The FCC Public Safety Bureau approved waivers sought by various West Virginia agencies so the state can use Industrial/Business Pool frequencies in the UHF band for a statewide public safety network. The West Virginia State Interoperable Radio Network includes some 15,000 radios used by 530 agencies, according to the order (http://bit.ly/10z8Hhq). The system already includes 63 transmitter sites, with another 22 in planning or under construction. “We find that granting the requested relief serves the public interest,” the order said.
NAB asked the FCC to release more information about the repacking process for the spectrum incentive auction to help “broadcasters seeking certainty and transparency,” said an ex parte letter filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/14plbwr). According to the letter, NAB officials met with Commissioner Ajit Pai Monday to discuss their concerns, laid out in a PowerPoint presentation included with the ex parte. According to the presentation, the NAB wants the FCC to release the software that will be used in the repacking, to make it available for a public review process, and to create an “industry/government working group for international coordination” for the repacking. NAB also said non-participating broadcasters should not be affected by the auction. “If repacking is not minimized, the ‘voluntary’ auction becomes coercive, as broadcasters who do not participate will have to go out of pocket to pay for station moves they never sought,” said the NAB presentation.
Correction: There were 20 people who tested Verizon’s Voice Link service, the device for which fits on brackets similar to smoke detectors (CD May 13 p9).
New York Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand asked Secretary of State John Kerry to help coordinate the international harmonization of spectrum between New York state and Canada. The FCC’s coming spectrum incentive auction will require the swift coordination of U.S. and Canadian frequencies to ensure that American television viewers aren’t impacted, the letter said. Such harmonization is important to ensure that Canadian TV broadcasts “don’t interfere with wireless devices, and towers and devices on this side of the border don’t interfere with Canadian television reception,” the letter said. The senators said it will “probably be necessary to rebalance the allotments reserved for television broadcasting in our respective countries.” They urged State to begin the coordination process “immediately” in order to inform potential spectrum bidders of any frequency restrictions before the auction.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will deploy BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, the company said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/182c7Q8). The department has been testing BlackBerry recently, and the new service “leapfrogs the organization’s mobile computing capabilities, giving users unmatched security with no compromise to their intuitive and efficient user experience,” according to BlackBerry.
The Northwoods of Wisconsin will retain broadband funding, said State Rep. Rob Swearingen (R) in a statement Tuesday (http://bit.ly/16gUSNI). He pointed to the $4.3 million slated for a broadband expansion grant program and now part of the state’s budget moving forward. He and other legislators fought to restore the funding, he said. He lamented the many rural areas of the state that are underserved or unserved, contrasting them with more urban areas.
Unlike most of the companies exhibiting at the first PRO Group Vendor Fair Tuesday, iBiquity wasn’t there to find additional retail accounts, but mainly to “remind” the group’s retail members about the HD Radio category, said Bernie Sapienza, vice president-retail business development. IBiquity developed an exclusive program for Best Buy about three to four years ago and it’s trying to figure out a similar type of program for PRO members that will include Audiovox products, he said. The Best Buy program included a line of low-cost HD Radio products costing $50-$100, he said. “We don’t expect all of them” to take part in the program, he said of the PRO members, conceding that some of the retailers only focus on high-end electronics. IBiquity also used the Vendor Fair to tout Garmin GPS navigation systems that feature HD Radio. The “biggest misnomer” about HD Radio is that products featuring it transmit radio, he said. The initial Garmin device was the first non-audio device that provided HD Radio service, he said. The company is hoping to get HD Radio incorporated into smartphones also, he said. IBiquity is hopeful that recent deals between Sprint and broadcasters to deliver analog radio to cellphones represents a step in “the right direction” to bring HD Radio to smartphones also, he said. Many tablets that are sold don’t feature 3G service and that prevents many of them from receiving radio services when people are away from a Wi-Fi connection, so iBiquity is in talks with tablet makers to try and get HD Radio added to those devices, he said.
Pandora’s recent listening cap on the free tier of its music streaming service has allowed the company to “clean up the edges” of how listeners consume music on the mobile platform, said Chief Financial Officer Mike Herring at a J.P. Morgan investor conference Wednesday. Only in the past two quarters, since Pandora put the caps in place in February, has mobile monetization caught up with mobile listening hours consumed, Herring said. “Hours are the main driver of cost,” he said. “We pay for every hour that we stream.” Results of the 40-hour monthly listening cap have so far mirrored what happened in 2009 when Pandora limited free listening hours on its Web Internet radio service, Herring said. Roughly 4 percent of listeners in March and April touched the 40-hour cap, and Pandora recorded an uptick in subscriptions and the 99-cent option to extend listening through the end of the month. Pandora had the same goal of managing growth while “ramping up monetization efforts” in 2009, and once it was “comfortably driving a profit margin” out of the business, it released the limit, Herring said. Herring expects the same scenario to play out in the mobile market, which is following a course “just as we expected it would,” he said. Subscription conversions were higher than Pandora expected, which Herring attributed to in-app purchasing that was enabled before the cap was put in place. “That allowed a lot more efficient and smooth purchasing for those who wanted to subscribe,” he said. Roughly 86 percent of users “returned the next month” to consume free listening hours, beyond Pandora’s expectations.
Astrium will build Eutelsat’s Express-AMU1 (Eutelsat 36C) satellite. It will be launched in 2015 “to provide follow-on and expansion capacity for the EUTELSAT 36A broadcast satellite operating at 36 degrees east,” Eutelsat said in a press release (http://bit.ly/16Af4ts). The satellite will have about 70 transponders and provide coverage for broadcast services to Russia in the Ku- and Ka-bands, it said. It also will “ensure service continuity and growth for broadcast markets developed by Eutelsat in sub-Saharan Africa,” Eutelsat said.
A Dyle mobile DTV receiver accessory is available from Belkin, the device manufacturer said in a Wednesday release (http://bit.ly/10PyHes). “While mobile broadcast technology has been around for a while, the Belkin receiver accessory with Dyle mobile TV enables consumers to receive local broadcast television on a device they already own,” said Nate Kraft, director-product management at Belkin. The receiver can be plugged into any iPhone or iPad with a 30-pin connecter, Belkin said, and retails for $129.99.