Rogers Communications is acquiring Pivot Data Centres and Granite Networks for cash to provide data centers and associated services to Rogers Business Solutions, said the company in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/18SmHqp). With the acquisitions, Blackiron Data will own and operate data centers in Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary, said Rogers. Pivot Data Centres, acquired for $155 million, has over 100 enterprise customers and government agencies that use its data center services. The closing is expected in October, said Rogers. Granite Networks, acquired for $6.25 million, provides “flexible, managed services” and cloud hosting services to business and government clients, and Rogers’ acquisition has already been completed, said the company. Pivot Data Centres and Granite Networks generate about $30 million combined annual revenue, said Rogers.

The FCC ordered a $15,000 forfeiture for Pentecostal Revival Association for its Palatka, Fla., station WJGV-CD, which allegedly violated children’s TV filing requirements and failed to report the violations in its license renewal application, said a forfeiture order (http://bit.ly/15my7CT). Pentecostal Revival did not respond to a July notice of apparent liability issued by the Media Bureau, the order said. The commission also ordered a $12,000 fine for Guenter Marksteiner -- licensee of WHDT-CD in Miami and WYDT-CA in Naples, Fla. -- for repeated late filings of children’s TV report requirements, said a forfeiture order (http://bit.ly/18PQ9mR). Marksteiner didn’t respond to an NAL issued by the bureau. The commission also fined First Media Radio $6,000, for its Roanoke Rapids, N.C., station WNVN-LP’s children’s TV violations, said a forfeiture order (http://bit.ly/15PARMG). The commission also ordered a $9,000 fine for San-Lee Community Broadcasting because WBFT-CA in Sanford, N.C., missed quarterly filing deadlines between 2006 and 2010 and failed to report the violations in its renewal application, said an order (http://bit.ly/16mm7qR). The FCC also proposed $5,500 in total fines for other violations, said Media Bureau and Enforcement Bureau NALs released this week. The commission proposed a $4,000 fine for Atlanticare Medical Center EMS (http://bit.ly/1b7iuXz) for its radio station WQME366 in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., operating radio equipment from an unauthorized location and causing co-channel interference, said an NAL. WDKA Paducah, Ky., licensee WDKA Acquisition Corp. faces a proposed fine of $1,500 for failing to file a renewal application on time (http://bit.ly/15PzDAT).

Overly broad patents threaten innovation, said Public Knowledge in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court in the patent case WildTangent v. Ultramercial (http://bit.ly/1dEgzaI). Public Knowledge urged the court to review a decision upholding the patent in that case, which covers a process of displaying paid online content for free in exchange for showing advertising before that content, it said. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit “believed that the patent in this case required ‘intricate and complex computer programming,’ but our amicus brief shows that it can actually be performed with 16 lines of simple computer code,” said Charles Duan, director of Public Knowledge’s Patent Reform Project.

Federal cybersecurity professionals lack confidence in the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and in the sustainability of their agencies’ current cybersecurity solutions, said a new report from the public-private government IT group MeriTalk, underwritten by NetApp (http://bit.ly/1dEgfsu). Twenty-two percent of those surveyed said their agencies’ solutions were sustainable, given the growing sophistication of cyberattacks. Fifty-three percent said FISMA improved security at their agency, and 86 percent said FISMA compliance increased costs. Fifty-five percent said their agency is overloaded or can’t keep up with the data crossing its network. For the report, MeriTalk surveyed 203 federal cybersecurity professionals in July.

Broadcast Music Inc. increased revenue by $45 million, for a 5 percent gain over FY2012 to $944 million, it said in a Monday release (http://bit.ly/1dEdYgS). The “record-setting” revenue resulted in a historic high royalty distribution of $814 million, a 9 percent increase from the previous year, and the largest revenue posted and royalties distributed in the company’s history. “The year’s results reflect BMI’s ability to monetize new delivery systems, while growing traditional revenue sources such as retail and service establishments and programming delivered via satellite and cable television,” it said. It increased its new media revenue by 65 percent over the previous fiscal year, it said, due to agreements with Netflix, Hulu and other digital entertainment outlets.

Google was the top online video content property in August, with 167 million unique viewers, said comScore in their August online video rankings Friday (http://bit.ly/18J2p2J). ComScore found 188.5 million Americans watched 46.7 billion online content videos in August and watched 22.8 billion video ads. Google, which owns YouTube, was followed by AOL at 71.2 million, Facebook 62.2 million, NDN 50.7 million and VEVO 49.4 million, said comScore. Google had the most ad impressions at 3.2 billion, followed by Adap.tv with more than 2.4 billion ads seen; BrightRoll Platform had 2.4 billion and LiveRail.com 2.2 billion, said comScore. In August, 87 percent of the U.S. Internet audience watched online video, and the duration of the average online video was 5.2 minutes, said comScore.

The long-awaited “common file format” (CFF) for the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem’s UltraViolet digital locker system, which will let studios encode only one version of a movie instead of the literally dozens now needed to serve all viewing platforms, is now finalized, said DECE General Manager Mark Teitell in a recent interview in London. Movie industry employees have been secretly road testing it for “several months,” Teitell said. If the tests are successful and any discovered bugs easily fixed, DECE will formally announce “limited real market use this year,” he said. Without CFF, there has been “an unhealthy diversity of different device types, so the retailer has to encode and encrypt titles in 10, 20, 30 different encodes,” he said. Using CFF “is more like mastering” for DVD or Blu-ray, he said. “The studio only has to encode and encrypt once and give it to the retailers. One file can be played by different [digital rights managements].” In the road tests, “we want to find any interoperability issues,” such as the way fonts are handled by different players, he said. “We are now getting to the end of testing and will then clean up the spec. We anticipate we will soon announce limited real-market use this year.” CFF has taken longer than expected “because everyone wants to make sure it’s right,” said Yves Caillaud, DECE European managing director. “The user experience is critical.” While it’s true that no specific plans for CFF-ready hardware have been announced, “we plan to trigger a ’sunrise’ in the U.S. first,” which is when everything new must be CFF-compatible, Teitell said. “It’s important to synchronize the turn-on.” DECE prefers “a positive sunrise, with CFF adding value,” he said. “We are concerned that some legacy devices might not be able to cope with CFF.” Guardedly, Teitell confirmed two more developments DECE hopes will make UltraViolet more appealing. “We are making it much less onerous to create a UV account,” he said. “People won’t immediately have to make up a user name and password. We'll send users one later to use or change if they wish.” DECE also is making improvements to its code redemption, he said: “It will be smoother.”

There are 200 million fewer women online globally then men and the gap could grow to 350 million in the next three years if action isn’t taken, said the Broadband Commission Working Group on Broadband and Gender in a report Monday (http://bit.ly/19u2n0Q). Of the world’s 2.8 billion Internet users, 1.3 billion are women, vs. 1.5 billion men, and the gap widens in the “developing world, where expensive, ‘high status’ [information and communications technology] like computers are often reserved for use by men,” said the report. Globally, women are on average 21 percent less likely to own a mobile phone, which equates to $1.3 billion “potential missed revenues for the mobile sector,” said the report. The Broadband Commission said every 10 percent increase in broadband access results in 1.38 percent growth in GDP. By 2015, the Broadband Commission estimates 90 percent of formal employment across all sectors will require ICT skills and professionals with computer science degrees can expect to earn salaries similar to doctors and lawyers. However, women now are fewer than 20 percent of ICT specialists, said the report.

Peak network traffic increased by 23 percent on average following Apple’s iOS 7 release, said PeerApp on Monday, based on data from its global caching installed customer base (http://yhoo.it/1b77MAq). Operators with UltraBand delivered more than 99 percent of the updates from cache, “virtually eliminating” traffic spikes in their networks, said PeerApp. In the first 24 hours of the iOS 7 release, PeerApp systems delivered more than 10 million iOS 7 updates, and they reduced a 50 minute download time to 5-12 minutes with caching accelerated downloads, said the company.

Dish Network is offering new programming bundles for businesses to provide news, entertainment and sports content to their patrons. The “Business Complete” and “Business Complete Plus Sports” bundles “replace the numerous packages Dish previously offered, giving them a simplified solution for ordering TV service,” Dish said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1fcbuKN). The bundles can be combined with additional sports programming like the PAC-12 Network, it said. Business Complete offers 137 channels and Business Complete Plus Sports offers 21 top sports channels in addition to the 137 channels, it said.