The Rural Cellular Association turned up the heat on the FCC and Congress in an effort to get them to mandate device interoperability across the 700 MHz band, releasing a study by Information Age Economics on the economic effects of doing nothing (http://xrl.us/bmhsag). RCA filed the report Thursday with the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which is expected to consider spectrum auctions as a way to raise revenue to lower the deficit.
DirecTV has tested a fixed-line Long Term Evolution (LTE) service, but it remains open to wireless and other technologies for supplying broadband to its customers, DirecTV CEO Michael White said Thursday in a conference call.
Judge Ellen Huvelle will allow Sprint Nextel and C Spire to pursue part of their claims against AT&T/T-Mobile, rejecting most claims but allowing two to proceed, in a complicated, 44-page decision handed down Wednesday night. AT&T, Sprint and C Spire all portrayed the decision as a win, as the Department of Justice’s case against the deal moves forward.
A new channel that offers PBS programming in Great Britain will feed back funding to its U.S. component. The intent of PBS UK, which launched this week, is to expand distribution for programming and offer content to a larger audience, said Jan McNamara, PBS spokeswoman. However, the net proceeds earned by PBS through PBS UK “will be invested back into PBS’ domestic operations and content,” she said. Some industry professionals and supporters of funding said adding new revenue sources is imperative, though public broadcasting also needs government funding.
Sinclair Broadcast Group is buying TV stations again, now that valuations have returned to “reality,” CEO David Smith said Wednesday. “We sat on the sidelines for I don’t know how many years, while a lot of other folks out there were paying whatever they were paying for businesses,” he said during the company’s Q3 earnings call. “Our view was, we'll sit back and wait and they'll come back to reality. We think they're kind of in that neighborhood now and that’s why we're taking advantage of them."
The House Communications Subcommittee plans to vote Nov. 16 on FCC process reform legislation, and won’t take up spectrum until after Thanksgiving at the earliest, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said at a press conference Wednesday. As expected (CD Nov 2 p8), Walden and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced two reform bills Wednesday in each the House and Senate. One FCC reform bill includes broad process changes first proposed in Walden’s draft bill from earlier this summer. A second bill would reduce the number and consolidate many of the reports the FCC is required to send to Congress.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Federal agencies’ IPv6 adoption is “really a mess,” a Defense Department technologist centrally involved in the effort said Wednesday. “It’s a sad story across the federal government,” said Ron Broersma, a member of the Federal IPv6 Task Force and the network security manager for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. “But there’s a major push to fix that in the next year.”
Groups representing states and local governments are fighting a Senate version of a wireless tax bill, state officials told us. The fight comes after House passage of the Wireless Tax Fairness Act (HR-1002), which places a five-year freeze on new state and local taxes on wireless (CD Nov 2 p8).
Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe stunt” at the 2004 Super Bowl still isn’t indecent, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia again ruled on CBS v. FCC. It was a 2-1 ruling touching on matters other than the First Amendment. Free speech still is expected to be front and center during oral argument at the Supreme Court later this year or early next on indecency cases involving two other broadcast networks, and Wednesday’s ruling isn’t expected to change that or affect the U.S.’s case against Disney’s ABC and News Corp’s Fox, industry lawyers said. The high court had sent back to the 3rd Circuit its earlier reversal of the $550,000 fine to CBS for showing for 9/16 of a second Jackson’s bare right breast (CD July 22/08 p1) because of the justices’ ruling on administrative law grounds on the Fox case.
While Google TV 2.0 provides access to the Android Market, the number of platform-specific applications “won’t be large” at the start as devices receive the software update, said Mario Queiroz, vice president-product management, in a blog post.