The Israel Defense Forces selected Gilat’s SatTrooper-1000 Military Manpack terminal for advanced tactical field communications. The terminal will give soldiers “dependable data, video and telephony at broadband speeds,” Gilat said in a press release (http://bit.ly/12FUe8g). It can be set up in minutes by a single person and the design of the auto pointing antenna “enables rapid connectivity even in the harshest environmental conditions,” it said.
Dish Network supports a Sprint Nextel committee that was formed to review Dish’s proposal to buy the company, Dish said Tuesday. Dish is “available to meet with Sprint’s board, management and advisors to discuss our plans and our willingness to commit to financing,” Dish said in a press release (http://bit.ly/17Oj4lR). Sprint’s board formed a committee Monday to examine Dish’s $25.5 billion offer for the company (CD April 23 p11) . Dish said it’s confident that Sprint’s board “will share our view that this proposal is superior on several fronts by offering Sprint shareholders greater value ... while also creating the opportunity to participate meaningfully in a combined, and competitively unique, Dish/Sprint."
CenturyLink got a contract to provide high-speed network services to the Department of Defense, the company said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/12FHe2w). The 10-year Defense Research and Engineering Network III contract, worth up to $750 million, is sponsored by the department’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program. CenturyLink said it will provide a fiber network with connection speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps. The telco said the contract funds ethernet, Internet Protocol and optical wave services to be provided over a virtual private local area network, linking researchers and engineers at Defense locations across the country.
The Office of Management and Budget approved the new information collection requirements in the FCC’s sixth report and order on service and eligibility rules for low-power FM stations. Amendments to the rules are effective May 23, for a period of three years, the FCC said in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/13sxkjv). The commission adopted the order last year as part of its effort to welcome new LPFM stations under the Local Community Radio Act (CD Dec 3 p1).
New Q1 lobbying reports showed Facebook nearly quadrupled its year-over-year lobbying to $2.45 million, with an 18 percent decrease at Verizon to $3.67 million and a 40 percent decrease at AT&T to $4.26 million. Facebook lobbied Congress on privacy and cybersecurity legislation, among other issues, said the disclosure reports. NAB’s lobbying spending was little changed, at $4.2 million, while Comcast’s fell 1.5 percent to $4.48 million.
Netflix added more than 3 million streaming members in Q1 ended March 31, boosting total streaming membership to more than 36 million, it said in its quarterly letter to shareholders, released publicly Monday. It added 2 million streaming members in the U.S. and 1 million in other markets, it said. Domestic DVD membership fell to 8 million from 10.1 million. Global revenue grew to $1 billion from $870 million, and it swung to a $3 million profit from a $5 million loss. Netflix will add an unspecified “additional European market” in the back half of 2013, and will give more details in its July earnings call, it said. Netflix shares closed up 6.7 percent Monday at $174.37.
Cox Communications’ TV Connect app will now function on Kindle Fire, Google Nexus and Samsung Galaxy tablets, the company said Monday (http://bit.ly/13r4qAg). Cox said its app, released in December 2011, has been downloaded more than 500,000 times for the iPad and iPhone.
Two cable companies made commitments to science, technology, engineering and math programs as part of President Barack Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign on such STEM outreach. Time Warner Cable offered $100 million to connect U.S. students with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs as part of the White House program, TWC said at the White House science fair Monday. The company will air public service announcements with New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz aimed at getting more students involved in STEM subjects, the company said. Discovery Communications said it will offer STEM educational programming on the Science Channel.
Including analog tuners on DVRs “serves only a tiny and rapidly disappearing niche in the market,” TiVo told the FCC in asking it to approve a waiver so such tuners aren’t needed (CD March 20 p17). “TiVo’s customers should not be required to pay higher prices (between $100 and $150 per device) to subsidize the preservation of this obsolete technology,” said a filing in docket 11-105. It said extending a 2011 waiver would come after “TiVo already has conducted a highly successful consumer information campaign regarding its all-digital Premiere line of products and is ready to expand that effort to include its future devices also.” There were no comments in the docket on the new waiver request, the filing said (http://bit.ly/11wfvQH). “Over the past two years, only a tiny number of TiVo customers (0.2 percent) have even inquired about the lack of an analog tuner in its ‘Premiere’ line of products, and even fewer (0.05 percent) discontinued TiVo service as a result.” To start production of all-digital DVRs that can be delivered by the holiday season, the company said its petition needs to be OK'd soon.
The FCC Media Bureau dismissed a complaint from the licensee of low-power TV station WOCB Marion, Ohio, against Time Warner Cable for failure to carry the station on its cable systems in Marion and Columbus. The station failed to introduce any programming logs or other evidence “supporting its contention that it provides local news and informational programming directed to the contested communities,” the bureau said in an order (http://bit.ly/15B9Ht7). The station fails to provide a good quality signal to the principal headend of TWC’s Columbus system, the order said: WOCB isn’t a qualified LPTV station “with respect to that system, and therefore it is not entitled to mandatory carriage therein."