Global investment firm KKR said Monday it’s investing an undisclosed amount in three Associated Partners-managed wireless infrastructure businesses -- AP Towers, AP Wireless and PEG Bandwidth. AP Towers develops new wireless towers and buys currently operating sites, while AP Wireless buys interests in cell site ground and rooftop leases. PEG Bandwidth designs, builds and operates ethernet backhaul networks that connect towers with fiber networks in primarily rural areas, KKR said. “The need for wireless infrastructure will continue to be driven by increases in wireless data usage that is overwhelming existing network capacity,” said Raj Agrawal, KKR head-North American infrastructure, in a news release (http://bit.ly/1f002OQ).

Recycling company e-Cycle has had more than a 300 percent increase in wireless buyback quote requests since Apple shipped the new iPhone 5s and 5c, e-Cycle CEO Christopher Irion said Monday in a news release. As a result, e-Cycle expanded its operations, he said. The company is “rapidly hiring phone sorters,” data security specialists and quality assurance personnel for its operations facility in Hilliard, Ohio, Paulie Anthony, director-marketing, told us. E-Cycle also expanded its customer service department and added proprietary equipment that he said was designed for managing iOS devices. It’s also just starting to extend its services to Europe, Canada and South America “to better meet the wireless asset recovery, data security and recycling needs” of clients outside the U.S., he said. The company is also now offering individual consumers the same mobile phone buyback and data protection services that it previously offered only to corporate and government clients, it said. Also new is a consumer mobile buyback site that it launched at www.e-CycleYourMobile.com, after receiving frequent requests from enterprise clients to provide a secure way their employees could sell their individually owned devices, it said. The site gives consumers the ability to quickly sell iPhones and BlackBerry, Android and other types of wireless devices, said Irion. Devices bought via the site receive the same “thorough data sanitization services” that e-Cycle provides its enterprise and government clients, it said. Some rival consumer buyback companies claim to offer data deletion services, but nearly all of them state at their websites that it’s the responsibility of the seller to delete their private information, said e-Cycle. A large percentage of mobile devices that arrive at the e-Cycle facility still contain sensitive data, even after they were reported to be wiped prior to shipping, it said. Of the devices received at the facility, e-Cycle’s data security department reported that 55 percent of devices had SIM cards containing sensitive information and one in five devices had SD memory cards with access to private files, it said. The company hires third-party “forensic auditors on a quarterly basis to test random samples” of its mobile phones and validate its data removal processes, said Irion. The company, in January 2012, became the first e-Stewards certified mobile buyback and recycling company globally, it said. E-Cycle had recycled more than 12 million mobile phones and kept more than 250,000 tons of toxic waste out of landfills as of late April. That has since expanded to just under 12.9 million devices being recycled and just under 255,000 tons of e-waste being kept out of landfills, said Anthony. Since January, the company has recycled more than 205,000 lithium-ion mobile phone batteries, he said.

Liberty Global will sell its international content division Chellomedia to AMC Networks for just over $1 billion, said AMC (http://bit.ly/18ufLQr0) and Liberty (http://bit.ly/1at8Ael) Monday. Chellomedia’s channels are distributed to more than 390 million households in 138 countries, said the Liberty release. “For Liberty Global, this transaction is attractive from both a valuation and liquidity perspective,” said CEO Mike Fries in the release. “It also simplifies our business and allows us to focus on our core markets and more strategic programming opportunities.” The assets being sold include Chello Multicanal, Chello Central Europe, Chello Zone, Chello Latin America and Chello DMC, and Chellomedia’s stakes in joint ventures with CBS International, A+E Networks and Zon Optimus. Liberty Global will retain its Dutch premium channels Film1 and Sport1, it said. AMC plans to use Chello’s many international channels to distribute original programming from AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv “across an expansive global footprint,” AMC said. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, and isn’t conditioned on any regulatory approvals, it said.

The Dyle TV mobile DTV service, led by Mobile Content Venture, is launching a major marketing campaign to promote its service and the Audiovox mobile TV receiver. Continuing through Jan. 19, stations from NBC, Fox, Sinclair and other networks will cross-promote the mobile TV technology and the Audiovox receiver across 12 key markets, Dyle said in a news release (http://bit.ly/19No9OV). The receiver “allows consumers to turn their smartphones and tablets into portable televisions,” it said. The advertising markets include Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami, it said.

RealNetworks acquired London-based Muzicall, known for its popular ringback tone platform, said the acquirer in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1akNi6l). It said Muzicall will become part of RealNetworks’ Mobile Entertainment division, which manages 18 million ringback tone subscribers worldwide. “Muzicall has done a great job of pioneering direct-to-consumer marketing of [ringback tones] in partnership with carriers across Europe,” said Max Pellegrini, president of the Mobile Entertainment Division. Muzicall has more than 500,000 subscribers across Europe, the release said. Muzicall founder and Vice President-Sales Richard Jackson said he thinks that number will continue to grow.

Americans are paying high prices for slower Internet speeds compared to their international peers, said a report by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute released Monday (http://bit.ly/1buL296). OTI compared eight American cities including Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., to 16 cities around the world for their residential high-speed Internet services. Over the past year, mobile and wireline offerings advanced more internationally than domestically with international service providers now generally offering higher speeds at much lower prices, said the report. The availability of residential services remained limited in 2013 with only some portions of Kansas City receiving Google Fiber services and limited Verizon FiOS availability, said OTI. Pricing remained the same in cities with municipal broadband networks with the exception of local municipal provider EPB in Chattanooga, which lowered the price of its 1 Gbps connection from $349 a month to $70 a month in September, said the report. Mobile data plans offered more options, high caps and cheaper plans in international cities compared to 2012. Mobile broadband in the U.S. is not a viable alternative to wireline at this time because of “the combination of high costs, slower and more unreliable speeds and restrictive data caps,” said the report.

The Senate Finance Committee should resolve the questions on antidumping and countervailing duty enforcement and work to get customs reauthorization legislation to the Senate floor this year, wrote a group of media and other companies and associations to committee leaders. Thursday’s letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, emphasized the importance of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2013. The S-662 bill has stalled over disagreement on how to handle and update some duty enforcement. The letter writers would like the committee to mark up “and move this bipartisan legislation to the Senate floor this year,” wrote Comcast’s NBCUniversal, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Viacom, Walmart and others (http://uscham.com/17o2zmx). The legislation would make important updates to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s abilities to deal with imports that violate intellectual property laws, they said. Industries that rely on IP protections make up a significant amount of U.S. jobs and exports, but “American creativity, innovation, and respected brands are under attack by those who seek to profit by illegally copying and distributing goods into the U.S. marketplace or into other markets around the world,” the letter said. “To combat this massive threat, this bill would provide appropriate legal authority and resources to CBP and ICE. This bill would also promote collaboration by these agencies with rights holders and provide authorization for the National IPR [Intellectual Property Rights] Coordination Center.” The customs bill would also set an important “benchmark” as negotiations continue on various trade agreements, said the letter. With the World Trade Organization working on “completing a global Trade Facilitation Agreement and both the Transpacific Partnership” and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations “focused on raising the global standards for supply chains, customs, and trade facilitation, the timing of this legislation is critical,” it said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau rescheduled a workshop on wireless 911 location accuracy for Nov. 18, starting at 9:30 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room (http://bit.ly/17o0Ayz). The workshop had been slated for Oct. 2, the second day of the 16-day partial federal shutdown.

Nielsen will make its software developer kit available in mid-November to incorporate audiences viewing TV content on digital devices, said the company in a news release Monday (ttp://bit.ly/16E78sh). The company will include digital devices in its TV ratings in the 2014-2015 TV season. Nielsen said it will use a unified encoding approach for video to enable measurement to follow across screens and ad models. If a broadcaster makes a TV show available for viewing on a digital device and it meets the ad load and timeline requirements for TV ratings, that viewing will be included in the Nielsen TV ratings, said the company. If the content isn’t eligible for TV ratings, it will be included in the Nielsen Digital Ratings, said the company. It said measurement data across mobile viewing will use big data and a “census-style measurement approach” to match demographic information in a “privacy safe way via data providers” and calibrate it with Nielsen’s National People Meter panel.

The FCC established a pleading cycle on Verizon Wireless’s proposed buy of a single AWS-1 B-block license covering the Greater St. Louis area. “Preliminary review of the application indicates that, pursuant to the proposed transaction, Verizon Wireless would acquire 20 megahertz of AWS-1 spectrum in 53 counties in 14 Cellular Market Areas ... across parts of Illinois and Missouri,” said a public notice (http://bit.ly/1dEdvOu). “Post-transaction, Verizon Wireless would hold 62-117 megahertz of spectrum across these CMAs, 40 megahertz of which would be AWS-1.” Petitions to deny are due Nov. 8, oppositions Nov. 18 and replies Nov. 25.