Motorola Mobility may be violating EU antitrust laws by seeking and enforcing an injunction against Apple in Germany based on its mobile phone standard-essential patents (SEPs), the European Commission said Monday. Although injunctions can be used in patent infringement cases, they may amount to abusive conduct where SEPs are concerned and where the potential licensee is willing to obtain a license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, it said. In that situation, the EC believes dominant SEP holders shouldn’t be allowed to ask for injunctions, which generally bar sales of the product that infringes the patent, in order to distort licensing negotiations and impose unjustified terms on licensees, it said. Such misuse of SEPs could ultimately hurt consumers, it said. Standards bodies usually require members to commit to licensing patents they have declared essential for a standard on FRAND terms, it said. The commitment is aimed at ensuring effective access to a standard for all market players and to stop a single SEP holder from holding up rivals, it said. Access to SEPs is a precondition for any company to sell interoperable products in the market, it said. Motorola’s SEPs relate to the European Telecommunications Standardization Institute’s GPRS standard, part of the GSM standard, a key industry standard for mobile and wireless communications, the EC said. When the standard was adopted in Europe, Motorola Mobility promised to license patents it declared essential to the standard on FRAND terms, but it then sought an injunction against Apple in Germany, and enforced it, although Apple said it was willing to be bound by a determination of FRAND royalties by the German court. The EC believes the injunction in this case hurts competition, and opened an antitrust investigation in April. It sent a “statement of objections” to Motorola Mobility, which now has the right to respond and ask for an oral hearing, the EC said. Sending the statement doesn’t prejudge the final outcome of the probe, it said.
The Reason Foundation attacked the idea of municipally owned broadband networks, as part of the foundation’s 2013 annual privatization report Monday (http://bit.ly/13mbyhW). The free-market think tank judged there’s been resurgence in support of such networks: “Goosed by federal stimulus funds, a number of municipal broadband networks around the country were able to meet short-term construction and service goals, even as they face long-term financial questions,” wrote Policy Analyst Steven Titch. “The shift in policy attitudes toward more interventionist government programs, typified in books like Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age by former Obama White House Telecommunications Advisor Susan Crawford, has a number of municipalities considering the launch of competitive phone, cable TV and high-speed broadband ventures.” Titch criticized the “dire financial reckoning” that such projects will bring, and pointed to attempts in Tennessee, Utah and the state of Washington as examples of what he sees as problematic. “Municipal broadband is a bad investment, largely prone to failure, and, in the best case, a costly method for delivering local economic benefits that could be realized at much less taxpayer risk,” he said. As seen in this year’s legislative fight in Georgia (CD March 11 p7), however, municipal networks have also attracted many defenders, arguing for communities’ freedom to build their own networks.
Journal Broadcast Group completed the purchase of WNOX(FM) Oak Ridge, Tenn., for $5.96 million in cash from Oak Ridge FM, said the acquirer, a unit of Journal Communications. A news release Friday said the subsidiary has three other radio stations in Knoxville, the market WNOX serves (http://bit.ly/10BYhNK).
National Religious Broadcasters seeks resumes from those interested in becoming its next president and CEO. NRB released Friday an “opportunity profile” (http://bit.ly/125145e). It includes personal and professional qualifications and other supporting documentation “that will enable potential applicants to gain a detailed understanding of the position and the association,” the association said in a press release. NRB’s search committee plans to vet the strongest candidates and recommend the two leading candidates to the full executive committee, it said. CEO Frank Wright will resign Oct. 4 (CD March 22 p15).
Colorado is looking at multiple bills that would limit how the state regulates Internet Protocol-enabled services. One also encourages broadband deployment in under- and unserved areas. Legislators in the Colorado Senate last week introduced what they call the Rural Telecom Act of 2013, Senate Bill 287, referred to the Senate floor. That bill would exempt VoIP and IP services from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission regulation while making clear what it wouldn’t affect, such as the PUC’s “authority to regulate the implementation and provision of next-generation 911 service” (http://bit.ly/13SoU5p). The bill also authorizes the PUC to take money from the state USF to help in broadband deployment. It makes clear that the state policy toward ensuring universal service includes access to broadband, according to the text. There’s another Colorado bill, House Bill 1255, which would also exempt VoIP and IP services from PUC oversight. It passed the Colorado House in mid-April and is pending before the Senate.
Apple was the top smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. during the three-month period ending in March, comScore said Friday. Apple had a 39 percent OEM market share during the period, up 2.7 percentage points from the period ending in December; Samsung ranked second with 21.7 percent, while HTC ranked third with 9 percent, comScore said. Google’s Android was the top smartphone platform during the period, at a 52 percent market share, down 1.4 percentage points from the period ending in December; Apple ranked second with 39 percent, while BlackBerry ranked third with 5.2 percent, comScore said (http://bit.ly/15eTgnc).
Cable TV set-top box security company Beyond Broadband Technology (BBT) urged the FCC to encourage companies developing downloadable set-top box security systems to use “simulcrypt” technology, in an April 30 meeting with staff from Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s office, said an ex parte letter (http://bit.ly/1133sxL) filed with the FCC Thursday. BBT Director-Strategic Communications Stephen Effros said that his company believes pushing simulcrypt is the only way for the FCC to make sure that downloadable security takes hold and supplants CableCARDs. Simulcrypt security systems allow the same encrypted signal to be decrypted by both newer downloadable security devices and CableCARDs, Effros said. “Until the problem of legacy equipment in systems not empowered to institute simulcrypt is resolved, the barrier to entry of any new technology is almost insurmountable,” said Effros in the ex parte. Effros said in an interview that his meeting with FCC staff was a reaction the commission’s April 18 order granting a two-year waiver of CableCARD rules to Charter Communications (CD April 22 p3). Effros praised the FCC’s order granting the waiver, but said the commission should go further and call on Charter and other companies developing downloadable security to only work with simulcrypt. “The design and development of downloadable security set top boxes through promotion of simulcrypt allowing their introduction in legacy systems is the most likely way to encourage competition in the manufacture of equipment,” said Effros. CEA, which asked the FCC to ensure that Charter supports CableCARDs while under the waiver, declined to comment.
Verizon’s Superstorm Sandy restoration progress became a source of contention late last week. “People are telling me, somewhat muting their anger, that some have had no phone service since Sandy, October 28th 2012 -- 185 days ago, almost 6 months,” wrote New Networks Institute Executive Director Bruce Kushnick in a long piece (http://bit.ly/15abJkx) on the institute’s site, referring to an East 9th Street Block Association meeting in New York City. He slammed Verizon for billing consumers for services they don’t receive and lamented that state and local officials are not demanding accountability. He called residents’ stories “an ongoing telecom nightmare” and said they stuck with Verizon because they often were told they'd receive repairs or had no real alternatives. But “Verizon has restored service for the vast majority of our customers,” a telco spokesman told us by email. “It was a major and unprecedented undertaking but we are just about done. Not only did we restore service as quickly as humanly possible but we replaced all of the damaged copper network with more resilient fiber optic network. And we offered our customers free wireless solutions on a temporary basis while their service was being restored.” The spokesman noted that Kushnick didn’t talk to Verizon about the telco’s progress. The New York State Public Service Commission doesn’t see Verizon’s progress as negligent, according to mid-April testimony from PSC Telecom Director Chad Hume at a PSC meeting. Staff has been “actively monitoring Verizon’s restoration,” Hume said, according to a transcript. “In Lower Manhattan, long-term network repairs have progressed steadily and the company is nearing business as usual operations. Service to most all of the nearly 400 buildings identified by Verizon were impacted by severe copper network damage and destruction as well as significant physical damage to the buildings themselves has been restored to repair and nearly complete network reconstruction by fiber facilities including FiOS.” Hume noted remaining buildings scheduled for restoral and Verizon’s efforts to deal with “remaining building outages on an individual basis.” The Queens territory is back to “nearly pre-storm business as usual levels,” he said. “Overall, less than 10,000 access lines remain out of service in the metro New York City region.”
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., respects President Barack Obama’s decision to nominate Tom Wheeler as FCC chairman (CD May 1 p1), Rockefeller said in a news release Friday. Rockefeller said Wheeler has a “long and diverse career in both communications policy and business. In the next two years, the FCC will work toward promoting universal access to broadband, expanding the E-Rate program, and making sure incentive auctions generate funds to create a communications network for our first responders. I look forward to meeting soon with Mr. Wheeler and discussing the challenges facing the Commission.” The Senate Commerce Committee hasn’t scheduled a meeting to consider the nomination of Wheeler, whose former lobbying roles at CTIA and NCTA Rockefeller had railed against in recent months (CD April 10 p3). Rockefeller previously urged Obama to pass the gavel to his former Commerce Committee aide, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, in a letter signed by 37 Democratic senators.
The FCC International Bureau granted Intelsat 60-day special temporary authority to continue providing fixed satellite service with the Intelsat 706 satellite located at 157 degrees east, said a public notice. The bureau’s Satellite Division also said Skybox Imaging met the first three milestone conditions in its license for non-geostationary orbit Earth Exploration Satellite Service satellites, SkySat-1 and SkySat-2.