide, impulse pay-per-view, 30 channels of digital music, six channels of Encore, and more than 50 additional digital networks for $46.99 monthly.

Customer feedback also led to the creation of two new digital tiers of programming, the Variety and Premier Pack that will replace genre tiers. Instead of being required to select a group of similar networks, the Variety Pack is included in certain digital packages. The Premier Pack is available on an a la carte basis and is included in certain digital packages. Digital packages range from $42.99 through $77.99.

Broadband briefs:

• Juniper completes Unisphere buy

Juniper Networks Inc. now has greater ability to offer Internet Protocol products and services worldwide with the completed acquisition of Siemens' Unisphere Networks subsidiary.

The deal is valued at $585 million, with Juniper putting up $375 million in cash and 36.5 million shares. Juniper said the deal is expected to be slightly dilutive in the second half of 2002 and accretive in early 2003, excluding one-time structuring charges.

Juniper and Siemens also entered into a reseller agreement, enabling Siemens to resell Juniper products as well as providing customer service and support.