Comcast is expanding consumer disclosure features, after getting feedback from subscribers about what types of billing information they'd like to know about. The company is giving them “the ability to review and confirm service options immediately upon ordering” by email and starting later this year SMS messages whenever a service is added, canceled or downgraded, it said in an FCC filing. Comcast said it began in Q4 providing “a more detailed order summary that includes a break out of the products and services, and the respective monthly recurring fees and any one-time charges that will appear on the first bill.” Taxes are estimated, said the filing in the commission’s truth-in-billing docket, 09-158 (http://xrl.us/bmv9b6). “By mid-year 2012, the language pertaining to promotional discounts on the e-mail order confirmations will be standardized across Comcast’s markets.” Such “developments” show why “government mandates in this area are unnecessary,” the operator said.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on an application by Delta Airlines for a 12-month waiver of the commission’s Jan. 1, 2013, narrowbanding mandate (http://xrl.us/bmv9av). Delta said it will need to replace or reprogram more than 7,100 repeaters, mobile and portable units to meet the narrowbanding mandate. Comments are due Feb. 10, replies March 26.
Hughes Network Systems will begin selling a new product line that will enable simultaneous support of both IPv6 and IPv4 protocols, the company said. The dual ability allows for a smooth transition from IPv4 to IPv6 when using Hughes’ new product line, HX System 4.0. The company will also offer a new satellite broadband router with higher efficiency, it said. Hughes said it will add support for military uses, including functionality with the U.S. Defense Department’s Wideband Global SATCOM system, and enhance its mobility offering, allowing for automatic beam switching and return channel spreading. The new products will be available later this year, said Hughes.
Dish Network reached a multi-year, multi-platform distribution agreement with the Universal Sports Network (USN), Dish said. It said the deal gives Dish access to USN’s Olympics sports coverage of trials and highlights. The content will be available on Dish’s multi-sport, international basic and Chinese basic programming packages beginning in April, it said. Dish subscribers will also be able to watch USN content online and on mobile devices, the DBS company said. USN is a partnership between NBC Sports and InterMedia Partners.
One in four U.S. online households has used mobile banking, and 40 percent of mobile banking users paid a bill using their mobile phones, said a Fiserv survey released Monday. “Consumers’ lives are becoming more and more digital, and their financial lives are no exception,” said Vice President Geoff Knapp. “They are increasingly turning to the online and mobile channels for everything from opening accounts to sending and receiving money, and their interest in using new devices like tablets for financial services is strong.” Mobile banking is being used less for informational purposes and more for transactions, Fiserv found. Sixty-nine percent of those it surveyed last year consumers had used mobile banking to check account balances, compared to 82 percent in 2010. But 32 percent had used mobile banking to transfer money, compared to 25 percent in 2010. The survey also said half of all bills were paid online in 2011, compared to the 23 percent that were paid with checks. Fiserv surveyed 3,000 individuals in August that it said represent the U.S. population among all households with Internet access.
The FTC approved settlement orders against two robocalling operations it said enabled telemarketers to place hundreds of millions of illegal prerecorded calls to consumers across the country, including many who had registered their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call List, the commission said Friday. The complaints allege the defendants offered services that would let marketers with no telecom expertise deliver tens of millions of robocalls for pennies a call. The settlements specify that each set of defendants will pay $10,000 in fines, and will be able to continue selling their telemarketing services as long as they comply with the telemarketing sales rule and screen their customers’ prerecorded messages to ensure they are legally permissible.
CBS plans to refinance some debt. The company said it will seek to raise $700 million in an offering of 3.375 percent senior notes due 2022, and use the proceeds to redeem some or all of its $700 million of its 6.75 percent notes due 2056.
Rogers Communications said will offer a whole-home DVR, the ability to watch some live TV on a tablet device, an enhanced program guide and more tiers of Internet and video service. Using a set-top box from Cisco, Rogers’s NextBox 2.0 service is available in four promotional tiers, according to information on the company’s website. They range in price from about $85 to $181 a month.
Q4 sales at the Washington Post Co.’s Cable One unit were $190.8 million, slightly lower than a year earlier. That’s because of “continued growth of the division’s Internet and telephone service revenues, offset by an increase in promotional discounts and a decline in basic video subscribers,” the Post Co. said. At its TV broadcasting division, sales fell 14 percent to $883 million on lower political ad sales.
Only eligible telecom carriers may participate in Auction 901 for the Connect America Fund Mobility Fund Phase I support, with the exception of tribal entities, the FCC said in a public notice Friday (http://xrl.us/bmuwax). It said common carriers should petition the commission of any state where they seek designation, and those carriers not subject to the jurisdiction of the relevant state commission should petition the FCC for designation. ETCs must satisfy various service obligations, and a party’s designation as an ETC may be conditioned upon the party winning support from the Mobility Fund. Auction 901 will offer up to $300 million in one-time support to carriers who commit to provide 3G or better service in a currently uncovered area.