GENEVA -- A compromise over devoting part of the C band for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) hadn’t been reached as the clock ticked down to the World Radiocommunication Conference’s conclusion Nov. 16. Protection of C-band satellites remains a sticking point, officials said. IMT is the ITU global standard for mobile wireless communications.
GENEVA -- Momentum may be building at the World Radiocommunication Conference for no change to the C-band -- with the exception that countries may “opt in” to use frequencies in the lower part of the band for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT). Four countries in the Americas, including Brazil and Mexico, had objected to no change in C-band, a WRC participant said: “That’s causing problems within CITEL [Inter-American Telecommunication Commission]. It’s causing problems with the Europeans.”
Ancestry.com will let members record their oral histories to their online family trees through LignUp’s VoIP applications, the companies said. Ancestry.com members have created 3.8 million family trees, 330 million profiles and uploaded 3.5 million photos and other documents. The new applications let a site member call a number and record an oral history for relatives to access on the site, or call a family member directly and record an interview for posting on the site. The site has 24,000 searchable databases and titles, and 800,000 paying subscribers.
GENEVA -- Negotiations over C-band and UHF frequencies are increasingly linked in talks at the World Radiocommunication Conference to identify globally harmonized frequencies for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), officials said. Countries reiterated positions during the first two weeks, but are now starting to consider what they can accept, a WRC participant said.
GENEVA -- Supporters of identifying C-band spectrum for IMT disagree at the World Radiocommunication Conference on which frequencies to use. And opposition has been strong to identifying all or part of the 3.4 to 4.2 GHz band for International Mobile Telecommunications, said Kalpak Gude, deputy general counsel at Intelsat. Countries from all regions have serious concerns about identifying any portion for IMT, he said. Europe and a few countries are pressing for identification of frequencies for IMT, ITU’s global standard for mobile wireless communications.
EU telecommunications ministers backed European Commission policy goals for the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2007 (WRC07). Conclusions adopted Monday said that to meet the spectrum demands of mobile systems, the 3.4 to 3.8 GHz band should be used nonexclusively for mobile services, with harmful interference between mobile and fixed satellite services to be avoided. In addition, they said, governments should continue reviewing the regulatory status of UHF band mobile service and try to minimize the risk of interference to international mobile telecommunications networks operating in the EU in the 2.5 to 2.69 GHz band from satellite services. Ministers also supported: (1) Satisfying as much as possible the spectrum requirements for digital radio broadcasting and maritime mobile services in the high frequency band. (2) Adjusting spectrum rules to support satellite systems. (3) Providing enough spectrum for aeronautical telemetry and air-to-ground voice and data communications. WRC07 is Oct. 22 to Nov. 16 in Geneva.
Total U.S. ad spending during the first half of the year dropped 0.5 percent from the same period a year earlier, Nielsen said. Network radio spending dropped 8.5 percent, the most of any category Nielsen tracks. Spot TV ad sales in the top 100 markets fell 4.6 percent from a year ago. Network TV fell 3.8 percent, spot radio fell 1.8 percent, and cable ad sales slipped 0.3 percent. Internet ad sales increased 23 percent from last year, Nielsen said. Product placement is on the rise on broadcast and cable network programming, it said.
The communications industry spent about $122 million on federal lobbying the first half of 2007, about 30 percent less than its $174.5 million outlay a year earlier, according to reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate and CQ’s Political Moneyline. The 2007 numbers aren’t final. The secretary’s office still is compiling reports, which were due Aug. 14, a Senate staffer said Wed. The interim tally shows telecom companies falling to third place, behind finance and health care, in spending.
NextWave Broadband said Monday it had started shipping its NW1000 Series WiMAX chipset. It’s made up of the NW1100 baseband system-on-a-chip, matched NW1200 multi-band RFIC and associated system software. The chipset gives manufacturers a platform to develop WiMAX mobile terminal products on and is part of a family of WiMAX chipsets under development at NextWave, it said. The NW1000 Series supports 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.4 to 3.8 GHz spectrum. The chipset is based on the IEEE 802.16e standard, supports PCI and SPI host interfaces, has an RF-baseband interface and uses RFIC architecture.
WorldSpace lost more than 1,300 customers during the second quarter, ending the quarter with more than 190,000 subscribers, it said in an earnings release. WorldSpace has stopped selling its service in South Africa and Europe while it prepares to launch its service, complete with terrestrial repeaters, in Italy, it said. It recently signed an original equipment manufacturer agreement with Fiat for factory installation of WorldSpace satellite radios as optional equipment on Fiats beginning in late 2009, one year after its expected Italian launch. The agreement “provides us with the means to reach Italian consumers in their automobiles,” said WorldSpace CEO Noah Samara. WorldSpace has developed an “EU-compliant terrestrial repeater technology and a receiver reference design with Fraunhofer IIS,” Samara said. WorldSpace’s Q2 revenue was $3.6 million compared to $3.8 million last year. WorldSpace had a Q2 net loss of $51.2 million compared to $36.7 million last year, it said. It reduced its subscriber acquisition costs from $33 in Q1 to $21 in Q2, WorldSpace said.