Comments are due on Charter Communications’ plan to buy Bresnan from Cablevision April 19, replies May 6, said an FCC public notice Wednesday in docket 13-77 (http://bit.ly/XqfVEq). The cable operators agreed to the $1.65 billion deal last month (CD Feb 8 p18). The transaction won’t “interrupt or degrade Bresnan’s services” and “will strengthen Charter’s competitive position in the communications market” through “economic, marketing, and operational efficiencies,” the notice said the companies stated.
Correction: Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said the committee will consider online behavioral ads, Do Not Track, mobile privacy and teen privacy, without committing to holding hearings on those issues (CD March 20 p13).
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is suing the city and county of San Francisco and San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr to block cellphone searches conducted without a warrant. The group filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco (http://bit.ly/100xLzs), describing in detail the nature of cellphones and their legal status. “The California Constitution and First Amendment of the United States Constitution also safeguard the rights of free speech and free association against governmental interference in particular against the compelled disclosure of speech and associational information,” the lawsuit said. The complaint asks the court to stop the San Francisco police from conducting warrantless cellphone searches -- “their policy and practice” -- and to declare that such searches violate a right to privacy. In a press release (http://bit.ly/100xLzs), the ACLU said it’s representing civil rights activist Bob Offer-Westort, whose cellphone was searched without a warrant in January after he engaged in what the ACLU termed “non-violent civil disobedience.” “Police need a warrant to search our home office,” said Pillsbury Winthrop attorney Marley Degner in a statement. “Our cell phones should be treated the same way.” That firm is handling the case pro bono, the ACLU said. It notes that it’s the first challenge to the California practice, which the California Supreme Court upheld relative to the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment in the 2011 People v. Diaz case. “This suit brings a challenge under the California Constitution’s stronger guarantees of privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, as well as a challenge under the U.S. and California Constitutions’ guarantees of freedom of speech and association,” the ACLU said of the current challenge. The San Francisco Police Department said it doesn’t comment on civil suits.
More Michiganders are subscribing to broadband, Connect Michigan said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/YGzjfx). Residential broadband adoption jumped from 61 percent in 2011 to 71 percent in 2012, it said. Connect Michigan suggested the jump will help the economy and lead to a rise in online business transactions, and focuses its latest report on the economic implications of broadband adoption (http://bit.ly/XZEwn8). Its estimation is that one percentage point increase could create or save about 12,388 jobs across the state. “Michigan residents conduct $17.1 million in online transactions with Michigan businesses and spend nearly $1.1 billion in online sales,” the group said.
The rural-urban digital divide persists and creates policy challenges, said the National Agricultural & Rural Development Policy Center in a policy brief (http://bit.ly/1483wvH). It pointed to the special challenges of increasing broadband adoption among various groups. “We suggest that better data be gathered on matters of adoption, use and cost,” the brief said. “Evaluation results of NTIA’s [Broadband Technology Opportunities Program] will be available at some point in the future; this should help suppliers, civil society, and government programs make better decisions on how to address discrepancies, inequities, and opportunities for improvement.” Future efforts should “include the cost of services and indicators of service quality,” the brief added.
The New York State Public Service Commission is seeking comments on the cost of unlisted numbers. In a public notice this week (http://bit.ly/ZdJrfG), it asked for comments by April 8 and replies by April 15. A Verizon petition from earlier this month inspired the PSC to seek action. The telco request would “increase the monthly rate for Non-Published Service listings effective May 18, 2013, for both residential and business customers, by $0.50 (from $2.50 to $3.00) per non-published line,” according to the PSC notice. “Non-published service excludes residential and business telephone numbers from printed directories and directory assistance records."
The global tablet market will “explode,” and “every human by the time that they're about five or six years old will probably have a tablet” eventually, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang predicted Tuesday during an investor briefing webcast from the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, Calif. “I can’t imagine a human in a few years who doesn’t have a tablet, and the reason for that is because you can’t otherwise read in school” without one by then, he predicted. “Every developing country is going to put tablets in their kids’ hands,” he said. Many students at universities are already using tablets to read books, he said. Huang recently visited his alma mater, Oregon State, and the book store there was “devastated” because students were mostly reading books on tablets and not using traditional books anymore, he said. “It’s all digital” now, he said. Huang predicted that consumers will “get a tablet long before you get” a mobile phone because the phone requires a subscription, while the tablet doesn’t. “You don’t need a phone to live,” but will “need a tablet to live,” he said. “What we need to do is figure out how to build tablets that are great on the one hand” and “on the other hand really affordable,” he said. Nvidia introduced Kai, a low-cost tablet platform, last year, and that turned into the Nexus 7 only a few months later, he said. “We need to take that tablet even further,” he said. “Tablets are changing in shape and style, and in ways of use,” and Nvidia must “keep advancing Kai,” he said. Nvidia also took its ability to build a reference platform to mobile phones with the Phoenix 1080p device, he said.
An FCC decision on Softbank’s purchase of Sprint Nextel should be made by late May, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said after the FCC meeting Wednesday. “The review of that transaction is proceeding on a schedule consistent with the 180-day shot clock,” he said. Wednesday was day 110 of the commission’s self-imposed unofficial clock for reviewing transactions. Genachowski also defended his decision not to circulate for a commission vote an order approving T-Mobile’s buy of MetroPCS (CD March 13 p1). “As you know, we do a lot at the bureau level,” he said. “In the case of that transaction there were no petitions to deny, not a single one, there were no conditions that were advocated by any member of the commission and there were no issues of commission policy that were implicated by the decision.” The news of late has been good for wireless competition, Genachowski said: “We're seeing strengthening competitors in this space, a positive trajectory in competition in this space.”
The Rural Telecommunications Group took issue with statements by FCC Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai to the Senate Commerce Committee during its March 12 FCC oversight hearing, opposing spectrum caps in the upcoming incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. In a letter to the FCC (http://bit.ly/WVaTVp), RTG questioned in particular comments by Pai, who expressed concerns that the auction may not provide enough money to pay for the new FirstNet. “While the goal of funding FirstNet is certainly important, it is not the driving force behind the incentive auction,” RTG said. “Nor does placing a spectrum cap on carrier holdings on a market by market basis necessarily mean the forward auction will fail to meet expectations. ... While RTG recognizes the importance of funding FirstNet and balancing the budget, the Commission’s auction authority does not permit the FCC to sacrifice competition to provide funding for these initiatives."
Distributed Antenna Systems “are becoming an increasingly important part of wireless network infrastructure in the United States,” but the FCC’s decade-old historic preservation rules “are ill-suited to DAS and small cell technologies that do not rely on towers,” said a report submitted to the FCC by PCIA. “Because DAS and small cell antennas are commonly installed on existing structures, often existing poles within or near utility rights-of-way, they cause little ground disturbance and create almost no additional visual effect -- a quality that recommends the technologies for use in and near historic districts,” the report said (http://bit.ly/16Jnz3v). But, the report notes, DAS and small cell solutions were little used when the Collocation Agreement was developed in 2001 and the Nationwide Programmatic Agreement in 2004. Both are focused on towers, the report said. “As a result, while some of the provisions in these agreements appear capable of accommodating DAS and small cells, there are areas at which the technology and regulation do not comfortably mesh and the current procedures can actually discourage DAS and small cell use in historic settings.” The report recommends the FCC make some tweaks to its rules, which would reduce the level of scrutiny DAS projects would get when submitted for approval.