The National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) Board approved the “interim” VoIP architecture for E-911, as i2. NENA said adoption of the interim standard is a “migratory step” toward a more long-range solution under which all E- 911 will be IP-based. One VoIP operator source said the development provides “further stability” for the industry. Patrick Halley, govt. affairs dir. at NENA, said the plan provides the basic standard for “how you connect an IP- enabled voice service into the legacy 911 system, which is all analog, circuit-switched technology.” Many VoIP providers have already adopted parts of the standard as they developed plans for complying with FCC requirements they make their systems E-911 compliant, and now they may be more likely to adopt the entire standard, Halley told us. Most of the leading VoIP providers and all the major VoIP position companies like Intrado participated in development of the standard, he said. Halley predicted that parts of the emergency system will be modernized quickly. “In the near future a lot of the stuff we're talking about can be implemented,” he said. “NENA’s vision since the development of the 911 Future Path Plan in 2001 has been, and continues to be, to modernize E- 911,” said Billy Ragsdale, chmn. of the NENA Technical Committee: “The interim solution standard is the first major step to support VoIP E-911 and to redesign E-911 for present and future needs.”
RCN expects to reach an agreement on the sale of operations in L.A. within the next 1-2 months and also has put its business in San Francisco on the block, CFO Michael Sicoli said. The 2 markets combined account for about 20,000 of the competitive local exchange carrier’s (CLEC) 400,000 subscribers, with most of those in San Francisco, he said. RCN will weigh its options for the Chicago market, where it has 77,000 customers, as it sharpens focus on its core market in the northeast U.S., company officials said. The sell-off of some businesses comes as RCN moves to deliver on plans for generating $25 million in savings in 2006, partly through a 5-10% reduction in its workforce of 2,000 employees, Sicoli said. Combining some operations, RCN is closing its former Princeton, N.J., hq, which has 120 employees, in 2006, and shifting operations to a Herndon, Va., facility. That move is expected to trim 30-40 jobs, Sicoli said. Other savings will come from renegotiations of RCN’s retransmission agreements with programmers, 150 of which have been completed year-to-date including those with major networks, CEO Peter Aquino said. At the same time, RCN this week announced plans to buy Consolidated Edison’s communications subsidiary for $32 million cash. The acquisition give RCN access to 560 fiber miles in the N.Y. area and 10 river crossings, allowing the CLEC to extend its reach into northern N.J., White Plains, N.Y., and Stamford, Conn., Aquino said. The N.Y.-based Consolidated Edison operation, which has 75 employees, generates about $40 million in annual revenue and had a negative $7.8 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) the first 9 months of this year, company officials said. Among the Con Ed unit’s major customers are 2-3 investment banking firms that use its fiber network for trading, Aquino said. RCN also is weighing its options for a 48% stake it owns in Mexico’s Megacable, which has about 600,000 subscribers and passes 2.1 million homes. RCN has owned a stake in Megacable about 10 years, but only took a hard look at it after emerging from bankruptcy protection in Dec. 2004, Chmn. James Mooney said. Megacable has annual revenues of about $200 million, he said. “We're looking at all our options from exiting to partnering to make sure we're maximizing shareholder value from it,” Mooney said. In generating high per-user revenue, RCN has focused on selling triple play packages of video, telephony and broadband. About 67% of its customers are triple subscribers, up from 62% a year ago. The average revenue generating unit per customer rose to 2.13 units in the 3rd quarter from 2.04 a year earlier.
USDTV -- the subscription-based over-the-air terrestrial DTV service -- will ship a 2nd-generation set- top box in first half 2006, along with optional MPEG-4-to- MPEG-2 transcoders and 250 GB hard drives as it sets a goal of landing 2 million subscribers within 5 years, CEO Steve Lindsley told the UBS Global Media Conference in N.Y. Thurs.
The House Ways and Means Committee has issued a press release announcing that on December 7, 2005, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4340, the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act of 2005. According to the press release, H.R. 4340 must now be approved by the Senate before being sent to the President to be signed. (Ways and Means press release, dated 12/07/05, available at http://waysandmeans.house.gov/News.asp?FormMode=release&ID=359.)
The National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) Board approved the “interim” VoIP architecture for E-911, as i2. NENA said adoption of the interim standard is a “migratory step” toward a more long-range solution under which all E- 911 will be IP-based. One VoIP operator source said the development provides “further stability” for the industry. Patrick Halley, govt. affairs dir. at NENA, said the plan provides the basic standard for “how you connect an IP- enabled voice service into the legacy 911 system, which is all analog, circuit-switched technology.” Many VoIP providers have already adopted parts of the standard as they developed plans for complying with FCC requirements they make their systems E-911 compliant, and now they may be more likely to adopt the entire standard, Halley told us. Most of the leading VoIP providers and all the major VoIP position companies like Intrado participated in development of the standard, he said. Halley predicted that parts of the emergency system will be modernized quickly. “In the near future a lot of the stuff we're talking about can be implemented,” he said. “NENA’s vision since the development of the 911 Future Path Plan in 2001 has been, and continues to be, to modernize E- 911,” said Billy Ragsdale, chmn. of the NENA Technical Committee: “The interim solution standard is the first major step to support VoIP E-911 and to redesign E-911 for present and future needs.”
Mindful of the urgency of bringing terrestrial digital radio in line competitively with satellite radio and other forms of content delivery, the newly formed HD Digital Radio Alliance (CED Dec 7 p2) is targeting sub- $100 retail pricing for HD Radio receivers within 2 years, Emmis Radio Pres. Rick Cummings told Consumer Electronics Daily at the UBS Global Media Conference in N.Y. Wed.
A new site -- www.nanotechproject.org -- answers queries on nanotechnology R&D’s potential effects on health and the environment. The site features a searchable inventory that includes U.S. govt.-supported projects and R&D in the European Union, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Taiwan and other regions and nations. The site is run by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.
A digital-age communications regulatory regime is needed that embraces competition and IP video services’ promise, said telecom pundits, saying such factors drive broadband demand. Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF)’s Randolph May and Charles Davidson, dir. of N.Y. Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute, spoke at a Council on Competitiveness lunch on broadband’s future on Capitol Hill Thurs.
A digital-age communications regulatory regime is needed that embraces competition and IP video services’ promise, said telecom pundits, saying such factors drive broadband demand. Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF)’s Randolph May and Charles Davidson, dir. of N.Y. Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute, spoke at a Council on Competitiveness lunch on broadband’s future on Capitol Hill Thurs.
Millions of shoppers were expected online Mon., fueling a shopping frenzy that began the day after Thanksgiving. Brick-and-mortar merchants celebrate Black Fri., but Web retailers genuflect to Cyber Mon., emerging as one of the year’s biggest Internet shopping days, analysts said. Roughly 59 million people were expected to shop online Mon., the National Retail Federation (NRF) told us. Meanwhile, e-tailers did well on Black Fri. and even better on Thanksgiving Day.