Neustar added area code 854 for portions of South Carolina served by the existing 843 code, the North American Numbering Plan Administrator said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1ienhsG). Neustar had forecast that numbers in the 843 area code would be exhausted by the end of 2015, it said.
The multiyear iPhone deal that Apple signed with China Mobile will also have “implications” for Sprint, Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said Monday. The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available via China Mobile’s network of retail stores and at Apple retail stores across mainland China starting Jan. 17, Apple said Sunday in a news release. It’s “clearly a meaningful” announcement for Apple, said Fritzsche. China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile operator, with more than 760 million customers, making it seven times larger than Verizon, she said. China Mobile, like Sprint, is deploying the TDD LTE 4G service on the 2.5 GHz spectrum, she said. Until now, the iPhone hasn’t supported the 2.5 GHz band, she said. With the “significant scale” that China Mobile “brings to the table, it is our understanding that future versions of the iPhone device will now support this band,” she said. That’s a “significant positive” for Sprint shares, she said. Apple, however, didn’t immediately comment on its plans. Of the “Big 4” carriers, Sprint is the only one using the TDD version of LTE, she said. The iPhone “continues to be the most embraced high end” smartphone in the U.S., so having the device support the spectrum band and the TDD LTE technology “should strengthen Sprint’s competitive position in future quarters,” she said. Sprint shares, however, closed 1.8 percent lower Monday at $9.68.
The Free State Foundation questioned a report by Britain’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) that wireless subscribers there pay lower prices and get a better deal than consumers in the U.S. “The intense pressure on telecom companies in the UK and other countries in Europe to reduce consumer prices has caused those companies to lose revenue and delay investment in infrastructure and innovation,” wrote FSF Legal Fellow Sarah Leggin (http://bit.ly/1hzNq2f). “Moreover, the plans available for such low prices do not include the data capacity that the average wireless customer today demands. As such, the low prices offered by wireless companies in the UK are not a proper basis for assessing the differences in consumer welfare between the wireless marketplace in the U.S. and the wireless marketplace in the UK."
Entercom donated KWOD(AM), Salem, Ore., to the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. MMTC plans to train new entrants in broadcast ownership, said Entercom and MMTC in a press release (http://bit.ly/1hzQCuX).
The FCC should expand the kinds of spectrum included in its screen to evaluate potential spectrum concentration issues, Verizon officials said in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. The FCC should update the screen “to include all suitable and available spectrum,” said an ex parte filing on the meeting (http://bit.ly/1jBGbv4). “They noted that Sprint is aggressively deploying its 2.5 GHz Broadband Radio Service and Educational Broadband Service spectrum to provide 4G LTE service, confirming that this spectrum must be added to the screen. The Commission should also add to the screen the 40 MHz of AWS-4 spectrum held by Dish. As it stands today, the spectrum screen cannot provide a meaningful tool to evaluate potential spectrum concentration issues because it omits substantial amounts of spectrum that are available for, and are actually being used to provide, commercial mobile broadband services."
The Obama administration asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to dismiss a case on the constitutionality of warrantless collection of data by the National Security Agency, arguing that a trial threatens national security. White is overseeing a case brought in San Francisco by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and others, Jewel v. NSA. Among the documents released by the government Friday was one that acknowledged that President George W. Bush authorized NSA’s bulk data collection on phones calls and the Internet in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (http://bit.ly/1gSAOFR). “President Bush issued authorizations approximately every 30-60 days,” wrote James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, in a post on the DNI’s Tumblr page. “Although the precise terms changed over time, each presidential authorization required the minimization of information collected concerning American citizens to the extent consistent with the effective accomplishment of the mission of detection and prevention of acts of terrorism within the United States. NSA also applied additional internal constraints on the presidentially authorized activities.” EFF criticized the administration’s claims. “Surprisingly, in these documents and in the brief filed with them, the government continues to claim that plaintiffs cannot prove they were surveilled without state secrets and that therefore, a court cannot rule on the legality or constitutionality of the surveillance,” EFF said in response (http://bit.ly/1jBE22C). “For example, despite the fact that these activities are discussed every day in news outlets around the world and even in the president’s recent press conference, the government states broadly that information that may relate to Plaintiffs’ claims that the ‘NSA indiscriminately intercepts the content of communications, and their claims regarding the NSA’s bulk collection of ... metadata’ is still a state secret."
Members of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 14 on the group’s recommendations for changing U.S. surveillance law, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Sunday. The group’s set of 46 recommendations, released last week, included recommending that the government no longer store phone metadata on U.S. citizens (CD Dec 19 p4). The group’s recommendations “make clear that it is time to recalibrate our government’s surveillance programs,” Leahy said in a statement. “Momentum is building for real reform.” Several of the group’s recommendations align with Leahy’s USA Freedom Act (S-1599), the committee said.
Sony agreed to sell Gracenote to Tribune Co., ending a five-year effort to broadly deploy the music database service and position its automatic content recognition (ACR) software as part of a proposed Internet-based alternative to cable TV. Sony also had planned to use Gracenote to “enhance and accelerate” its digital content. The agreement is for $170 million, less than the $260 million Sony paid for Gracenote in 2008. The Gracenote sale will result in a gain of about $60 million to Sony’s operating income, Sony said. The Gracenote deal is expected to close in Q1, Tribune said. ACR software was designed to enable hardware to recognize the channel, program and advertisement that was playing on a screen. It was developed around an audio technology that was originally created to compare a song’s characteristics, or waveform “fingerprints,” with an archive of music fingerprints. Gracenote also developed the eyeQ interactive program guide (IPG), which it once positioned to compete with Rovi’s TotalGuide IPG. The eyeQ could well play into Tribune’s base of TV and movie metadata, which will be expanded with the addition of Gracenote’s base of 180 million music tracks. “This transaction extends and complements” Tribune’s metadata business while also “deepening” its “slate of subscription services,” said Tribune CEO Peter Liguori in a statement. The acquisition includes Gracenote’s portfolio of 90 patents as well as a business that provides data and information on 1 million TV programs and movies to 30 countries and is installed in 50 million vehicles. Gracenote counts Apple iTunes, MTV and Amazon among its customers.
The FCC Media Bureau granted Pappas Arizona a “failing station” waiver, allowing it to assign the license of its station KSWT-TV, Yuma, Ariz., to Blackhawk Broadcasting. The FCC approved the application for assignment of KYMA-DT, Yuma, to Blackhawk this year, the bureau said in a letter (http://bit.ly/JWsRkS). The combined operation of the stations will pose minimal harm to diversity and competition and allowing KSWT to operate in tandem with a stronger station “will help it to become a more viable local voice in the market, through a definite improvement in facilities and programming,” it said.
The FCC Media Bureau reiterated that Jan. 1 is the compliance deadline for apparatus covered under closed captioning capabilities. The rules governing closed captioning requirements for video programming delivered using Internet protocol “specify what apparatus are covered by the new requirements and how they must implement closed captioning,” the bureau said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1ciD4D1).