Justices indicated skepticism over AT&T’s position Tuesday, as the Supreme Court heard oral argument over whether a state can prohibit wireless contracts that allow only arbitration, not class action lawsuits. Conventional wisdom, some observers say, has been that the court, which is generally perceived as pro-business, would side with AT&T in a decision with implications well beyond the telecom sector. But Andrew Pincus, attorney for AT&T, faced many more pointed questions than the attorney for the California couple who brought the case,
The FCC will set a precedent however it decides a complaint that a new cartoon on a Viacom channel violates children’s media rules because it’s based on characters used elsewhere to advertise athletic shoes, supporters and critics of the show agreed in interviews and recent filings. Those seeking commission approval of a petition for declaratory ruling on the show Zevo-3, which began airing Oct. 11 on the Nicktoons channel, believe that granting the request (CD Oct 26 p5) would prevent any further shows from being based entirely on characters that sell goods in other media venues. Opponents of the petition said its approval would not only stop future shows but also limit current ones.
GOP and tea party movement gains from the election could mean more support for a commercial auction of the 700 MHz D-block, officials of conservative think tanks said in interviews. Giving the D-block away to public safety would not be consistent with the cost-cutting platform that many winning GOP candidates ran on, they said. Building a national interoperable public safety network is expected to be a key issue for Congress in 2011, which will mark the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.
The leverage broadcasters enjoy in retransmission consent negotiations with pay-TV distributors comes from the popular content they have, not because of the FCC license that stations operate under, CBS Chief Financial Officer Joseph Iannello said Tuesday. His comments at a Wells Fargo conference came in reaction to assertions by an investor that broadcasters would have no leverage without their licenses. “I don’t need the FCC license to have the negotiation,” Iannello said. It’s no different from when a cable network negotiates with a distributor, he said. But if distributors “want to charge your customer and not pay us, that business model is gone."
BEIJING -- Preparing for the IPv6 rollout is a pressing issue in China, Chinese telecom operators and a representative of the China Internet Network Information Center said at the Internet Engineering Task Force meeting Monday. IPv4 addresses are scarce, said Zhao Huiling, research vice president of China Telecom. China Telecom is “facing a gap of 20 million IPv4 addresses,” Zhao said in what she called personal comments.
This has been the “year of progress” for deployment of femtocells, low-power, wireless mini-base stations that provide short-range communications indoors, Femto Forum Chairman Simon Saunders said in an interview. The number of commercial services has probably tripled in the past year, with 17 running worldwide, he said. The technology is so useful that the forum is looking for ways to embed it in businesses, public spaces and, eventually outdoors for LTE services, he said. The momentum is expected to accelerate next year as multiple uses for femtocells launch, said Aditya Kaul, ABI Research practice director, mobile networks.
SAN FRANCISCO -- U.S. wireless carriers must change industry economics created by upward-spiraling data use and large subsidies on handsets that customers are upgrading often, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse said Tuesday. “Something has to give,” he said at the Open Mobile Summit. This is a “very challenging” problem throughout the industry, as shown by the share-price histories of AT&T and Verizon Wireless, considered the most successful carriers, Hesse said.
A rare en banc review of an appeals court decision that could force EchoStar to shut down millions of set-top boxes renewed arguments over to what extent EchoStar had violated a TiVo patent and a court injunction. The oral argument before nine judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Tuesday raised questions on the standard for a contempt ruling against EchoStar for continued infringement of TiVo’s DVR patent. Previously, a district court judge found EchoStar to be in contempt because EchoStar used DVRs the judge said violate an injunction against future infringement. EchoStar has said it redesigned the DVRs in good faith to avoid infringement and a new trial should determine whether the work-around violates the patent.
GENEVA -- Costs and questions about the need for new service provider identities are key concerns for industry and government participants at an ITU-T study group debating use cases and a draft recommendation on a proposed system. Global telecom network operators are meeting through Nov. 18 to consider a proposal for a new “identifier” which all operators must obtain to have their traffic routed, an executive following the work said. Most parties seem unconvinced that a wholly new identifier and the associated administrative overhead are needed, he said. The idea of a more global approach for operator or network identifiers has been knocking around ITU-T for years.
The urgency to solve privacy and security problems, the rise of mobile broadband use that leads to capacity crunches, and the emergence of digital media all call for the government to step up its efforts to better protect consumers, encourage investment and ensure the diversity of content, officials said at the Global Forum at George Washington University Monday.