California’s public advocate wants a delay in updating state LifeLine wireless minimum service standards until the California Public Utilities Commission considers the impact of the federal Lifeline MSS increasing Dec. 1 to 18 GB. By failing to acknowledge the federal MSS increase, the CPUC's Aug. 6 proposed decision could mean customers lose federal support, warned the agency's independent Public Advocates Office (PAO) in comments posted Friday. California’s proposal also includes automating the renewal eligibility process and updating specific service amounts. AT&T raised concerns about how much the state plans to replace federal support for wireline services that don’t meet federal broadband minimum standards.
Startup space companies got $7.6 billion in investments in 2020, with most of it coming from venture capital, said a BryceTech report Thursday. It said 124 companies received funding, 38% of them U.S. firms that netted 67% of the total financing. SpaceX was the single largest recipient, receiving 30% of the funding, followed by OneWeb and Blue Origin, it said. BryceTech said counting debt financing and acquisitions, $26 billion was invested in space startups from 2000 to 2020 -- $22 billion since 2015.
Consumers are overloaded with content, and it has become difficult to manage, said TiVo executives on a Thursday webcast for the company’s biannual video trends report, based on a Q2 survey of 4,500 respondents 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada.
Seventy percent of video watchers use two or three devices for viewing, 10% more than six, Kaltura reported Wednesday. TV was the most popular viewing source for 62% of respondents: Smart TVs were the top way to watch content for 38% of respondents vs. set-top boxes at 25%. And 65% of respondents listed Netflix as their most watched, followed by Amazon Prime Video and Hulu tied for second place, then Disney+, pay TV, YouTube TV, Roku, HBO Max, other and Apple TV.
Treat Google as a public utility, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) said Tuesday, asking Ohio Common Pleas Court in Delaware County to declare that in a lawsuit. Yost is one of 38 AGs in a separate federal antitrust case (see 2012170063). The new complaint “accepts Google’s dominance of internet search as a fact (be it good or bad),” and “is narrowly focused on establishing that Google’s provision of internet search is properly classified as a common carrier and/or public utility,” it said. Ohio is “entitled to declaratory relief that" the platform "cannot self-preference on its Results Pages.” It seeks “injunctive relief that ends Google’s self-preferencing in Ohio by providing access to enhanced features on Results Pages that Google affords to its other business lines.” The American Economic Liberties Project applauded. The platform didn’t comment.
Mobile device accessories sales had a robust Q1, reported NPD Wednesday: Double-digit revenue losses across the board in 2020 were replaced by 18% Q1 sales increases of mobile phone cases, while screen protector sales grew 9% and mobile power accessories 38%. “Declines we saw in screen protectors and cases were in part driven by store closures and other shifts in consumer behavior as a result of the pandemic,” said analyst Jill Aldort. “We expect to see sales of these products grow in 2021.”
Telesat and Brazil's TIM Brasil completed in-orbit 4G mobile data backhaul testing using Telesat's Phase 1 low earth orbit satellite, Telesat said Thursday. It said it achieved an average of 38 milliseconds of round-trip latency. Telesat said the testing demonstrates the ability of its forthcoming Lightspeed constellation to bring backhaul connectivity to underserved regions.
The Chips for America Act will help the U.S. develop manufacturing needed to compete with China and other adversaries, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said Monday. Debate within Congress is growing about appropriating $50 billion for domestic chip manufacturing incentives and research initiatives (see 2105110065) related to the Endless Frontier Act (S-1260). The legislation goes as far as possible now in pushing semiconductor development, but Congress is still incrementally educating its leaders, Ernst told a Brookings virtual event.
The announcement by UScellular, Qualcomm, Ericsson and Inseego Thursday of sustained uplink and downlink speeds over 5G millimeter wave on a commercial network is “a huge milestone in addressing the ‘last mile’ connectivity challenge,” said ABI Research analyst Khin Sandi Lynn. Only 81% of U.S. households are connected to fixed broadband access, she said. Multi-gigabit speeds over mmWave will benefit consumers and businesses, supporting the increased broadband demand since COVID-19, Lynn said: “The solution solves the limited propagation characteristic of mmWave and will accelerate deployments of fixed wireless access services in rural and underserved areas and contribute to achieving broadband for all.” Speeds were reached at 7 kilometers, the farthest U.S. 5G mmWave FWA connection, with sustained average downlinks of about 1 Gbps, sustained average uplink speeds of about 55 Mbps and instantaneous peak downlinks at more than 2 Gbps, said the companies. At 1.75 km with no line of sight, average downlink speeds reached about 730 Mbps, with sustained average uplinks of 38 Mbps on UScellular’s network in Janesville, Wisconsin. Tests were done with Ericsson’s Antenna Integrated Radio 5322 advanced antenna system, with an Inseego Wavemaker 5G outdoor CPE FW2010 powered by Qualcomm.
Staggering numbers stood out in Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ final shareholder letter as CEO, in Thursday's posting, citing the e-commerce pioneer’s revenue growth, employee expansion and towering stock price rise from its opening $18 per share valuation when it went public almost 12 years ago. Bezos will soon transition to executive chairman, relinquishing the CEO post to Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy. Of the company’s $386 billion revenue in 2020, $301 billion was value created, for consumer and AWS customers ($164 billion), employees ($91 billion), third-party sellers ($25 billion) and shareholders ($21 billion), said Bezos. The goal of a business “should be to create value for everyone you interact with,” said the outgoing CEO, who will hand over the reins to Jassy in Q3. Bezos calculated value to customers in terms of time savings. Customers complete 28% of purchases on Amazon in three minutes or less, and half of all purchases are finished in less than 15 minutes, said Bezos. He compared that time with “about an hour” shoppers spend in the physical store experience. He estimated a "conservative" $10 per hour in time savings. Bezos estimated the company’s value creation for customers using the AWS cloud computing platform last year at $38 billion, based on the assumption that operating in the cloud delivers a 30% improvement in costs, along with the increased speed AWS provides in software development. AWS revenue was $45 billion. Third-party seller profits from selling on Amazon were estimated at $25 billion-$39 billion, he said. Seven-eighths of the $1.6 trillion of wealth Amazon has created for shareholders since the stock began trading benefits pension funds, universities, 401(k) plans and individuals, he said. The stock closed marginally higher Thursday at $3,379.09.