T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless announced a spectrum swap Monday, for the purchase and exchange of AWS licenses in 218 markets. Some of the licenses T-Mobile will get are among those Verizon Wireless is buying from the SpectrumCo venture of three cable operators and from Leap Wireless. T-Mobile had been among the toughest critics of Verizon Wireless’s buy of the SpectrumCo licenses, but formally withdrew its FCC petition that had asked for denial of that deal as well as Verizon’s buy of Cox licenses. The Verizon Wireless/SpectrumCo transaction was already well on its way to approval by federal regulators, though likely with conditions, commission officials have said. The FCC and Department of Justice must also approve the Verizon/T-Mobile license transfer.
More teenagers engage in risky online behavior than many parents think, McAfee’s 2012 Teen Behavior study said (http://xrl.us/bncu62). “While it is not necessarily surprising that teens are engaging in the same types of rebellious behaviors online that they exhibit offline, it is surprising how disconnected their parents are,” Stanley Holditch, an online safety expert for McAfee, said in a McAfee news release (http://xrl.us/bncvb5). The majority of parents, 73.5 percent, trust their teens to not access age-inappropriate online content, the study said. It said that 43 percent accessed simulated violence, 36 percent access sexual topics and 32 percent access pornography or nude content.
The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (SBCA) defended its petition urging the FCC to amend its Over-The-Air-Reception Devices(OTARD) rule against opposition from the cities of Boston and Philadelphia and some local government groups. The parties submitted reply comments, due last week, in docket 12-121. SBCA filed its petition to determine that state and local governments are prohibited from restricting reception devices on rental property.
A Supreme Court ruling against FCC indecency actions lacks clarity for public broadcasters to determine what makes content indecent or obscene, said attorneys and executives in the public broadcast industry. Although indecency issues aren’t common in public broadcasting, the ruling doesn’t provide a clear context for some programming that may contain sensitive subjects, they said. In Thursday’s decision, the Supreme Court threw out a commission censure of News Corp. for curse words and a fine against some stations affiliated with Disney’s ABC for nudity (CD June 22 p1). The court determined that the FCC failed to notify the networks that broadcasting so-called fleeting expletives or nudity could result in fines or censure.
Chairman Julius Genachowski was still the only FCC member to have voted (CD June 21 p1) on the special access order he circulated two weeks ago, an agency official said late Friday. “It’s the dog that doesn’t bark and I think it speaks volumes that no one is currently supporting the circulated item except the chairman,” an agency official said. Industry and government officials have expected resistance from Commissioners Ajit Pai and Robert McDowell.
House and Senate lawmakers are unlikely to push for legislation to clarify the rules on broadcast indecency following the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling (CD June 22 p1), Capitol Hill staffers told us the next day. Family groups said that’s not surprising, but the ruling does present Congress with a good opportunity to reform the way the FCC manages complaints.
The Obama administration is increasingly embracing the concept of spectrum sharing for making federal spectrum available for commercial use. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has played a key role, approving a report on sharing in May, which it forwarded to the White House. But sharing continues to meet with resistance from carriers, and sharing might not survive long as administration policy if President Barack Obama fails in his reelection bid in November. Industry officials noted that the George W. Bush administration resisted embracing sharing.
GENEVA -- Revisions to an ITU telecom treaty in December should have a “very light touch” to spur competition, liberalization and innovation, reduce costs, address security issues, and “favor” further growth of the Internet, said Hamadoun Toure, the ITU secretary-general, following three days of meetings of the Council working group on preparations for the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) in December. The conference will revise the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs).
About 40 percent of traffic to uSell.com is coming from consumers on mobile phones, and the “lion’s share” of that are iPhone and Android smartphone users, Chief Operating Officer Nik Raman told us at Pepcom’s Digital Experience in New York Thursday. So the company made sure to “optimize” its new mobile website for iPhones and Android phones, he said.
A California bill to bar state regulation of VoIP continues stirring controversy, as SB-1161 moves toward final passage. It would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission from regulating VoIP and Internet Protocol-enabled service until 2020, unless federal law or state statute dictate otherwise. The bill’s sponsor describes it as hewing to the same regulatory approach the state has taken on VoIP and IP-enabled calls, while critics worry it may affect reliability of calls and the ability to get them in rural areas. On June 18, the California Assembly’s Committee on Utilities and Commerce voted the bill out of committee 13-1 after hearing hours of testimony. Senate approval 30-6 came May 30.