Representatives of the Telecommunications Industry Association asked the FCC at a meeting at the FCC lab in Columbia, Md., to approve the group’s petition for optional electronic labeling of wireless devices. “As we discuss in the TIA eLabeling Petition, electronic labeling is becoming a natural progression from hard copy labels which would help in streamlining and lowering costs in the manufacturing process, eliminating typographical errors which sometimes appear on hard copy labels, and improving the approval processes by providing ease of access to information for the various constituencies in the device approval process, including the Commission,” TIA said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/17QCEB6). “Since being placed on Public Notice, the TIA eLabeling Petition has seen no opposing statements, and we look forward to the Commission taking further steps in the regulatory process as expeditiously as possible, including further public input. We urge that the Commission consider addressing the topic through the open device approval reform docket, in which TIA has submitted detailed comments."

FilmOn X will appeal last week’s injunction (CD Sept 9 p18) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia banning the service from streaming copyrighted material in most parts of the U.S., the company said in two emergency motions filed in the court Wednesday. FilmOn asked the court to stay its injunction pending the results of the firm’s appeal, and to limit the injunction’s scope to the area covered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The motions had to be filed quickly because FilmOn was ordered by the court to demonstrate its compliance with the injunction by Thursday, the company said. The injunction applies throughout the U.S. except for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which has repeatedly upheld the right of competing service Aereo to stream broadcasters’ content (CD April 2 p8). The U.S. District Court should reconsider its decision to apply the injunction against FilmOn because that would give Aereo an unfair competitive advantage, said FilmOn. Aereo has announced plans to expand to major markets where FilmOn is now enjoined from offering its competing service, and Aereo “can be expected to steal FilmOn customers disappointed they can no longer use FilmOn,” said the filing. The opinion announcing the injunction also included several technical errors in its description of FilmOn’s service, the filing said. Since the same copyright issues involving FilmOn and Aereo are also being considered in a case against Aereo in the U.S. District Court in Boston, in FilmOn’s appeal of a similar injunction in the 9th Circuit in San Francisco (CD Aug 29 p5), and already decided in the Aereo case in the 2nd Circuit, it’s unfair to take this issue away from other circuits by enjoining FilmOn throughout the country, said the filing. That decisions on injunctions in similar cases have come out differently in the 2nd and 9th circuits is also evidence that FilmOn has a chance to win its appeal in D.C., said the company’s filing. “The only court of appeals to consider the issues raised in this case has decided that the technology offered by FilmOn enables only private performance and is therefore legal. Therefore … there is a substantial likelihood they will prevail on appeal.” FilmOn also asked the court to increase the $250,000 injunction bond ordered in the case. Injunction bonds are paid to the court by plaintiffs to protect the defendant if it’s later found out that a preliminary injunction shouldn’t have been granted. The injunction bond in FilmOn’s 9th Circuit case was $250,000, but FilmOn said the D.C. Circuit’s injunction merits a higher payout by broadcasters since it covers 11 circuits instead of one.

Bulk collection of Americans’ phone metadata is a “needless” and “significant” threat to constitutional liberties, based on information in the declassified documents released by the Director of National Intelligence Tuesday, said Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1eEXUgq). “The court required the NSA to seek case-by-case approval to access the bulk phone records until these compliance violations were addressed,” the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said. “In our judgment, the fact that the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] Court was able to handle these requests on an individual basis is further evidence that intelligence agencies can get all of the information that they genuinely need without engaging in the dragnet surveillance of huge numbers of law-abiding Americans."

The Department of Homeland Security is not effectively managing the radios used by its staff in the field, DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report released Wednesday, the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, where emergency communications emerged as a key issue. “DHS is unable to make sound investment decisions for radio equipment and supporting infrastructure because the Department is not effectively managing its radio communication program,” OIG said (http://bit.ly/1eEQY2B). “DHS does not have reliable Department-wide inventory data or an effective governance structure to guide investment decision-making. As a result, DHS risks wasting taxpayer funds on equipment purchases and radio system investments that are not needed, sustainable, supportable, or affordable. Two Components we visited stored more than 8,000 radio equipment items valued at $28 million for a year or longer at their maintenance and warehouse facilities, while some programs faced critical equipment shortages.” DHS operates 20 land mobile radio networks for more than 120,000 frontline agents and officers. The report also said different parts of DHS use different systems to record and manage their radios. “DHS has not established Department-wide polices prescribing common data elements, standardized definitions, and requirements for the management of personal property inventory,” the report said.

The recent court-ordered declassification of documents about telephone metadata collection and surveillance by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence “demonstrates the need for close oversight and appropriate checks and balances,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement Tuesday. “Americans deserve to understand more about the [National Security Agency’s] collection and use of their phone records, and in particular about the types of systemic problems revealed in these documents.” The committee “will hold further hearings to hear from Administration officials,” and Leahy’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Accountability and Privacy Protection Act, S-1215, “would put an end to the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act,” he said.

The U.S. International Trade Commission seeks comment by Oct. 7 on a final initial determination by an administrative law judge involving wireless consumer electronics devices and components (CD Sept 11 p20). The devices were imported by Acer, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Garmin, HTC, Huawei, Futurewei, Kyocera, LG, Nintendo, Novatel, Samsung and ZTE, according to a notice set to appear in Thursday’s Federal Register (http://bit.ly/13NmS8R).

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., introduced a continuing resolution designed to prevent a government shutdown at the end of fiscal year 2013 on Sept. 30. The CR would extend operational funding for all federal agencies, programs and services until Dec. 15. “A Continuing Resolution is necessary to stop a government-wide shut down that would halt critical government programs and services, destabilize our economy, and put the safety and well-being of our citizens at risk,” said Rogers in a Tuesday news release (http://1.usa.gov/1g11Zcy).

Correction: Harbinger Capital Partners’ complaint against Sound Point Capital Management and its founder Stephen Ketchum wasn’t dismissed (CD Sept 11 p17).

The Front Porch Forum is now available statewide in Vermont through investment from the Vermont Council on Rural Development’s Vermont Digital Economy Project, said the organizations in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/15KmJ3w). It said Vermonters can use FrontPorchForum.com to connect with their neighbors and “build community” by sharing postings on a range of issues and topics with other Vermonters. FPF has nearly 60,000 households in 251 Vermont towns participating, said the organizations. The forum was founded in 2006 in Burlington, where more than two-thirds of households subscribe to share postings on an array of local topics of interest, the website said (http://bit.ly/1b6gFte).

Although the new iPhone 5c starts at only $99 for a 16-GB model with a service contract in the U.S. (CD Sept 11 p13), analysts complained about the device’s unsubsidized U.S. pricing and its steep price tag in emerging markets, including China. The entry-level model will cost $549 for U.S. consumers who opt for an unlocked, contract-free version through T-Mobile, and the step-up 32-GB version will cost $649, according to Apple’s website. The one 5c SKU featured at Apple’s Chinese website, meanwhile, will cost 4,488 renminbi ($733.44 at $1 = 6.12 renminbi). The 5c is “priced too high to make a significant dent in the smartphone market in emerging countries,” said Analysys Mason analyst Ronan de Renesse on Wednesday. The analyst doesn’t think the 5c is “positioned as a low-cost device” because it’s “billed exactly the same” as the iPhone 5 would have been after the launch of the upgraded 5s if Apple didn’t opt to drop that model, he said. At $549 unsubsidized, the 5c “remains at the same price point as the existing mid-range model” in Apple’s smartphone line, the 4S, said Francis Sideco, IHS director-consumer electronics and communications technologies, in a news release. Due to that pricing, the 5c seems to be a “midrange product that cannot significantly expand the available market for the iPhone line to lower-income buyers,” he said. The launch of the 5c “will not spur a major increase” in iPhone sales in the back half of 2013, as previously expected, and IHS opted not to upgrade its forecast of iPhone shipments in the second half of this year, it said. “If Apple had hit a $350 to $400 unsubsidized price range for the iPhone 5c, as some had speculated, the company might have had a chance to expand its smartphone shipments beyond what we originally expected” in the back half, said Sideco. “Even at a subsidized price of $99 with a two-year contract, the 5c will not spur sales because it does not materially expand Apple’s addressable market past the level we had already taken into account.” Apple will ship 158.9 million iPhones in 2013, compared to a forecast total for the entire smartphone market of 1.1 billion units, IHS projected. But it agreed with de Renesse that a deal with China Mobile could help Apple significantly. Although Apple “did not address the low end of the market” with its Tuesday announcement, the 5c still “represents a major departure from its previous product strategy, which could improve the company’s competitiveness,” said IHS. “With the new models, Apple is taking steps to bolster its share of the global smartphone market in the face of rising competition,” said Ian Fogg, IHS director-mobile and telecoms. He pointed to “innovation” in the iPhone design and features with iOS 7, signaling that Apple is “now also innovating at lower price points, too.”