The FCC and Food and Drug Administration signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at improving information exchange between the two and streamlining collaboration, the agencies said. The MOU was unveiled at the start of two days of discussions at the commission during a joint meeting with the FDA on mobile health (mhealth) issues. The two agencies also released a joint statement on wireless medical devices. The FCC National Broadband Plan, released in March, dedicated a chapter to healthcare issues. At its July meeting, the FCC began a rulemaking on a program that would provide up to $400 million per year on health connectivity.
Internet Protocol networks are the way forward for emergency-services providers, said IPv6 Forum President Latif Ladid. Though some in public safety consider additional spectrum the answer, that would merely add access and connectivity without making it easier for services to talk to each other, he said in an interview Monday. But Jeppe Jepsen, Motorola’s director of international business relations and a board member of Europe’s Terrestrial Trunked Radio Association (TETRA), said wireless networks aren’t resilient or secure enough to deliver the required services.
Rural wireless carriers didn’t endorse but some may be open to Universal Service Fund overhaul legislation by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. The bill (HR-5828) is backed by major wireline associations, the cable industry and AT&T and Verizon (CD July 23 p1). Some expected a competitive bidding rule to alienate rural wireless carriers that compete for USF dollars as competitive eligible telecommunications carriers. Wireless CETCs have concerns, but believe Boucher and Terry listened hard to all stakeholders and came up with a “solid compromise,” said Rural Telecommunication Group General Counsel Carri Bennet.
Wireless issues have gotten some of the most attention at various meetings held by FCC Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus with industry to discuss a possible legislative proposal for giving the commission authority over broadband, said people who attended the meetings or spoke to others who did. There seems to be more agreement among agency officials and meeting attendees on applying net neutrality rules to wireline broadband, though some issues remain unresolved, they said. Net neutrality advocates and opponents appear to agree on ISP privacy conditions and transparency on network practices, industry and public-interest group lawyers said.
Verizon had a Q2 loss of $198 million versus a profit of $1.48 billion a year earlier, mostly due to a $2.3 billion charge for job cuts. The company continues to look at tiered data pricing options as it moves to LTE, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said on a conference call Friday. Verizon’s headcount is down by nearly 25,000, to 210,000 at the end of the quarter.
The implications for the fast-growing online video market of a planned deal for Comcast to buy control of NBC Universal were debated in new FCC filings by the two companies and opponents of their multibillion dollar transaction. As in the past, Comcast, NBC Universal and NBCU parent General Electric said their deal won’t stifle the market, because the risks to the combined company of withholding online programming from pay-TV rivals likely would exceed the profit from such a strategy. FCC staffers continue meeting with each other and outsiders to consider the deal, and much work appears to remain before the Media Bureau starts drafting a decision, commission and industry officials said.
There’s no “deep divide” between the FCC and many in public safety, just a “spirited discussion” on the future of a national wireless broadband network, APCO President Richard Mirgon said on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators to air this weekend. Former FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Ed Thomas said on the program that the disagreement could hurt chances of Congress’s approving funding for the network soon.
AT&T’s Q2 net income rose 26 percent year-over-year to $4 billion, helped by wireless growth and its cost cutting initiatives. Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner expects improved results from consumer landline services but a slow recovery of business services, he said during a conference call Thursday.
Digital sales at LIN TV could reach 25 percent of total sales within three or four years, CEO Vincent Sadusky told investors Thursday. That’s the company’s target and would put it ahead of broadcast peers, he said. Sales from LIN’s TV station websites, mobile applications and retransmission consent now make up about 15 percent of revenue, but all those categories have the potential to keep growing, he said. The company’s recent acquisition of RMM, an online ad company, will help it keep selling new online ad products that incorporate geo-targeting and advanced performance metric-based pricing, Sadusky said.
Phone and cable companies are pulling out all the stops to defend their markets and defeat net neutrality rules, ColorOfChange.org Executive Director James Rucker said Thursday. At a panel on broadband at the Netroots Nation conference, attended by liberal activists from across the U.S., he called net neutrality a “modern civil rights issue.”