Five groups representing the hearing impaired have “new concerns” about the FCC’s Internet Protocol captioning order (CD Jan 17 p3) not requiring video clips be captioned, they told the agency. The groups pointed to a Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness lawsuit against CNN for allegedly refusing to caption video at cnn.com. Before the FCC approved the order, “CNN argued that GLAD’s lawsuit should be dismissed because the Commission would impose captioning regulations for sites like CNN.com,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 11-54 (http://xrl.us/bmv9jq). The order and remarks by commission staff indicate the agency “would pay close attention to the accessibility of video clips to ensure that programming distributors do not exploit the omission of video clips from the IP captioning rules as a loophole,” the advocates said. “We fear that CNN’s position in the GLAD lawsuit indicates that video distributors will seize upon the lack of clip captioning requirements as an excuse not to caption clips, treating the Commission’s rules as a ceiling for accessibility efforts rather than a floor.” A CNN spokeswoman had no comment. The filing reported on a meeting between officials of hearing impaired groups and staff from the Media and Consumer & Governmental Affairs bureaus. Officials at Telecom for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association for the Deaf, Gallaudet University, Hearing Loss Association of America and Association of Late-Deafened Adults participated. A lawyer who has represented Amazon.com and Microsoft in the IP captioning proceeding reported in a filing in the docket (http://xrl.us/bmv9tp) that he told a bureau front-office staffer about “the challenges” some video programming distributors “may encounter” in adhering to parts of the order. The lawyer didn’t say who, if anyone, he was representing during the lobbying conversation, and didn’t immediately respond to our inquiry.
Etisalat will use capacity on Intelsat’s Intelsat 22 satellite, scheduled for launch next month, said Intelsat. It said Etisalat will use the capacity to provide broadband and backhaul in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and central Asia from 72 degrees east.
News Corp.’s WWOR-TV Secaucus, N.J. is carrying the Bounce TV network on a multicast channel, Bounce said.
Public safety will need narrowband and broadband spectrum allocations until broadband can meet all of public safety’s requirements, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council said in a draft report on future spectrum needs. Public safety “should not sacrifice any of their existing capabilities when switching to a broadband system,” NPSTC said in the draft (www.npstc.org/pswac.jsp). There is “a technological potential for mission critical voice to be managed over a broadband network,” but “much work remains to be done to determine if this is the correct long-term solution for public safety communications,” it said. Barriers remain to achieving interoperability among public safety networks, including continued use of proprietary systems, lack of planning and training and a dearth of funding for system upgrades, NPSTC said. NPSTC called for broadband technology and application standards to promote interoperability among first responders. Also, public safety needs more VHS and microwave spectrum, it said.
Two cable operators struck back at Boxee comments that the FCC shouldn’t let systems scramble signals on the basic tier. The seller of Boxee Live TV makes a “tenuous” claim to have “reasonably relied on the encryption ban in designing its product,” RCN said. Boxee and some other makers of consumer electronics that use clear QAM unencrypted cable signals to access basic-tier content don’t want the commission to OK encryptions. “Boxee’s lack of compatibility with encrypted video streams -- and lack of compatibility with even a post-converter box video stream -- are of its own making, can be easily remedied, and in any event should not slow the present rulemaking,” RCN said. That company’s request for an individual waiver so it can scramble broadcast pictures and cable channels on the basic tier is likely to wait until the FCC approves an industrywide encryption waiver, FCC officials have said. The commission should “permit cable operators to begin to encrypt basic tier signals upon release of any Order eliminating the ban on basic tier encryption, rather than forcing operators to wait until 30 days after publication in the Federal Register,” RCN said. Lawyers for the operator spoke with a staffer in the Media Bureau, said to be drafting an industrywide waiver (CD Feb 16 p7) , and with an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell, a filing (http://xrl.us/bmv9hf) in docket 11-169 said. Another filing (http://xrl.us/bmv9ic), from Bend Cable, said Boxee’s contention that it has 2 million clear QAM customers in the U.S. seems inflated. “Most of these two million users do not access U.S. cable service using clear QAM because they are in other countries, or because they access video service over the air or from satellite providers, or because they do not also use the Boxee Live TV dongle to access live television,” said Bend. It has about total 35,000 video customers in an unencrypted central Oregon all-digital system, the vast majority of which won’t be hurt by encryption, Bend said. “Even if 1 percent of U.S. cable subscribers use Boxee to watch live TV (and the real number is likely much lower), 1 percent of BendBroadband’s 35 customers who could be affected by encryption is rounded to zero."
The future of the Internet is at a crossroads, heading into a key meeting of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai in December on the future of Internet regulation, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said in remarks at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “One path holds great promise, while the other path is fraught with peril,” McDowell said. “The promise, of course, lies with keeping with what works, namely maintaining a free and open Internet while insulating it from legacy regulations. The peril lies with changes that would ultimately sweep up Internet services into decades-old ITU paradigms.” If proponents of new rules for the Internet get their way, “these efforts would merely imprison the future in the regulatory dungeon of the past,” he said.
The FCC should let WVTM-TV (NBC) Birmingham, Ala., move from VHF because all other Big Four broadcast network affiliates there transmit on UHF, owner Media General said. With “common” use in the area of “smaller, more convenient UHF-only antennas,” viewers can’t get the NBC affiliate, the company said. “Some viewers have been forced to purchase additional equipment to be able to view the Station.” WVTM has gotten “a number of complaints from viewers with UHF-only antennas,” Media General said in a second supplement to a request to move from Channel 13 to 21 that was posted Friday in PRM12MB (http://xrl.us/bmv9en).
There’s “adequate time” for makers of emergency alert system gear to get EAS products certified as compliant with Common Alerting Protocol, under streamlined FCC guidelines, one manufacturer said. “While additional regulatory clarifications may be needed as the CAP EAS process evolves,” the commission’s January EAS order “establishes an excellent basis for that process,” Monroe Electronics said. A filing posted Friday in docket 04-296 (http://xrl.us/bmv9dy) reported on executives’ meeting with officials in the Public Safety Bureau, which wrote the order allowing some gear for cable operators and other EAS participants to be used to transition to the new alerting format (CD Jan 12 p8).
Verizon is working to assuage Justice Department fears that the carrier’s proposed joint marketing agreements with cable companies will harm video competition, said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo. “There’s angst around the competitive nature of those agreements, but … we will compete in the FiOS footprint vigorously” against cable competitors, Shammo said Monday at the Deutsche Bank conference. Verizon, meanwhile, expects FCC approval in “mid-summer” on its SpectrumCo deal to acquire 133 AWS licenses. Shammo said the two deals are not related. “These are two very distinct, separate agreements. One is not tied to the other.” Shammo said the company continues to negotiate with the unions, but declined to say when there would be an agreement. The company has no plans to make a billion-dollar merger or acquisition, Shammo said. But the company could be open to smaller deals in the millions of dollars, he said. Verizon is focused on wireless, FiOS, cloud security and digital media, Shammo said. “You won’t see [Verizon] really launching into some new venture,” he said. “We're now to a point where we need to take these [existing] assets, put them together, and execute on what we have.” The carrier wants to minimize investment in 3G and move as many wireless subscribers as it can to its more efficient LTE network, he said. The 4G network has a “ton of capacity” and only 5 percent of Verizon customers use it, he said. The struggling economy has had “no impact at all” on Verizon’s consumer business, and the enterprise business is “stable,” he said. Verizon has “felt more pain” in the small-business market, where the company has not “executed as well as [it] could,” he said. Verizon probably won’t do a share repurchase this year, but it may in 2013 or 2014, he said.
The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials sought comment on a proposed national standard defining the core competencies and minimum training requirements for a public safety communications supervisor (http://xrl.us/bmv9b2). “While this standard is important for those already in a supervisory role, it also provides direction for those who aspire to be a supervisor,” said APCO President Gregg Riddle.