The FCC should take steps to improve competition in the closed-captioning industry, Media Captioning Services (MCS) told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FCC staff in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/16kmAs0). The company said large programmers are “preferencing a few dominant closed captioning firms,” which is squeezing out the smaller companies that MCS says are the bulk of their industry. The company said this leads to decreased funding for schools that train captioners and court reporters. MCS blamed the large programmers’ “anticompetitive” business practices for steadily declining compensation for captioning, “despite the FCC requirement for video programmers to provide increasing levels of captioning.” MCS said the decline in pay combined with the decreasing availability of training has led to parents “disincenting” their children from entering the closed captioning business. During the meeting with Clyburn, “the ability of the closed captioning industry to meet real time captioning requirements at quality levels needed by Deaf and hard of hearing viewers, including the ability to meet peak demands at times of national and regional emergencies, was noted as a significant risk in the near future,” said the ex parte. MCS asked the FCC to study how often video programmers are using smaller captioning companies and to consider that use when broadcast licenses come up for renewal.
Future spectrum auctions will be a bust unless the FCC first requires interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band, said McBride Spectrum Partners Senior Partner Vincent McBride, in comments filed at the FCC. “Any future spectrum auctions will be inconsequential and largely an unavoidable disaster without first ruling on and enforcing interoperability across the entire 700 MHz and 600 MHz spectrum bands,” he said (http://bit.ly/12hmRrM). “The fact of the matter is that any sound and prudent judgment based on the situation will tell you that interoperability is a prerequisite before any incentive auctions can take place. The benefits of interoperability are widely shared, and especially meaningful to consumers."
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday to clarify that unlocking one’s phone in order to switch networks is not copyright infringement. The Unlocking Technology Act was authored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Thomas Massie, R-Ky.; Jared Polis, D-Colo.; and House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. If passed, the legislation would clarify that consumers are permitted to circumvent the technological protection measures that prevent their handsets from being used with other networks. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), those who unlock their phones without permission from their carriers may be subject to civil lawsuits, criminal fines or imprisonment. The bill would direct the Department of Commerce to determine the impact that the DMCA has on consumer choice, competition and the free flow of information. The legislation would also call for a report to determine if the DMCA should be reformed or repealed. If passed, the legislation would task the executive branch with ensuring that any foreign trade agreements with copyright provisions are consistent with the legislation. A handful of lawmakers introduced cellphone-unlocking bills after top telecom officials in the administration advocated for legislative fixes to give consumers greater control over their devices (CD March 5 p1). Public Knowledge Vice President-Legal Affairs Sherwin Siy said “legal uses of copyrighted works shouldn’t become illegal through a technicality, and fixing this flaw in the law prevents manufacturers from locking consumers in to particular products and service plans,” in a news release.
Two new judges were appointed to the Copyright Royalty Board Tuesday. According to a release from the Library of Congress (http://1.usa.gov/16hYj69), David Strickler will be the board’s economics specialist, while Jesse Feder will be the copyright specialist. Prior to being appointed, Feder was director of international trade and intellectual property for BSA/The Software Alliance, according to the release. Strickler is a litigator specializing in commercial property and stocks, and teaches microeconomics and macroeconomics at Brookdale College in New Jersey. Wilkinson Barker attorney David Oxenford pointed out in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/18wJ5JG) that since Chief Judge Suzanne Barnett has only been in her post a year, the new appointments mean the next proceeding to set royalties for Internet radio will take place in front of a CRB that is new to the issue. Oxenford said the next webcasting proceeding, to set royalties for 2016 through 2020, will start in 2014.
AT&T said it began offering a no-contract wireless service, Aio Wireless. The service’s plans, which will cost between $35 and $70 depending on market, will give customers unlimited voice, text and data usage without requiring an annual contract, AT&T said. While all Aio Wireless plans give customers unlimited data usage, they “throttle,” or slow down the transmission of data, at different usage levels; Aio Basic throttles at 250 MB, Aio Smart at 2 GB and Aio Pro at 7 GB. Another Aio Wireless plan, which offers 250 MB of data usage per month on tablets, costs $15. Aio customers can also add another 1 GB of data to their plan or global voice and text to 35 countries, for $10. Customers can use unlocked devices on Aio Wireless, or can purchase a smartphone through AT&T. The carrier said it began offering Aio Wireless Thursday in the Houston, Orlando, and Tampa markets; the carrier plans to bring Aio Wireless to “multiple” additional markets over the course of the next year (http://soc.att.com/ZL639b).
President Barack Obama signed an executive order Thursday to make most new federal government data accessible to the public and machine-readable. The order directs federal agencies to make government information available “in ways that make the data easy to find, accessible and usable,” while protecting privacy, confidentiality and national security, it said. The Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with federal technology advisers, will issue an open data policy and update it as required, the order said. The policy will subsequently be adopted by federal agencies who will take steps to ensure that all publicly released data are scrubbed to protect individuals’ privacy, and national security, among other concerns. TechAmerica Senior Vice President-Federal Government Affairs Kevin Richard said the executive order “will facilitate innovation, job growth, and government efficiency,” in a news release.
Canada’s Rogers Communications said it’s offering a pay-per-use roaming data plan for customers traveling to the U.S. The plan, which costs $7.99 per day, will allow Rogers customers to use 50 MB of data -- twice what an average Rogers customer uses in Canada per day, the carrier said. The plan automatically applies for most customers, Rogers said. Customers using the plan can text the word “usage” to 3330 once every 10 minutes to monitor their data usage, the carrier said (http://bit.ly/12hfyQO).
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment increased its offer to buy Outdoor Channel Holdings to $10.25 per share in cash. The offer was previously amended last week (CD May 6 p14). Outdoor Channel’s board decided this second amendment caused InterMedia Outdoor’s $9.75 per share proposal “to no longer constitute a superior proposal,” it said in a press release (http://bit.ly/16bqx0r). Under the amended merger agreement, the termination fee that Outdoor Channel will have to pay Kroenke if the agreement is terminated “has been increased to $7.5 million (approximately 2.8 percent of the equity value of the transaction) from $1 million,” it said. The Outdoor Channel board expects a special meeting next week of Outdoor Channel stockholders to vote to adopt the amended merger agreement, Outdoor Channel said.
The FCC needs to address the gap in multilingual emergency communications systems, the Minority Media and Telecom Council said in a letter to the chief of the Public Safety Bureau Thursday (http://bit.ly/15ORQA0). MMTC said it first asked the FCC to address the issue in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which struck in 2005. MMTC President David Honig said current FCC emergency communication procedures “cannot ensure that multilingual emergency warnings will reach those without access to mobile phones or other non-broadcast devices, since an emergency may silence a market’s only multilingual station.” Honig said the EAS test report released last month (CD April 16 p5) was focused only on English speakers. “This omission could prove deadly for non-English speaking U.S. residents,” Honig said. He said FCC efforts to provide emergency alerts for non-English speakers should include detailed information beyond simple alerts, including directions on where to find shelter and food and when it might be safe to return. “Before the 2013 hurricane season begins, the Commission should take up and rule on the Katrina Petition,” Honig said.
AT&T has begun what it calls a tour through Alabama to spotlight its Project Velocity IP investments and what it’s doing in the state. The telco invested close to $1.4 billion in its Alabama wireless and wireline networks from 2010 to 2012 and is now hiring for more than 350 jobs all over the state, it said in a Wednesday press release. It has also added LTE to more than 350 sites in 2013 and made close to 1,100 upgrades to its wireless networks in 2012, it added. “Our elected officials are to be commended for creating an atmosphere that allows this kind of investment to take place,” said AT&T Alabama President Fred McCallum in a statement. In a statement, Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield called the investment “probably the largest of any company in the state.” The telco’s publicity tour began in Montgomery Wednesday and will continue in The Shoals, Huntsville, Birmingham, Mobile, Brewton and Jackson, it said. “These events provide our folks an opportunity to reach out to our consumers and stakeholders -- in both rural and urban areas alike -- to inform them of our investments past and present, and to thank them for their support,” an AT&T spokesman said by email. “We had an outstanding turnout yesterday, and people were very eager to hear about how our growth in innovation, wireless and wireline expansion, network, and services will translate to more jobs across the state.”