The following are trade-related highlights of the Executive Communications sent to Congress on March 31, 2011:
Germany opposes a Bandwidth.com request for E.164 shared country and identification codes for the company’s commercial launch of network and services, we've learned. The U.S. company had asked for the numbering resources to provide voice services to worldwide users with phone numbers for making or receiving VoIP calls on any Internet-connected device (CD March 4 p12) (WID March 4 p9). Germany’s concerns are with a national law and European directive that obliges a publicly available telephone service to provide access to emergency services. Bandwidth.com in its request said it would not provide emergency access for its VoIP services. The relevant ITU-T recommendation on the issue indicates companies must meet local rules.
Germany opposes a Bandwidth.com request for E.164 shared country and identification codes for the company’s commercial launch of network and services, we've learned. The U.S. company had asked for the numbering resources to provide voice services to worldwide users with phone numbers for making or receiving VoIP calls on any Internet-connected device (WID March 4 p9). Germany’s concerns are with a national law and European directive that obliges a publicly available telephone service to provide access to emergency services. Bandwidth.com in its request said it would not provide emergency access for its VoIP services. The relevant ITU-T recommendation on the issue indicates companies must meet local rules.
Support for a bipartisan bill to reallocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety (CD Feb 11 p3) appeared strong at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday. Public safety officials testified in support of the assignment for the full 20 MHz of public-safety broadband to a single licensee, in an effort to get legislation passed and a network put in place by the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Netflix continues to gobble up bandwidth, but the company’s explosive growth still hasn’t threatened cable, said a study released Tuesday by analyst Bruce Leichtman. Nearly 30 percent of survey respondents watched online video at least once per week through Netflix. Three percent of non-Netflix subscribers reported that they were watching streaming video, Leichtman said. While Netflix is growing exponentially, over-the-top streaming is growing only incrementally: 12 percent of the adults surveyed told Leichtman that they watched TV shows online once a week, up a percentage point from last year and up from 10 percent in 2009. “People watching TV online has barely moved,” Leichtman told us. “The reality is, in this over the-top emerging video world, there’s only two winners: Netflix and YouTube. Everyone else is losing out."
A wireless signal booster order scheduled for a vote at the FCC’s April 7 meeting could get pulled for further work, after Verizon Wireless, the National Emergency Number Association and APCO raised 911 concerns, agency officials said Tuesday. Verizon Wireless, joined by NENA, flagged a technical concern in rules for acceptable booster design in a series of meetings at the FCC. “Verizon explained that the proposed safeguards relating to automatic gain control and oscillation detection are insufficient to address harmful interference to E-911 network operation and services,” said an ex parte filing. “NENA expressed concern about the threats to public safety from unauthorized and/or improperly installed signal boosters, including harmful interference to commercial users attempting to dial 911 and degrading the performance of E-911 location accuracy technology.” APCO sent the commission a letter Tuesday also raising concerns. “The docket in this proceeding includes evidence that boosters can create dangerous interference to other cellular users (including those who may be trying to dial 9-1-1) and to public safety land mobile operations in adjacent portions of the 800 MHz frequency band,” APCO said.
Netflix continues to gobble up bandwidth, but the company’s explosive growth still hasn’t threatened cable, said a study released Tuesday by analyst Bruce Leichtman. Nearly 30 percent of survey respondents watched online video at least once per week through Netflix. Three percent of non-Netflix subscribers reported that they were watching streaming video, Leichtman said. While Netflix is growing exponentially, over-the-top streaming is growing only incrementally: 12 percent of the adults surveyed told Leichtman that they watched TV shows online once a week, up a percentage point from last year and up from 10 percent in 2009. “People watching TV online has barely moved,” Leichtman told us. “The reality is, in this over the-top emerging video world, there’s only two winners: Netflix and YouTube. Everyone else is losing out.” At least one-fifth of cable subscribers surveyed reported that they were thinking of cutting their spending on that service in the next six months, but Leichtman said he didn’t think cable companies are threatened by Netflix. The company’s subscribers were just as likely to cut costs in the near term as were cable subscribers, Leichtman wrote. “Despite a highly saturated market, coupled with slow housing growth, the multi-channel video market in the U.S. still grew by over 500,000 subscribers in 2010. This survey found few ‘cord cutters’ over the past year, and little difference in the intent to switch or disconnect service from prior years.” Leichtman’s conclusions contradict Credit Suisse, which late last year analyzed usage-based pricing trends in Canada and argued that Netflix and companies like it were a threat to traditional pay television (WID Jan 10 p4). Leichtman said he surveyed nearly 1,300 customers by phone and weighted his data to reflect the gender and age trends of the U.S., making it more representative than Credit Suisse’s efforts. Leichtman acknowledged that the hang-up rate for his survey was “typical” for phone polls, declining to discuss details. Credit Suisse’s data was suspect because some 30 percent of its survey respondents didn’t have cable subscriptions, Leichtman said. “How they got that sample, I don’t know.” None of this means that Netflix won’t someday threaten traditional TV, Leichtman said. “It hasn’t happened yet, as much as people want it to happen,” he said. “While the multichannel industry is slowing, that slowing in growth is more a function of slowdown of housing growth than it is of cord-cutting.” A Netflix spokesman didn’t comment. Netflix is destabilizing ISP networks, National Telecommunications Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield said. “Let’s be real clear that this is a trend that’s only going to grow.” Earlier studies have reported that Netflix customers are chewing up to 20 percent of American bandwidth during peak hours. Bloomfield said that anecdotal evidence suggests that Netflix’s impact is even more dramatic. She said a North Dakota telco executive recently took a sick day and watched Spider-Man on Netflix. The executive called one of his staff and asked how much the movie had cost the telco to stream. It was nearly $30, Bloomfield said, saying that Netflix should pay into the Universal Service Fund. “They're benefiting from USF, but they're not paying into it,” Bloomfield said. “Their business model is built on our guys having the bandwidth capacity.” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is overhauling the USF distribution and intercarrier compensation regimes and has promised to move to orders by the end of the summer. Bloomfield said she hopes that the commission doesn’t “lose momentum” needed to fix contribution problems. And she said that tiered ISP pricing plans won’t work in rural parts of the U.S., where there are fewer broadband subscribers.
Netflix continues to gobble up bandwidth, but the company’s explosive growth still hasn’t threatened cable, said a study released Tuesday by analyst Bruce Leichtman.
This ITT update provides more details on the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act’s expansion of U.S.’ Iran petroleum sanction provisions, including their application to certain non-U.S. individuals and companies and more details on CISADA’s penalties. Also included in this update are other provisions not covered in ITT’s previous summaries of CISADA, including its requirements on the investigation of Iran petroleum violations, waivers, diversion of products, and licensing.
The U.S. shouldn’t recommend that the C-band be examined for other possible uses by an upcoming international conference on spectrum, said broadcasters, cable programmers and operators, and satellite companies. They said in filings that the FCC shouldn’t adopt an advisory committee’s recommendation for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) that a swath of spectrum including that satellite band be looked at for mobile broadband wireless access (BWA). Instead, many of the filings said another proposal, which excludes the spectrum between 3700 MHz and 4200 MHz that’s used for the C-band, should be adopted.