Nokia downgraded Q4 forecasts Thursday for the second time, blaming a bigger-than-expected slowdown in the handset business. Citing “insufficient visibility in the marketplace,” the handset maker said it was no longer able to stick to its previous estimate of keeping 38 percent or more of the cellphone market this quarter. It expected industry- wide handset volumes to fall below its previous estimate of 330 million units in the quarter and 1.24 billion units for the year. Nokia’s Nov. 4 estimate was already cut from an earlier forecast. The company also expects the mobile phone market to contract by 5 percent in 2009 compared to this year. CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo warned that 2009 would be a challenging year for the industry, but said he still expected Nokia to strengthen its position as a market leader.
Globalstar issued options to its board members to purchase stock at 38 cents a share instead of paying the directors for the last two quarters, the company said in an SEC filing.
The U.S. wireless data market generated service revenue of $8.8 billion in Q3 despite global financial turmoil, a report by Chetan Sharma Consulting said. Mobile data revenue grew 7.3 percent sequentially and 37.5 percent year-over- year, it said. Messaging volume grew 38 percent year-over- year during Q3, with messaging revenue growing six percent year-over-year. Total average revenue per user fell four cents year-over-year in Q3, it said. Verizon Wireless led in data average revenue per user with $13.58, followed by Sprint’s $13.50 and AT&T’s $12.29 and T-Mobile USA’s $9.00. Verizon Wireless and AT&T accounted for 62 percent of total market data service revenue by the end of Q3.
The DTV Transition-branded race car driven by David Gilliland crashed spectacularly Sunday, getting the FCC message some TV time. Gilliland’s No. 38 Ford caught fire atop another car after a crash late in the penultimate Sprint Cup race of the season, in Phoenix. No drivers involved were injured, but NASCAR suspended the race for more than 17 minutes so workers could clear the track of debris. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said the crash of the car sponsored by the commission could have attracted spectators’ attention to the transition. “The ones that are in wrecks, they get a lot of attention” -- almost as much as race leaders, he told reporters at a DTV event Monday.
World Wrestling Entertainment Q3 sales changed little from a year earlier at $108.8 million, the cable programmer said Thursday. Profit slid 38 percent to $5.3 million. With revenue growth slowed, the company plans to trim at least $20 million in costs in 2009, it said.
The worsening economy probably will distract TV viewers from preparing for the February digital switchover, Comcast President Stephen Burke told investors Wednesday. “With everything else going on, people are going to be distracted,” Burke said. “A greater percentage will wait until the last minute” before taking the steps necessary prepare for the switch, he said. Comcast has been marketing a special DTV switch promotion to analog over-the-air viewers, offering a year of free basic cable service to customers that also buy its phone or broadband service (CD Oct 9 p13).
CTIA is asking the FCC to open only part of the TV white spaces to unlicensed use, setting other channels aside for licensed use or for a decision to be made later on how they will be used. CTIA reported on recent meetings between President Steve Largent and Commissioners Michael Copps, Jonathan Adelstein and Robert McDowell. Under the CTIA plan, the FCC would set aside channels 21-36 for unlicensed use. “Only if unlicensed operations in TV white spaces prove a successful business model that actually delivers on its promise and that can operate without causing interference to licensed operations, should the Commission consider extending unlicensed uses beyond the initial channel range,” the group said. CTIA also recommended dedicating channels 38-51 to licensed use and reserving channels 2-20 for future consideration. “By taking a measured approach, the Commission can honor its spectrum management responsibilities while moving licensed spectrum to the market through auction for broadband use and still giving unlicensed white space proponents sufficient spectrum resources (at least 30-40 MHz in each market) to move forward with development,” CTIA said.
A hybrid Universal Service Fund contribution mechanism using phone numbers and connections beats one using numbers and revenue, AT&T and Verizon said. The carriers, which would prefer a numbers-only mechanism, pitched an alternative hybrid method in a Monday FCC filing. That plan would levy a fixed $0.85 rate on assessable residential, wireless and business numbers, and establish a new “assessable connection” category, AT&T and Verizon said. Assessable connections up to 64 kbps would pay $5 per dedicated connection, with faster connections paying $35 per connection, the companies said. Adopting the alternate plan would cut consumer share of USF contributions to about 38 percent, they said. The business sector would pay about 62 percent of USF contributions. The portion of USF collected from special access and other dedicated connections would rise to 16 percent from today’s 8 percent, the telcos said. If the FCC exempts some from paying into USF by numbers, it shouldn’t do so in a way that would “require alternate calculation methodologies or that maintain [today’s] revenue methodology,” AT&T and Verizon said. Instead, the agency should adopt a reimbursement method “whereby the customer is billed and pays the full [charge] per number,” but then can ask the Universal Service Administrative Co. for a partial refund, they said.
A hybrid Universal Service Fund contribution mechanism using phone numbers and connections beats one using numbers and revenue, AT&T and Verizon said. The carriers, which would prefer a numbers-only mechanism, pitched an alternative hybrid method in a Monday FCC filing. That plan would levy a fixed $0.85 rate on assessable residential, wireless and business numbers, and establish a new “assessable connection” category, AT&T and Verizon said. Assessable connections up to 64 kbps would pay $5 per dedicated connection, with faster connections paying $35 per connection, the companies said. Adopting the alternate plan would cut consumer share of USF contributions to about 38 percent, they said. The business sector would pay about 62 percent of USF contributions. The portion of USF collected from special access and other dedicated connections would rise to 16 percent from today’s 8 percent, the telcos said. If the FCC exempts some from paying into USF by numbers, it shouldn’t do so in a way that would “require alternate calculation methodologies or that maintain [today’s] revenue methodology,” AT&T and Verizon said. Instead, the agency should adopt a reimbursement method “whereby the customer is billed and pays the full [charge] per number,” but then can ask the Universal Service Administrative Co. for a partial refund, they said.
The DTV Transition car, No. 38, hit the wall during Sunday’s Sprint Cup NASCAR race in Martinsville, Va. Driver David Gilliland trailed the pack most of the afternoon, only getting camera time when he crashed. The crumpled FCC-backed car (CD Oct 20 p7) retired after lap 485 of the 504-lap race.