Netflix changes pricing “from time to time” as it continues “investing in great entertainment and improving the overall Netflix experience,” said the company Thursday in its quarterly shareholder letter. The price increases Netflix imposed this week on U.S. subscribers will help “lift” average selling prices as the hikes are phased in for existing customers over Q1 and Q2, it said.
Using public TV spectrum to datacast important information to first responders will allow navigation of increasingly complex emergency situations for agencies that have become more dependent on connected devices, datacasting advocates said during a public safety webinar. Such backers said the fact they were invited to speak about it at the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) event is a step toward getting wider traction for the technology.
Votes planned for a Jan. 30 FCC meeting are at risk as the partial government shutdown drags on with no end in sight, agency observers said. Even if lawmakers jump-start negotiations and reopen FCC offices before Jan. 30, time is slipping away for deliberations and votes by officials who would be scrambling to play catch-up and address backlogs. Another complication is the looming addition of Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who hasn't been sworn in despite being confirmed (see 901170036).
New FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks might not wait for the federal shutdown to end before taking office. The Senate confirmed Starks to his first term as a commissioner this month (see 1901030042), after the closure started but when the FCC was mostly operational. Almost two weeks later, the agency apparently still doesn’t have paperwork back from the White House and the State Department that it needs for Starks to move up to the eighth floor.
Connecting communities requires local action and adapting to each location’s challenges, local broadband officials said Wednesday as Next Century Cities, Neighborly and the Internet Society released a digital toolkit on how localities can increase internet access. With “unprecedented federal inaction,” it’s up to local communities to solve the homework gap and other broadband access issues, said Neighborly Director-Business Development Garrett Brinker at the livestreamed event.
With big expectations for small satellites in coming years, the launch industry is ramping up, as are uncertainties about the market for smaller rockets designed specifically for payloads of small satellites, experts said at a Transportation Research Board conference Wednesday. Inspired partly by SpaceX's success, the launch industry is "definitely in a 'launch fever' environment," said Carlos Niederstrasser, Northrop Grumman master systems engineer. There's "a bottleneck" now, which could explain small-rocket launch companies mushrooming, said Euroconsult USA Managing Director Sima Fishman. Three FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation speakers scheduled for panels didn't attend due to the partial federal shutdown.
The U.S. needs federal privacy legislation, said National Economic Council Special Assistant to the President Gail Slater Wednesday. “We can either define what it is we want at the federal level or have it be defined” by states, she told a Technology Policy Institute event. Federal privacy movement begins with Congress, and the administration is ready to “work constructively,” she said. NTIA’s privacy effort (see 1811130058) is on hold because of the partial government shutdown, she noted.
T-Mobile and Sprint executives are taking the prolonged partial federal shutdown in stride, though there's an effective pause in reviewing the deal at the FCC and DOJ, said lawyers familiar with their strategy. Analysts say as long as regulators go back to work in a somewhat timely manner, the shutdown shouldn’t be a major threat, although it will inevitably delay resolution. Some aren't convinced government will OK the deal (see 1901140017), while others expect approval. And T-Mobile caught some heat for executives staying frequently at a Trump hotel down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House starting shortly after the deal was announced.
The ongoing partial government shutdown is affecting Capitol Hill's ability to conduct oversight of the FCC, a problem that will grow more acute in coming weeks if it continues, lawmakers and lobbyists said in interviews. Most FCC activities have been curtailed during the shuttering. Commission lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday to postpone a Feb. 1 oral argument on Mozilla v. FCC, which challenges rescission of the 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1901150011).
Plans for a pan-EU digital single market (DSM) are unlikely to be finalized during the current term of the European Commission and Parliament, and when completed may not have the desired effect, stakeholders told us. While the EU institutions have agreed to 23 of the 30 measures proposed for creating the DSM, several contentious issues remain to be resolved. The EC added additional initiatives outside the DSM that, combined with moves by the European Parliament to push DSM initiatives more toward consumer protection, could change the direction, said Inline Policy consultant Shomik Panda, who focuses on platform regulation and policy.