The FCC released an NPRM that asks a battery of questions about measures to combat contraband cellphones in correctional facilities, focusing on the use of managed access and detection systems. The FCC approved the NPRM by electronic voting earlier this week (CD May 1 p10). The NPRM says there’s widespread evidence that contraband cellphones are a major problem.
Viacom revenue in the quarter ended March 31 fell 6 percent from the same period in 2012, to $3.14 billion, said a news release Wednesday. The company’s profit this quarter was $486 million, down $110 million from the same quarter last year, it said. Viacom said the revenue drop was caused by a 20 percent drop to $941 million in Filmed Entertainment revenue, but touted a 2 percent, or $2.23 billion, increase in Media Networks revenue “due to an increase in advertising, affiliate and ancillary revenues.” The release also mentioned a 38 percent decrease in worldwide home entertainment revenue, which Viacom said was “due to the number and mix of titles released, and lower carryover and catalog revenues.” Viacom also blamed a 9 percent decrease to $847 million in operating income on the lower Filmed Entertainment results and an increase in Media Networks expenses. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said “ratings are up at several networks, and advertising revenues have returned to year-over-year growth."
Sprint Nextel lost a net 560,000 subscribers during Q1, in part because of the continued exodus of subscribers from its Nextel platform. About 1.3 million subscribers remain on the Nextel platform, which Sprint still expects to shut down June 30, said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse Wednesday during a Q1 investor earnings call. Sprint added 12,000 subscribers to its own platform, well below analyst estimates of 110,000 to 275,000 additions. Sprint Chief Financial Officer Joseph Eutenauer attributed the losses partially to exiting business clients on the Nextel network who chose to also cancel related subscriptions on the Sprint platform. The carrier will remain focused on recapturing as many of the remaining 1.3 million subscribers on the Nextel platform as it can, though Eutenauer said earlier the carrier still expects it will only be able to recapture about 40 percent of those subscribers. Costs related to the shutdown will reach $500 million to $600 million during Q2, Sprint said.
Uncertainty about the details of the upcoming spectrum incentive auction and a perception of unfair treatment by the FCC has Class A owners worried about the future of their stations, said several owners and other industry officials in interviews. “How can you know if you should sell your business if you don’t know the value, or even how the auction will work?” asked Vincent Castelli, general manager of a Prism Broadcasting Network Class A in Atlanta. The executives we spoke with elaborated on questions they have for the commission, some of which were posed at a Media Bureau event at the NAB Show (CD April 10 p9).
Verizon will field its first voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) smartphones by year-end, with a commercial launch slated for early 2014 as it moves to gradually wean customers off its CDMA-based service, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo told analysts Thursday in a conference call.
To pass the 149,000 households in the Kansas City area without connecting any homes, Google will spend $84 million as part of the first phase of its Google Fiber buildout, Bernstein Research estimated in a Monday paper. The potential cost would break down to $38 million in Kansas City, Kan., and $46 million in Kansas City, Mo., the researchers said. The Missouri side of Kansas City has a higher density of households, where cost per home would be about $500 versus about $674 on the Kansas side of the border, they estimated. Google will spend another $10 million to connect about 12,000 households on the first day of service, the report estimated. Google is planning an announcement in Austin, Texas, Tuesday, widely speculated to be about the next Google Fiber deployment, as a grassroots Google Fiber Austin Texas blog has already begun documenting (http://bit.ly/ZdqZVY). Google did not comment.
ILEC service quality is falling short in California, some stakeholders fear. The California Public Utilities Commission posted several comments this week on whether and how the CPUC should identify and potentially correct the facilities of the two major ILECs in the state that have been shown in the past to struggle with service quality. AT&T and Verizon argue for a limited study of their facilities with a specific focus, while others want a broader, critical look at their services.
Google will pay $7 million to settle claims with dozens of states regarding its unauthorized collection of data from unsecured Wi-Fi points through the company’s Street View vehicles, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/ZjOI7I). Connecticut led the eight-state “executive committee,” which included Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri and Texas, that investigated the matter for two years and negotiated what’s known as an assurance of voluntary compliance with Google, Jepsen’s office said. Attorneys general from 38 states and the District of Columbia signed the agreement to resolve consumer protection and privacy claims. “The importance of this agreement goes beyond financial terms,” Jepsen said: The pact recognizes consumers “reasonable expectation of privacy” and ensures Google “will not use similar tactics in the future” to get personal data. The pact (http://1.usa.gov/X48wKN) requires Google to engage in a “comprehensive employee education program” about privacy or confidentiality of user data; sponsor a nationwide public service campaign to educate consumers about securing wireless networks, through a “how-to” YouTube video, “daily online ads for two years” about the video, a post on its public policy blog explaining the value of encrypted networks, half-page ads in national and state newspapers and an educational pamphlet about online safety; and continue to secure “and eventually destroy” Street View data collected between 2008 and March 2010, Jepsen’s office said. The company agreed to “corporate culture changes,” including “direct notification of senior management, supervisors and legal advisors” about the pact’s terms and development of policies for responding to “identified events” involving unauthorized data collection or use, his office said. As lead state, Connecticut will get nearly $521,000 in the settlement. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said separately (http://bit.ly/10BwT58) his state’s share will be about $192,000.A spokeswoman for Google told us that while “we work hard to get privacy right ... in this case we didn’t,” and the company “quickly tightened up our systems to address the issue. The project leaders never wanted this data, and didn’t use it or even look at it.” The company is “pleased” to have worked with Jepsen and other attorneys general, she said.
Cloud-based services will continue to be a major focus for AT&T this year, said Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche Thursday in an email to investors. Wells Fargo hosted a dinner with AT&T management Wednesday night, including Steve Caniano, AT&T vice president-Hosting, Application and Cloud Services, Fritzsche said. AT&T owns 38 data centers. Based on conversations at that dinner, “we estimate it is one of the top 3 providers of cloud services in the U.S.,” she said. “We continue to believe Strategic Services will continue to show double digit percentage growth this year.” AT&T is optimistic about its growth prospects in enterprise, and seemed “particularly enthused as to the long runway it sees in the mobile app services arena,” Fritzsche said. AT&T is also “pushing a further diversification of the [smartphone] base,” even though subsidies are still a “point of pressure,” she said.
The FCC’s path to signoff on Deutsche Telekom’s buy of MetroPCS to fold it into T-Mobile appears to be reaching the end stages. The commission is expected to endorse the deal with minimum conditions, officials say. One remaining question is whether the full FCC will vote on the transaction or whether it will be approved as a Wireless Bureau order, without a full commission vote. T-Mobile has pressed for a bureau-level order in the interest of speeding up approval.