Antoinette Cook Bush, lawyer for Sprint Nextel, urged the FCC to move promptly on the SoftBank/Sprint/Clearwire transaction, in a call last week with Louis Peraertz, aide to acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn. “I noted that the comment cycle in this proceeding had closed on February 25, 2013,” said an ex parte filing on the call (http://bit.ly/17ECSgH). “I also noted that the national security agencies’ review of the ... proceeding being undertaken by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was complete.” Cook said the FCC should ignore objections raised by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (CD May 29 p4) as “untimely and therefore a violation of the Commission’s rules insofar as it raises issues that should have been brought to the Commission’s attention at the time of the initial pleadings, months ago.” “Diversity is a vital and necessary part of the Commission’s consideration of every transaction -- especially this transaction, which is the second largest wireless acquisition in history,” MMTC President David Honig said in response. “The transaction is profoundly important to minorities, for whom wireless is the first technology in which they are the lead adopters. Nearly 40 percent of wireless consumers are minorities. Shortly, MMTC will respond by letter to Sprint’s poorly taken ad hominem and nonsubstantive attack. Unfortunately, the only document in the record that normally would be expected to address diversity is the Softbank application’s Public Interest Statement. That document is unusual in that it is silent on diversity."
The Wi-Fi Alliance urged the FCC and NTIA to work with the Wi-Fi industry on a collaborative process that would allow operation of both Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) devices and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in the 5 GHz band. “We agree that the transportation uses of the spectrum at 5.9 GHz may advance automotive safety, and that the 5.9 GHz band must continue to be a home for ITS as the technology progresses toward commercialization,” the group said in a letter (http://bit.ly/11cdlDB) to acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling. “We fully agree with NTIA, the FCC, and many transportation stakeholders, that in a shared U-NII-4 scenario, unlicensed devices must not cause harmful interference to ITS licensees.” The alliance said NTIA recognized in its report on the 5350-5470 MHz and 5860-5925 MHz bands that “a variety of sharing mechanisms could be adopted to permit ITS and Wi-Fi to coexist” in the spectrum. “We believe Wi-Fi technology is complementary to certain ITS technologies under consideration,” the group said. “As such, we believe that the introduction of Wi-Fi to the ... band has the potential to advance the cause of vehicle safety and to hasten the widespread implementation of ITS solutions by creating economies of scale among components used for communications and networking."
The FCC is seeking comment on TracFone’s proposed buy of Start Wireless’s Page Plus Cellular, an MVNO with some 1.4 million customers. The company uses Verizon Wireless’s network. Comments are due June 13, replies June 20. The price paid and terms of the deal were not revealed when it was unveiled in mid-May. The companies filed an application at the FCC May 23. Under the deal, TracFone will buy Page Plus’s customer base and other assets associated with its domestic services operations, including its blanket Section 214 authorization, the public notice said (http://bit.ly/11ccmDm). “TracFone will replace Page Plus as the telecommunications service provider to Page Plus’s customers.” They said the proposed transaction is entitled to presumptive streamlined treatment under section 63.03(b)(2)(i) of the commission’s rules and that “a grant of the application will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
The FCC International Bureau granted a 180-day special temporary authority to Intelsat to provide fixed satellite service on Intelsat 5. The STA allows the satellite to offer the service in inclined orbit at 65.45 degrees east in bands including 3700-4200 MHz, 5925-6425 MHz and 14.0-14.25 GHz, the bureau’s Satellite Division said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/12U7kN8).
Public Knowledge again took a shot at the fixed-wireless Voice Link service Verizon plans to offer in Fire Island, N.Y., instead of repairing its Sandy-damaged copper. The public interest group focused on the terms of service Verizon filed at the New York State Public Service Commission (CD May 22 p19) after the regulators approved a limited rollout of Voice Link on the island. “The common theme among all of these new limits on Verizon’s Fire Island voice service is that Voice Link’s failings all hit the most vulnerable the hardest,” staff attorney Jodie Griffin wrote in a Thursday blog post (http://bit.ly/10N498L). “Users trying to reach 911, customers with no electricity, sick or elderly patients using medical alerts, subscribers with families living abroad, and the loved ones of prisoners will all feel the consequences of Verizon’s experiments the most.” She criticized the way the telco chose to run what she calls a “pilot” program and praised the role of state and local regulators, noting that these terms of service were revealed due to the PSC. Verizon has strongly defended Voice Link (CD May 13 p9) and argued for occasions when its service is superior to traditional landline service. It has also argued that providing Voice Link will be significantly cheaper than restoring the damaged copper, which it has been trying to transition away from.
World Intellectual Property Organization negotiators should address the impediments to reproducing and distributing copyrighted materials in formats accessible by the visually impaired without addressing other copyright-related agendas, said MPAA and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in a joint statement Thursday. The process behind WIPO’s Visually Impaired Persons Treaty should have the two goals of “creating exceptions and limitations in copyright law which allow published works to be converted into formats accessible to the blind and print disabled, and permitting accessible copies of published works to be shared across international borders,” the groups said. While seeking to accomplish those goals, “this important Treaty must not be a vehicle for extraneous agendas,” they said. NFB President Marc Maurer said those extraneous agendas include eliminating or expanding copyright protections. Some parties are looking to accomplish either of those goals through this treaty, but they're irrelevant to the central goal of increasing materials available to the visually impaired, he said on a call with reporters Thursday. MPAA CEO Chris Dodd said negotiators should ignore irrelevant copyright issues such as discussions of fair use and technological protection measures. “Put this very complicated, this very contentious issue aside, and get the treaty done,” he said. Maurer cited the Harry Potter series as a copyrighted work that’s in high demand but has to be reproduced in an accessible format in every country rather than distributed across borders. “We have to reproduce [the books] in the U.S. even though they've been reproduced in the U.K.,” he said. Negotiators should establish a system so those seeking to reproduce copyrighted works in formats for the visually impaired don’t find “that the tests outweigh the practicality of reproduction,” Maurer said. It’s important to keep the costs of reproduction low, “so that we can get more literature in more people’s hands,” he said.
Hillcrest Labs said it licensed Comcast’s Reference Design Kit (RDK) software stack that creates a framework for powering tru2way, Internet Protocol or hybrid set-top boxes and video gateways. The RDK initiative is intended to speed the availability of next-generation video services including cloud-based functionality, enhanced viewing guide experiences and improved search capability, the companies said. Hillcrest will provide software development, integration and testing services to original equipment manufacturers, semiconductor makers, software companies and multichannel video programming distributors which plan to support the RDK. Steve Reynolds, Comcast senior vice president-CPE and Home Network, said the company hopes to accelerate development of an advanced software solution and enhanced user experiences across a broad set of set-top boxes, gateway and system-on-a-chip platforms to promote “innovation in intuitive and interactive user experiences.” Motion control technology can offer a “compelling way” for the industry to develop “richer, more compelling multiscreen TV experiences,” he said. Hillcrest’s Freespace MotionEngine motion processing software can be added to set-tops, smart TVs, Blu-ray and streaming media players, smartphones, tablets and game controllers, Hillcrest said.
The International Trade Commission is seeking comments on public interest factors arising from Nokia’s May 23 patent complaint on smartphones from HTC. Nokia sought to block imports of infringing HTC cellphone models (CD May 30 p16), including the HTC One S, One V, One X, Evo 4G LTE, Droid Incredible 4G LTE, Droid DNA, One X+ and One VX, through issuance of cease-and-desist and limited exclusion orders.
The FCC will correct a study area boundary in response to a waiver request by the South Slope cooperative telco, the Wireline Bureau said in an order Thursday (http://bit.ly/141hIFN). The information will be used to inform the agency’s quantile regression analysis, which limits high cost loop support based on a comparison of the expenses of similarly-situated companies. “Good cause has been shown and special circumstances warrant waiver of the Commission’s rules to revise the capex and opex benchmarks for South Slope’s study area,” the bureau said. “South Slope was not limited by the benchmarks during any of the three periods, so it is eligible for redistributed HCLS for all three periods."
Cable company claims that broadcasters negotiating retransmission consent fees on behalf of multiple stations are driving up prices for consumers aren’t true, said the NAB in an ex parte letter filed with the FCC Wednesday. The letter is a response to a series of American Cable Association filings attacking broadcasters for the practice. “Retransmission consent payments are not responsible for the high and rising consumer prices charged by cable operators” said the NAB, citing studies it said show that only two cents on the dollar of cable revenue go to retrans fees, while 20 cents go to other programming. “Government intervention to reduce the fees that MVPDs pay for local stations’ signals would only inflate MVPD profit margins,” said the NAB. The ACA did not comment. The American Television Alliance of which many operators are members said that retrans fees are estimated to rise to over $6 billion by 2018, from $1.24 billion in 2010. ATVA said the higher fees have led to an increase in blackouts, which it said went up 658 percent between 2010 and 2012. “So both blackouts and retransmission fees are skyrocketing,” the group said in a news release Thursday. “How do these trends in any way help television viewers?” Though the ACA had asked the FCC to prevent broadcasters from negotiating on behalf of several stations, the NAB said some cable operators have asked broadcasters to do so in the past, and that cable operators enjoy a bigger competitive advantage then broadcasters. “Undermining broadcasters’ statutory retransmission consent negotiation rights ultimately would reduce the quality and diversity of broadcast programming,” said NAB. Meanwhile Thursday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s denial of Nexstar’s request for a preliminary injunction and restraining order against Time Warner Cable over TWC’s importing of distant signals from Nexstar, which the broadcaster said violates its retrans content agreement with TWC. “The district court correctly found Nexstar is not likely to succeed on the merits of its breach of contract or copyright claims,” said the 5th Circuit. “Thus, its denial of a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order was not an abuse of discretion.”