DA No. 02-1896

Friday, August 2. 2002

**ACTIONS TAKEN UNDER CABLE LANDING LICENSE ACT**

**Section 1.767(a) Cable Landing Licenses, Modifications, and
Assignments or Transfers of Control of Interests in Cable Landing
Licenses (47 C.F.R. § 1.767(a))**

**By the Chief, Policy Division, International Bureau:**

Pursuant to An Act Relating to the Landing and Operation of Submarine
Cables in the United States, 47 U.S.C. §§ 34-39 (Cable Landing License
Act), Executive Order No. 10530, Exec. Ord. No. 10530 *reprinted as
amended in* 3 U.S.C. § 301, and section 1.767 of the Commission's rules,
47 C.F.R. § 1.767, the following applications ARE GRANTED. These grants
of authority are taken under section 0.261 of the Commission's rules, 47
C.F.R. § 0.261, and are effective upon release of this public notice.
Petitions for reconsideration under section 1.106 or applications for
review under section 1.115 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. §§
1.106, 1.115, may be filed within 30 days of the date of this public
notice.

This public notice serves as each cable landing licensee's Cable Landing
License, or modification thereto, pursuant to the Cable Landing License
Act and section 1.767 of the Commission's rules. Cable landing licensees
should review carefully the terms and conditions of their licenses.
Failure to comply with these terms and conditions or relevant Commission
rules and policies could result in fines or forfeitures.

The Commission most recently amended its rules applicable to submarine
cable landing licenses in *Review of Commission Consideration of
Applications under the Cable Landing License Act*, IB Docket No. 00-106,
FCC 01-332 (rel. Dec. 14, 2001), 67 Fed. Reg. 1615 (Jan. 14, 2002). An
updated version of sections 1.767 and 1.768 of the rules is available at
<http://www.fcc.gov/ib/pd/pf/telecomrules.html>. *See also*
<http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-02-598A1.pdf> for
a March 13, 2002 Public Notice;
<http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-01-332A1.pdf> for
the December 14, 2001 Report and Order.

SCL-LIC-20020522-00047 ALASKA UNITED FIBER SYSTEM PARTNERSHIP

SUBMARINE CABLE LANDING LICENSE

[Action Taken]{.underline}: Grant of Authority to Land and Operate a
Fiber Optic Submarine Cable System between Seward, Alaska and Warrenton,
Oregon. The cable system will be known as Alaska United West Cable
System (Alaska United West).

[Acceptability for Filing Public Notice:]{.underline} June 20, 2002. We
received no Executive Branch or public comments.

[Regulatory Status of Cable]{.underline}: Alaska United West is a
private cable (consistent with NARUC I, 525 F.2d 630, 642 (D.C. Cir.
1976), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 992 (1976)). Applicant proposes to operate
on a non-common carrier basis and the record provides no reason to
require the cable to operate on a common carrier basis.

[Applicable Conditions and Requirements]{.underline}: See the routine
conditions set out at 47 C.F.R. § 1.767(g)(1)-(14).

[Licensee Information]{.underline}: Alaska United Fiber System
Partnership, is an Alaska general partnership, owned in equal shares by
GCI Fiber Co., Inc. and Fiber Hold Co. Inc., which are wholly owned
subsidiaries of GCI Transport Co., itself a wholly owned subsidiary of
GCI Holdings Inc., which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of GCI,
Inc. GCI Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Communication Inc.
(GCI). GCI is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of
Alaska.

[Interlocking Directorates]{.underline}: None

[Cable System Design, Capacity, and Projected In Service
Date]{.underline}: Alaska United West Cable will consist of one undersea
cable segment, extending between Warrenton, Oregon and Seward, Alaska.
The system will use standards based Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)
terminals at both landing stations. The terminals will be configured as
Add/Drop Ring multiplexers so that traffic from one cable station can be
efficiently routed and groomed to the other station. In addition, Alaska
United West will provide ring protection in conjunction with Alaska
United Cable, which extends between Whittier and Juneau, Alaska and
Norma Beach, Washington.

Circuits carried over Alaska United West can be provisioned in all
standard signal rates and configurations. Undersea cable segments will
employ Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs) to provide optical
amplification over the relatively long segment lengths. EDFAs are not
bit-rate sensitive and can support additional optical channels. Two
fiber pairs will be installed, and initial capacity will be available at
20 GB/s. The system design includes the capability to employ Wavelength
Division Multiplexing (WDM) such that up to 32 individual wavelengths
can be transmitted over a single fiber pair, for an ultimate capacity of
32 internally collapsed ring-protected wavelengths. Some of the
wavelengths will be configured in a geographically diverse ring by
interconnecting them with the existing Alaska United Cable. There is no
projected in service date.

[Attached Map]{.underline}: See attached map for Alaska United West's
undersea cable segments.

[Cable Station Information]{.underline}: Alaska United West will have
two landing stations. The first station is planned for Seward, Alaska.
The second station is planned for Warrenton, Oregon. Both cable landing
stations will be owned or long term leased by Alaska United West.

[Landing Point Information]{.underline}: Licensees must provide specific
description of cable landing stations, *see* 47 C.F.R. § 1.767(a)(5),
(g)(8).

ROUTINE CONDITIONS APPLICABLE TO ALL LICENSEES. *See* 47 C.F.R. §
1.767(g).

(1) Grant of the cable landing license is subject to: (i) all rules and
    regulations of the Federal Communications Commission; (ii) any
    treaties or conventions relating to communications to which the
    United States is or may hereafter become a party; and (iii) any
    action by the Commission or the Congress of the United States
    rescinding, changing, modifying or amending any rights accruing to
    any person by grant of the license;

(2) The location of the cable system within the territorial waters of
    the United States of America, its territories and possessions, and
    upon its shores shall be in conformity with plans approved by the
    Secretary of the Army. The cable shall be moved or shifted by the
    licensee at its expense upon request of the Secretary of the Army,
    whenever he or she considers such course necessary in the public
    interest, for reasons of national defense, or for the maintenance
    and improvement of harbors for navigational purposes;

(3) The licensee shall at all times comply with any requirements of
    United States government authorities regarding the location and
    concealment of the cable facilities, buildings, and apparatus for
    the purpose of protecting and safeguarding the cables from injury or
    destruction by enemies of the United States of America;

(4) The licensee, or any person or company controlling it, controlled by
    it, or under direct or indirect common control with it, does not
    enjoy and shall not acquire any right to handle traffic to or from
    the United States, its territories or its possessions unless such
    service is authorized by the Commission pursuant to section 214 of
    the Communications Act, as amended;

\(5\) (i) The licensee shall be prohibited from agreeing to accept
special concessions directly or indirectly from any foreign carrier,
including any entity that owns or controls a foreign cable landing
station, where the foreign carrier possesses sufficient market power on
the foreign end of the route to affect competition adversely in the U.S.
market, and from agreeing to accept special concessions in the future.
(ii) For purposes of this section, a special concession is defined as an
exclusive arrangement involving services, facilities, or functions on
the foreign end of a U.S. international route that are necessary to
land, connect, or operate submarine cables, where the arrangement is not
offered to similarly situated U.S. submarine cable owners,
indefeasible-right-of-user holders, or lessors, and includes
arrangements for the terms for acquisition, resale, lease, transfer and
use of capacity on the cable; access to collocation space; the
opportunity to provide or obtain backhaul capacity; access to technical
network information; and interconnection to the public switched
telecommunications network.

[Note to § 1.767(g)(5]{.underline}): Licensees may rely on the
Commission's list of foreign carriers that do not qualify for the
presumption that they lack market power in particular foreign points for
purposes of determining which foreign carriers are the subject of the
requirements of this section. The Commission's list of foreign carriers
that do not qualify for the presumption that they lack market power is
available from the International Bureau's World Wide Web site at
<http://www.fcc.gov/ib>.

\(6\) Except as provided in paragraph (7) of this section, the cable
landing license and rights granted in the license shall not be
transferred, assigned, or disposed of, or disposed of indirectly by
transfer of control of the licensee, unless the Federal Communications
Commission gives prior consent in writing;

\(7\) A pro forma assignee or a person or company that is the subject of
a pro forma transfer of control of a cable landing license is not
required to seek prior approval for the pro forma transaction. A pro
forma assignee or person or company that is the subject of a pro forma
transfer of control must notify the Secretary, Federal Communications
Commission, Washington, D.C. 20554, with a copy to the Chief,
International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, no later than
thirty (30) days after the assignment or transfer of control is
consummated. The notification may be in the form of a letter (in
duplicate to the Secretary), and it must contain a certification that
the assignment or transfer of control was pro forma, as defined in §
63.24(a) of this chapter, and, together with all previous pro forma
transactions, does not result in a change of the licensee's ultimate
control. A single letter may be filed for an assignment or transfer of
control of more than one license issued in the name of a licensee if
each license is identified by the file number under which it was
granted;

\(8\) Unless the licensee has notified the Commission in the application
of the precise locations at which the cable will land, as required by
paragraph (a)(5) of this section, the licensee shall notify the
Commission no later than ninety (90) days prior to commencing
construction at that landing location. The Commission will give public
notice of the filing of each description, and grant of the cable landing
license will be considered final with respect to that landing location
unless the Commission issues a notice to the contrary no later than
sixty (60) days after receipt of the specific description. *See* §
1.767(a)(5) of this section;

\(9\) The Commission reserves the right to require the licensee to file
an environmental assessment should it determine that the landing of the
cable at the specific locations and construction of necessary cable
landing stations may significantly affect the environment within the
meaning of § 1.1307 of this part implementing the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969. *See* § 1.1307(a) and (b) of this part. The cable
landing license is subject to modification by the Commission under its
review of any environmental assessment or environmental impact statement
that it may require pursuant to its rules. *See also* § 1.1306 note 1
and § 1.1307(c) and (d) of this part;

\(10\) The Commission reserves the right, pursuant to section 2 of the
Cable Landing License Act, 47 U.S.C. 35, Executive Order No. 10530 as
amended, and section 214 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended,
47 U.S.C. 214, to impose common carrier regulation or other regulation
consistent with the Cable Landing License Act on the operations of the
cable system if it finds that the public interest so requires;

(11) The licensee, or in the case of multiple licensees, the licensees
     collectively, shall maintain de jure and de facto control of the
     U.S. portion of the cable system, including the cable landing
     stations in the United States, sufficient to comply with the
     requirements of the Commission's rules and any specific conditions
     of the license;

(12) The licensee shall comply with the requirements of § 1.768 of this
     part;

\(13\) The cable landing license is revocable by the Commission after
due notice and opportunity for hearing pursuant to section 2 of the
Cable Landing License Act, 47 U.S.C. 35, or for failure to comply with
the terms of the license or with the Commission's rules; and

\(14\) The licensee shall notify the Secretary, Federal Commissions
Commission, Washington, D.C. 20554, in writing, within thirty (30) days
of the date the cable is placed into service, of the date the cable was
placed into service. The cable landing license shall expire twenty-five
(25) years from the in-service date, unless renewed or extended upon
proper application. Upon expiration, all rights granted under the
license shall be terminated.

**REQUIREMENTS APPLICABLE TO LICENSES AFFILIATED WITH A CARRIER WITH
MARKET POWER IN A CABLE'S WTO DESTINATION MARKET. *See* 47 C.F.R. §
1.767(l).**

Any licensee that is, or is affiliated with, a carrier with market power
in any of the cable's WTO Member destination countries, and that
requests streamlined processing of an application under paragraphs
(j)-(k) of this section, must comply with the following requirements:

(1) File quarterly reports summarizing the provisioning and maintenance
    of all network facilities and services procured from the licensee's
    affiliate in that destination market, within ninety (90) days from
    the end of each calendar quarter. These reports shall contain the
    following: (i) the types of facilities and services provided (for
    example, a lease of wet link capacity in the cable, collocation of
    licensee's equipment in the cable station with the ability to
    provide backhaul, or cable station and backhaul services provided to
    the licensee); (ii) for provisioned facilities and services, the
    volume or quantity provisioned, and the time interval between order
    and delivery; and (iii) the number of outages and intervals between
    fault report and facility or service restoration; and

(2) File quarterly circuit status reports, within ninety (90) days from
    the end of each calendar quarter and in the format set out by the §
    43.82 annual circuit status manual with the exception that activated
    or idle circuits must be reported on a facility-by-facility basis
    and derived circuits need not be specified. *See* § 63.10(c)(5) of
    this chapter.

For additional information, contact the International Bureau's Policy
Division at 202-418-1460.