The White House gave the General Services Administration and Department of Homeland Security key leadership roles co-chairing a new Broadband Deployment on Federal Property Working Group. The group was created by an executive order released Thursday, as expected (CD June 14 p1). The working group is to prepare a report to be sent to the Steering Committee on Federal Infrastructure Permitting and Review Process Improvement within a year.
SAN FRANCISCO -- With a boom in the number of a new class of apps for tablets, smartphones and smart TVs using automatic content recognition (ACR) software to identify what a device’s user is watching on TV (CD April 16 p7), and potentially selling ads based on that, a battle between content owners and app developers may be looming. That’s what executives told the TV of Tomorrow conference this week. The technology could let any app developer sell ads against or otherwise monetize TV programming.
The FCC approved an order authorizing ID codes of longer than three characters for new wireless devices that have been submitted for testing. Rashmi Doshi, chief of the FCC’s lab in Columbia, Md., told commissioners the Office of Engineering and Technology also is looking at other changes to streamline the certification process. The agency must certify a broad range of consumer and business products, from cellphones to Wi-Fi devices to children’s toys.
President Barack Obama will sign an executive order Thursday that aims to make the deployment of broadband infrastructure more efficient and less expensive, White House officials said. The order encourages a “dig-once” policy for broadband deployment that calls on federal agencies to provide guidance to states for including broadband conduit during the construction of federal highways. House and Senate Democrats supported the administration’s order, which they said would promote broadband deployment with bigger savings for taxpayers.
The FCC approved on a 5-0 vote Wednesday changes to rules designed to push more widespread use of the 4.9 GHz band. The band, once set aside for federal operations, was reallocated to public safety a decade ago, but is little used today. Almost all public safety focus in recent years has been on its fight for a wireless broadband network in the 700 MHz band. Among proposals on which the agency will seek comment is whether to allow commercial use of the 4.9 band by utilities and other critical infrastructure providers and possibly other companies as well.
The FCC shouldn’t make any substantive changes to the special access pricing flexibility triggers until it gathers and analyzes competitive data, large telcos that sell such services have been telling commissioners in meetings this week. Those who buy special access have continued to express frustration at a system they say favors incumbents in areas where there’s no competition, allowing them to raise prices without fear of losing customers. A draft order that’s been circulating for over a week plans to seek data to reform the 1999 pricing flexibility rules, and FCC officials have said the existing special access framework is “broken” (CD June 5 p3).
Nonprofits hailed a reported Justice Department investigation of how cable operators price broadband service and treat traffic from online media providers. Spokesmen for the FCC and Justice Department declined to comment on The Wall Street Journal report. The DOJ and FCC are looking into the extent to which Comcast has been complying with or violating the terms of its consent decree that paved the way for its purchase of control of NBCUniversal, an industry source said. The investigation is wide-ranging and has involved a variety of companies involved in streaming media, the person said. That was welcome news for some public interest groups.
If Congress fails to pass cybersecurity legislation this year, state commissions will likely step in, said officials representing industry and state regulators. States like California are already “out in the front” in terms of cybersecurity policies, said Brett Kilbourne, vice president-government and industry affairs at the Utilities Telecom Council. State commissions have the authority to require utilities to incorporate cybersecurity protections, officials said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Comcast and PayPal said they will work together developing applications that let TV viewers more easily purchase goods through their TV sets or through applications on smartphones and TVs developed by TV companies, executives said at the TV of Tomorrow Conference. Additionally, PayPal said it’s working with TiVo on similar products (See separate report in this issue). “If you're buying something online, you feel a sense of trust with PayPal and you normally feel a sense of simplicity,” said Tony Werner, Comcast chief technology officer: “Both of those are key as you come into the living room. Bringing PayPal in as a partner I think is very powerful."
Storm warnings and other government alerts could go to search engines, online news feeds, social media and other Web outlets, broadcast and other industry officials said. They said that will be made possible when the Federal Emergency Management Agency soon starts a website for anyone to get real-time emergency alert system messages. Companies that don’t participate in EAS could get alerts from federal, state and municipal agencies that write them in a new FEMA format. Those websites could then distribute them online as narrowly or widely as they wish.