The Florida Public Service Commission approved its annual relay budget for another year, it said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/10VWPGm). The monthly surcharge for Florida Telecom Relay will stay at 11 cents a month for state residents, the sixth year it’s stayed the same, according to the PSC. “Last year, the PSC approved a three-year contract with AT&T Relay Services to provide Florida’s FRS service,” the PSC said. “AT&T’s contract, effective June 2012, was lower than the previous FRS contract and offered the most cost effective service for Florida’s citizens."
The FCC Media Bureau approved the transfer of various types of licenses for Cablevision subsidiary Bresnan Broadband to Charter Communications, said an FCC filing Tuesday 9 (http://bit.ly/18IKZXE). The filing said Bresnan provides “video, voice, and broadband services” to customers in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. The transfer of licenses is part of Charter’s $1.625 billion purchase of Bresnan and its 300,000 subscribers from Cablevision, which was announced in February (CD Feb 8 p11).
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) said it plans a workshop on the importance of cybersecurity in the adoption of machine-to-machine communications and the Internet of Things June 4-5 at its Arlington, Va., headquarters. The workshop will focus on industry standards and solutions that can “ensure secure, reliable communications between devices and across platforms,” as well as recent policy developments on cybersecurity like the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act and President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity order, TIA said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/12xWIUf). The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions earlier said it would host a workshop June 18-19 on development of harmonized cybersecurity techniques and practices at its headquarters in Washington (http://bit.ly/17ZQlMT).
Dish Network subsidiary DBS Corp. will offer about $2.5 billion in debt to help fund its proposed bid for Sprint Nextel. The net proceeds from the sale of the notes will go toward financing “a portion of the cash consideration for Dish Network’s proposed merger with Sprint,” Dish said in a press release (http://bit.ly/16xxnPK). If the acquisition doesn’t occur on or before the escrow end date, “or if Dish DBS elects at any time on or prior to the escrow end date, Dish DBS will redeem all of the notes,” it said. In an ex parte filing, Dish continued to urge the FCC to require SoftBank and Sprint to submit additional information on their plans to use the mobile broadband spectrum at stake in SoftBank’s bid for Sprint, it said. To date, the applicants haven’t provided the information, “and there is insufficient information in the record for the commission to conduct a full public interest analysis,” it said (http://bit.ly/13vGKfI). Because Dish is “uniquely positioned” to leverage its existing assets with Sprint’s network, a Dish-Sprint merger “provides valuable spectrum utilization and public interest benefits that are absent in the SoftBank deal,” Dish said. The filing recounted a meeting of Dish representatives and staff from Commissioner Ajit Pai’s office.
Warner Music Group “would welcome Apple’s entering into the digital radio business,” CEO Stephen Cooper said on the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings call Tuesday. That was in response to a request for comment about Universal Music’s reported royalty deal with Apple for its as-yet-unannounced streaming music service. Widely published reports indicate that stalled negotiations with Sony Music and Warner over licensing fees for iRadio have slowed the streaming music service’s ramp to market. While carefully selecting his words Tuesday, Cooper said: “We, I think, as well as the rest of the industry, would welcome Apple’s entering into the digital radio business.” The move by Apple “would lead the charge for other entrants and would accelerate also the growth of simulcast and digital radio from terrestrial participants,” he said. He said he hoped “Universal, Sony, we and others in the industry will come to terms with Apple in the near future.” Apple declined to comment. On whether iRadio as a streaming service would be a threat to Warner Music’s download business, Cooper said other prominent digital radio services -- citing Pandora as the leading example -- haven’t resulted in “any meaningful shift in consumer behavior away from collecting music.” Cooper cited RIAA data showing U.S. recorded music revenue slipped less than 1 percent in calendar 2012. Digital revenue grew 14 percent and accounted for 59 percent of total U.S. recorded music revenue for the year, he said. Subscription, streaming and digital radio services generated 15 percent of U.S. recorded music revenue for the year, up from 9 percent in 2011, according to RIAA data. Warner’s track-equivalent album unit sales, meanwhile, grew 7 percent year-over-year for the quarter in the U.S., “significantly outpacing the industry,” which was down 4 percent, Cooper said. Warner’s track-equivalent album share grew two percentage points to 20 percent, its highest quarterly share in 30 months, he said. Cooper said he “wouldn’t want to assume what Apple’s long-term plans are,” but said Apple continues to “build and complement all of the facets of its ecosphere.” Cooper’s view is that while Apple likely has “more information about consumer behavior and preferences than anybody on the planet,” digital radio “hasn’t eroded the consumer’s preference to collect music and want to control and collect that in their own way.” Cooper said of Apple, “I suspect that they suspect that this will be complementary as opposed to creating erosion in the overall demand for either downloads or the collecting of music in other forms.” On the Local Radio Freedom Act, which by NAB’s account is now co-sponsored by 133 members of the House and 10 senators, Warner Music Chief Financial Officer Brian Roberts said Warner is “supportive, clearly, of a performance right in terrestrial radio for the recorded music industry.” From an industry perspective, he said, “We're very supportive of getting that right.” For fiscal Q2 ended March 31, Warner Music Group posted revenue of $675 million, up 8 percent year-over-year. Digital revenue grew 20 percent over the year-ago quarter to $281 million. The company swung to a profit of $2 million after posting a $36 million loss in fiscal Q2 2012, it said.
SES is providing support for a space-based air traffic monitoring system. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system operates on the Proba V satellite of DLR European Space Agency, SES said in a press release (http://bit.ly/ZYqNdQ). SES and the German Aerospace Center provided an instrument “that detects ADS-B signals emitted by aircraft from space and a ground solution for data processing and system performance management,” it said. SES developed and implemented the ground data processing center, “which retrieves, processes, analyzes and stores all ADS-B data received from the Proba V satellite,” it said.
With the closing of FCC Auction 94, down payments are due May 29, final payments June 12 and Form 301s can be filed June 24 to July 24, said an agency public notice Tuesday (http://bit.ly/18IDpw9). It said the auction had 55 bidders winning a total of 93 FM construction permits for $4.1 million in net bids (CD May 8 p7).
BlackBerry’s keyboard-equipped Q10 smartphone will arrive at Verizon and T-Mobile in June and hit Sprint by late summer, the companies said Tuesday. Verizon will have an exclusive white version, but hasn’t disclosed a price. T-Mobile will introduce the Q10 at $99, or $579 if it’s purchased outright. Sprint will release pricing and contract terms closer to its Q10 launch date in late summer, a company spokesman said. AT&T hasn’t released details of its Q10 plans, but is expected to have the smartphone available about the same time as Verizon and T-Mobile. Sprint is the lone U.S. carrier that didn’t offer the Z10. The Q10, like the touch-based Z10, is built around the BlackBerry 10 operating system that partly stemmed from the company’s acquisition of QNX from Harman International. Canada’s Rogers Communications was among the first to field the Q10 when it started sales April 30, offering the smartphone at $199 on a three-year contract. U.S. carriers were expected to follow about a month later, BlackBerry officials had said. The Q10 has many of the same features as the Z10, but with a 3.1-inch active matrix OLED with 328 pixels per inch (ppi) and capacitive touchscreen, replacing a 4.3-inch LCD with 368 ppi. It has a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX544 544 MHz graphics chip, an eight-megapixel camera, 16 GB internal memory and 2 GB RAM. It also has an HTML5 browser and 2,100-milliampere lithium ion battery with up to 10 hours talk time. The Z10 has Qualcomm’s 1.5 GHz MSM8960 dual-core processor and 1,800-milliampere lithium ion battery. The Q10 and Z10 are two of about six devices, including mid- and entry-level smartphones and PlayBook tablets, which are expected to ship based on the BlackBerry 10 OS, BlackBerry officials have said. Meanwhile, BlackBerry released the 10.1 version of its OS, featuring BlackBerry Hub, where all messages and notifications can be accessed in one place with improved attachment support to more easily view emails. Notifications also can be personalized for accounts and contacts and fine cursor control was added to more accurately determine where the user wants to type. The 10.1 OS also includes a high-dynamic-range shooting mode that allows the user to take multiple pictures at different exposure levels and layers to produce a single photo combining the best light and dark areas.
New EU data protection rules must be flexible so companies can innovate and consumers can take advantage of new services, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, European Competitive Telecommunications Association, GSM Association Europe and Cable Europe Tuesday. They hosted a joint event at the European Parliament to discuss a European Commission-proposed regulation aimed at updating privacy laws for the digital age. It’s “essential” that the new measure strike the right balance between data protection and creating economic and social opportunities and benefits from technology and data, the trade associations said. The future rules should let responsible companies “unlock the potential of personal data to drive new digital services that consumers are demanding,” which will generate economic growth and jobs, they said. The draft regulation, which seeks to harmonize the 27 fragmented data protection regimes, could speed the digital single market for telecom services, giving Europeans better online experiences, they said. Moreover, a consistent data protection level will boost consumer trust and confidence while ensuring people’s private data are protected, they said. The objectives of safeguarding the right to privacy and business needs aren’t mutually exclusive, said ETNO Board Chairman Luigi Gambardella. ETNO welcomes the effort to reform data protection rules to make them more harmonized and consistent and to create a system that takes into account the “inherently global dimension of data processing,” he said. The organization believes all companies processing data of EU citizens should comply with EU rules, wherever their geographical location, he said. But ETNO also wants a risk-based approach used in the final version of the regulation, he said. It would tie obligations set on businesses to the nature of the data they handle and their reasons for processing it, keeping in mind the importance of not hampering digital innovation, he said. ETNO also believes responsible companies, which have always complied with privacy rules, shouldn’t be overburdened with rules, he said. A stronger risk-based approach could entail such measures as cutting administrative burdens on small and mid-sized companies, and allowing a bigger role for codes of conduct and certification mechanisms, he said. For example, the use of “pseudonymous data,” which is particularly helpful in research and online behavioral advertising, should be encouraged because there’s a lower risk of privacy violations, he said. However, giving data controllers the incentive to use such data should be balanced with fundamental rights protections and accountability, he said.
Google Fiber secured an agreement with another Kansas City suburb. The city council of Gladstone, Mo., voted to authorize the agreement Monday, the city said (http://bit.ly/18I6jg5). Google Fiber confirmed the agreement on its official blog that night (http://bit.ly/10mJACD) but declined to specify any timeline for the build: “It takes awhile to plan, engineer, and start building our network in new communities, so it will still be some time before we can hook up our Gladstone customers.” The municipality has about 25,000 residents.