Introduction of new 4G wireless devices will fuel demand for IP-based video solutions in and outside of the home, as well as for faster in-home broadband connections, UBS analyst John Hodulik wrote in a note to investors on UBS’s thesis on the cable sector. That bodes well for cable operators, he said. “We believe high-quality, professionally produced video” will be the so-called killer app on those new devices, he said. “As the LTE devices proliferate, a greater mix of content will be watched on alternative devices (in and out of the home) and cable’s advantage will become increasingly apparent,” he said.
A federal jury in Boston convicted the owner of TCNISO Thursday of seven counts of wire fraud for allegedly helping thousands of people steal Internet service, said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. Ryan Harris, 26, of Portland, Ore., and his company TCNISO allegedly developed and distributed software from 2003 to 2009 which let customers modify their cable modems to disguise themselves as paying subscribers and obtain Internet service for free. “Mr. Harris tried to hide behind the banner of freedom of access to the Internet, but the evidence established that he built a million dollar business helping customers steal Internet service,” Breuer said. Harris could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each of the seven counts. His sentencing will be May 23 before Chief District Court Judge Mark Wolf.
The FCC isn’t at fault for delays in releasing NTIA’s 1755-1850 MHz report, an agency spokesman said Friday. NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling NTIA put some of the blame on the FCC Thursday (CD Marc 2 p2) in remarks to the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee. “We have some slow readers at our sister agency and maybe now they will be able to pick up the pace a bit,” Strickling said. “NTIA has gotten ample feedback from the FCC since last fall, most recently weeks ago,” the FCC spokesman said. “They can release their report whenever they please.”
Many TV station owners “have gone to great lengths to list a ‘parade of horribles,'” about what would happen if they must give their political-ad file to the FCC to place it online, “which could very well lead to the end of broadcasting as we know it,” an ad buyer said. But “most of the broadcasters’ objections, including the detail of how an inquiry becomes an order and then an invoice, apply to what it takes to maintain” the public-inspection files that now must house that information, said LUC Media Group. “Perhaps those broadcasters should take a look at their existing public file practices to ensure compliance with existing law. Once the broadcasters comply with existing public file standards, the next step, converting to a PDF, should be an easy one.” A proposal from 11 station-owners to put some political ad information online though not disclose the cost of lowest unit charge campaign commercial buys “should be viewed as a transition step, and implemented in fairly short order,” LUC Media said. “2012 would be the transition period, with further implementation in 2013, and full implementation of online disclosure in 2014.” Broadcasters’ asserting that putting LUC rate information on the Internet would be anticompetitive (CD March 2 p7) is “absurd on its face,” the company said. “These records are already public. Agencies and competing stations already check public files.” LUC Media executives reported in a filing Thursday in docket 00-168 (http://xrl.us/bmwqhu) meeting with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau, which is drafting an order to require online public files.
Comcast went “'above and beyond’ ... to comply with the FCC’s conditions” on buying control of NBCUniversal, as shown by the cable operator’s first-annual compliance report (CD Feb 29 p5), a frequent opponent of regulation said. The many conditions show why the FCC’s deal review process ought to be reformed, Free State Foundation President Randolph May wrote Friday. An online video distributor’s dispute with Comcast/NBCUniversal over access to documents about the OVD’s programming deals with others is likely to be the first of many such controversies, “all quite foreseeable,” May wrote (http://xrl.us/bmwqfo). “There was no evidence -- as opposed to mere supposition -- that the costs imposed by the online video condition would not outweigh its benefits.”
CEOs of 14 cable operators make an unconvincing case for encrypting the basic tier in their letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (CD March 2 p4) asking that he seek a vote on rules allowing it industrywide, said a maker of consumer electronics that wouldn’t work with scrambling. “The Cable Letters instead demonstrate quite different points: first, that encryption offers many benefits to cable operators, not consumers, and second, that cable operators only want those benefits if they are paid for by consumers, not the operators themselves,” Boxee said in a filing posted Friday to docket 11-169 (http://xrl.us/bmwqin). “There is no evidence that encryption would have a net positive environmental impact."
Many TV station owners “have gone to great lengths to list a ‘parade of horribles,'” about what would happen if they must give their political-ad file to the FCC to place it online, “which could very well lead to the end of broadcasting as we know it,” an ad buyer said. But “most of the broadcasters’ objections, including the detail of how an inquiry becomes an order and then an invoice, apply to what it takes to maintain” the public-inspection files that now must house that information, said LUC Media Group. “Perhaps those broadcasters should take a look at their existing public file practices to ensure compliance with existing law. Once the broadcasters comply with existing public file standards, the next step, converting to a PDF, should be an easy one.” A proposal from 11 station-owners to put some political ad information online though not disclose the cost of lowest unit charge campaign commercial buys “should be viewed as a transition step, and implemented in fairly short order,” LUC Media said. “2012 would be the transition period, with further implementation in 2013, and full implementation of online disclosure in 2014.” Broadcasters’ asserting that putting LUC rate information on the Internet would be anticompetitive (CD March 2 p7) is “absurd on its face,” the company said. “These records are already public. Agencies and competing stations already check public files.” LUC Media executives reported in a filing Thursday in docket 00-168 (http://xrl.us/bmwqhu) meeting with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau, which is drafting an order to require online public files.
Immediate reductions in intrastate originating access rates for public switched telephone network-VoIP traffic would have a negative financial impact not only on mid-sized incumbent LECs, but also on competitive LECs such as Cbeyond, EarthLink, Integra Telecom and tw telecom, an attorney for the CLECs wrote the FCC (http://xrl.us/bmwpuz). That responded to a Frontier letter arguing a “flash cut” of intrastate originating access rates for such calls would financially harm the company. If such rates were cut, the CLECs said, they would experience “estimated losses in their gross annual originating access revenues” that would make it “more difficult for the Joint CLECs to adjust to the reductions in their terminating access revenues mandated by the ICC/USF Reform Order.” Time Warner Cable also weighed in on the dispute (http://xrl.us/bmwqga). When TWC decided to implement its current business model -- where its retail VoIP affiliate would purchase wholesale telecom services from an affiliated CLEC -- the company did so with the expectation that it would collect the higher intrastate origination fees for VoIP calls, it said. But “in the interest of advancing the Commission’s overall reform efforts, TWC and other cable operators were willing to support a compromise approach whereby they would be limited to charging reduced interstate rates for those calls,” the cable company said. “Thus, to the extent the ILECs’ proposal is premised on the notion that they alone will experience a revenue loss as a result of the Commission’s reforms, they are incorrect.” The ILECs’ proposal is “plainly unjustified” and will help give Frontier and Windstream a “competitive advantage,” Time Warner Cable said. Frontier and Windstream requested in December that the commission clarify its rules on origination fees for toll intrastate PSTN-VoIP traffic (CD Fe. 14 p13).
A broadcast-TV network backed FCC approval of Dish Network’s requests for transfers of control and related mobile satellite service waivers. That would have important “implications for our national spectrum policy generally,” Ion Media said in a filing (http://xrl.us/bmwqgx). Approval would allow Dish to repurpose underused spectrum, said the broadcaster: It has “no current spectrum dealings with, or any direct or indirect business interests in, any of the parties to this proceeding."
Introduction of new 4G wireless devices will fuel demand for IP-based video solutions in and outside of the home, as well as for faster in-home broadband connections, UBS analyst John Hodulik wrote in a note to investors on UBS’s thesis on the cable sector. That bodes well for cable operators, he said. “We believe high-quality, professionally produced video” will be the so-called killer app on those new devices, he said. “As the LTE devices proliferate, a greater mix of content will be watched on alternative devices (in and out of the home) and cable’s advantage will become increasingly apparent,” he said.