GENEVA -- More spectrum, small cell sizes and more dynamic approaches will be needed to meet consumer demand for mobile services, speakers said at ITU Telecom World. Video delivery has to be optimized for efficient spectrum use, while operators need to be able to dump traffic to fixed backhaul as soon as possible, speakers said.
Broadband is increasingly the operational and capital focus at Time Warner Cable, executives said during the company’s Q3 earnings teleconference Thursday. There’s still opportunity in that line of business to add more subscribers and take market share from telephone companies, they said. Usage of broadband is skyrocketing and has been for some time,” said CEO Glenn Britt. “That means we will need to spend more money on it and we already have been, both in capital and operating expenses,” he said. Meanwhile, the traditional cable video business is maturing, executives said.
The telecom world largely responded cautiously as the FCC on Thursday adopted its Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime changes. But telecom officials and observers predicted lawsuits would begin pouring in after the 400-plus page order is published and digested. Meanwhile, the order itself hadn’t been finished, an FCC official told us. Staff were continuing to incorporate edits agreed upon by the commissioners late in the process but before the vote, and the order won’t be ready for release until at least the end of next week, the official said. Less-substantive changes are also still being made.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- BART is struggling over a policy on cellular service cutoffs in the absence of guidance it has requested from the FCC, said members of the transit agency’s board and its general counsel. The board couldn’t complete action at a public meeting Thursday because members sought changes in various directions in a draft (CD Oct 20 p8). “I'm not comfortable turning to the FCC” for guidance, said board member Robert Raburn. “They have not shown the leadership. We have shown the leadership.” General Counsel Matt Burrows said he had sent the draft to the FCC and California’s Public Utilities Commission for review but hasn’t received a substantive reply. “No regulatory agency has stepped up to say, ‘This is what we do.'” An FCC spokesman declined to comment.
Stations and cable networks are taking steps to further inform viewers that a three-minute-long, first-of-its-kind nationwide emergency alert exercise is only a test, FCC officials said Thursday. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett acknowledged that there could be some viewer confusion during the Nov. 9 event. They said that’s because some cable encoder-decoders can’t add in additional test disclaimers during the exercise (CD Oct 13 p9). Pay-TV providers and broadcasters have been running public service announcements and otherwise informing viewers of the test.
Fox Networks’ online attempts to tie its ongoing programming cost dispute with DirecTV to a looming broadcasting deadline amount to strong-arming and intimidation, say critics of the tactic. While Fox Networks concedes the broadcasting stations aren’t immediately vulnerable as part of the dispute, the retrans deadline is close enough on the horizon to be a factor, said a Fox Networks spokesman. DirecTV and News Corp. are in a public fight over the cost of some Fox Networks cable channels, and Fox Networks has said the loss of 20 local stations remains a possibility.
CTIA said it asked to help defend the FCC against a federal lawsuit attacking the broad wireless exemptions in last year’s net neutrality order (CD Dec 1 p1). Meanwhile, net neutrality proponents were hailing a filing by a group of AT&T shareholders who urged the company to adopt open Internet principles for its wireless networks.
SAN DIEGO -- The future role of the set-top box, standards for connected TV and preserving the traditional TV viewing experience while expanding the universe of TV apps were key topics at the “Connected TV Platforms” panel at the CEA Industry Forum Wednesday. In a world that’s becoming increasingly untethered, the question of whether the set-top box will be “disintermediated” by Internet delivery of TV programming was a recurring question.
Advertising buyers should bar discrimination against media companies they purchase ads from, the group representing such agencies recommended. The recommendation that members of the American Association of Advertising Agencies adopt a non-discrimination policy in picking vendors, and let those that feel they've been discriminated against complain about alleged violations, comes after the 4As worked for years on such an initiative, industry officials said. In 2007 the FCC banned discrimination in broadcast advertising (CD March 7/08 p9). The commission’s reach doesn’t go beyond radio and TV stations, and so the ban on so-called non-urban or non-Hispanic terms in contracts can’t be enforced for the companies that buy commercials and the agencies they use to make those purchases.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, introduced legislation Wednesday to stem online theft of intellectual property, to a mixed reception from industry stakeholders and copyright advocates. Smith said the Stop Online Piracy Act, HR-3261, promotes American jobs by giving law enforcement and copyright holders more tools to bring action against infringing websites. Opposition groups jumped on Smith’s bill, saying it would impose unfair mandates and federal regulation on the computer and Internet industries.