EchoStar is no longer pursuing a joint venture with Vivendi’s GVT, EchoStar said in a press release (http://bit.ly/19mP4m6). The partnership had been aimed at launching direct-to-home service in Brazil (CD Nov 14 p23).
Verizon ended test sales of Lowe’s Iris home control system through 118 stores without expanding the trial, Verizon spokeswoman Debra Lewis said. Verizon stores along the East Coast and in Georgia and Alabama carried the Iris safety and security package and comfort and control bundle. Verizon planned to extend the Iris products to other stores if they sold well (CED March 5 p4). Verizon also demoed a home control system from 4Home at CES 2011 but never moved it to stores. “We rotate the products/accessories in our stores all the time, and our new destination stores and updated smart stores will have many home-based products for sale,” Lewis said. Lowe’s officials didn’t comment.
British-based AeroMobile, which supplies technology and services to nine global airlines that enable passengers to use their mobile phones in-flight for voice, texting and data, hailed the FCC’s approval of an NPRM seeking comment on modernizing rules to allow mobile wireless calls on commercial flights (CD Dec 13 p1) . “I'm pleased to see that common sense prevailed” at the FCC, AeroMobile CEO Kevin Rogers said in a statement Friday. “There is no reason to maintain a ruling that is no longer relevant -- the technology used to provide inflight GSM services is proven, and has been operational across Europe, Asia and the Middle East for more than five years.” AeroMobile supplies “hundreds of connected flights flying to and from the U.S. every day, but at the moment the service has to be switched off when we reach U.S. airspace,” he said. As proof there’s demand for in-flight calls from U.S. travelers, Rogers said that in November alone, about 25 percent of the passengers using the AeroMobile service on trans-Atlantic flights “connected from U.S. mobile networks.” AeroMobile wants to work with the FCC to demonstrate “the value of the service to both customers and airlines, based on our experience,” Rogers said. “I'm hopeful that sensible discussions can now take place about the practicalities of operating this service in the U.S. Ultimately, it will be up to individual airlines to decide on the right in-flight mobile connectivity package for their passengers, whether this is SMS only or the full service, including voice and data."
More than 30 countries, including the U.K., have enacted resale royalty provisions since 1992, said a Copyright Office report released Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1bCreia). “We believe that Congress may want to consider a resale royalty, as well as a number of possible alternative or complementary options for supporting visual artists, within the broader context of industry norms, market practices, and other pertinent data."
The Council of Governments applauded the FCC order to ensure reliable 911 service in a statement Friday (http://bit.ly/1bCrCNK). COG is a nonprofit association that deals with regional issues affecting the Washington, D.C., area. The FCC voted to approve an order Thursday that requires carriers to file annual audits on how they are following best practices for 911 connections (CD Dec 13 p7). The order was influenced by regional studies documenting “significant loss” of 911 service in northern Virginia during the June 2012 derecho storm, COG said. All phone companies that provide 911 service must now certify annually that they have implemented best practices including audits of their circuits, maintenance of central office backup power and reliable network monitoring systems, it said. The FCC proves the “power of regional collaboration,” said COG Executive Director Chuck Bean. “With this new rule, we are securing our infrastructure in metropolitan Washington,” he said. “The success with the FCC was built on solid analytics but the change happened because we spoke with a regional voice."
Sonus Networks said Friday it has agreed to buy Performance Technologies for about $30 million. Sonus said the deal would accelerate its mobility strategy by “adding Diameter Signaling capabilities required in all-IP, IMS 4G/LTE” networks. The deal would also “expand and diversify” Sonus’s portfolio through the addition of an integrated, virtualized Diameter and session initiation protocol technology portfolio, the company said. Sonus expects the deal will allow it to expand its presence in the addressable market to almost $3 billion in 2017 (http://bit.ly/IKlTPv).
A key Senate Democrat said the FCC should take on process changes internally before Congress intervenes and mandates changes. The House Commerce Committee cleared the FCC Process Reform Act in a unanimous committee vote Wednesday (CD Dec 12 p2). “Any measures to improve how the FCC carries out its statutory duties must help the agency protect consumers and competition,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “has formed an internal working group to look at process reform issues, and I think Congress should get the guidance of the expert agency before undertaking significant reforms to the FCC’s operations,” he said. Rockefeller did not name the House bill in his statement.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized Google Thursday for removing App Ops, “an extremely important app privacy feature,” from its Android 4.4.2 operating system update last week. The App Ops feature allowed users to install applications and directly control whether the app could collect potentially sensitive data like user location and a user’s contacts, EFF said. The group said Google told it that Google had released the App Ops feature by accident in its Android 4.3 update -- “that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.” EFF called on Google to restore the App Ops feature in order to restore the belief that the company cares about “this massive privacy problem” (http://bit.ly/1bANsRz). Google did not comment.
The FCC found Intelsat apparently liable for a $112,500 fine by permitting another entity to assume its position in the processing queue for a geostationary orbit-like satellite license. Intelsat failed “to maintain the continuing accuracy and completeness of information furnished in an application pending before the commission,” said a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/JgG1sE). The NAL pertains to a first-in-line application of the Galaxy 28 satellite and the proposed Galaxy KA satellite. Commissioner Ajit Pai who dissented said he is skeptical of the FCC’s conclusion. The FCC alleges that Intelsat violated rules by taking action to “transfer, assign, or otherwise permit ViaSat to assume its place in the GSO-like satellite licensing queue in apparent violation of the rules,” he said (http://bit.ly/1gwjUg7). However, any such action took place “no later than March 2, 2010, when Intelsat amended its application for the Galaxy KA satellite, thus moving ViaSat to the head of the queue,” he said. Since more than one year elapsed since that date, “I do not believe that the commission may impose a forfeiture penalty,” he said.
Mediacom urged the FCC to invite interested parties to update the record in the retransmission consent proceeding. The price for retrans keeps rising at extraordinary rates, wrote Mediacom General Counsel Joseph Young in docket 10-71 (http://bit.ly/18H2Rjt). Broadcasters are immune to the price discipline ordinarily imposed by consumers in a truly competitive market, he wrote. Subscribers of multichannel video programming distributors “are the ones who ultimately pay for retransmission consent,” said Young. FCC rules and TV programming owners’ practices “force distributors to offer, and subscribers to buy, programming in bundles over which distributors have little or no control,” he said.