Sling Media seeks exclusion orders against three California companies for importing products from China with “placeshifting or display replication functionality” in violation of six Sling patents, Sling said in a Section 337 complaint filed Tuesday at the U.S. International Trade Commission. The complaint alleged patent infringement by imports of from Belkin International, Monsoon Multimedia and C2 Microsystems. The products at issue allow users to watch their TVs remotely from a computer, tablet or smartphone. Monsoon manufactures devices that infringe Sling Media’s patents, imports them and sells them in the U.S. under the “Vulkano” and “HAVA” sub-brands, said the complaint to the ITC. It said Monsoon is also the original equipment manufacturer for Belkin, which imports devices made by Monsoon and sells them in the U.S. as its “@TV” line of products. C2 Microsystems manufactures an allegedly infringing “CC1203” system-on-a-chip component that “provides the media processing and control functionality” for the Belkin and Monsoon placeshifting products, Sling alleged. Sling also wants cease-and-desist orders imposed against all of three proposed respondents. Sling is owned by Dish Network sister firm EchoStar. Spokespeople for Belkin and Monsoon had no immediate comment on Sling’s complaint, and we couldn’t locate C2, and a company that said it had invested in C2 had no immediate response to our query.
Charter Communications sold $1 billion in debt, with half of the senior unsecured notes due in 2021 with an annual interest rate of 5.25 percent, and the rest due in 2023 with a 5.75 percent rate. Net proceeds of about $987 million will be used to repay bank debt and for other “general corporate purposes,” the cable operator said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/YuoIEq).
Orbcomm will buy GlobalTrak and MobileNet. The purchases are part of Orbcomm’s effort to expand its end-to-end solutions portfolio into key vertical markets and new geographic regions, it said Thursday in press releases (http://bit.ly/WKbSrh, http://bit.ly/XaI1mJ). Globaltrak’s customer base includes military, international, government and commercial customers, Orbcomm said. Combining the companies’ capabilities “will create a suite of transportation related product offerings across the expanded global distribution network,” it said. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013, Orbcomm said. Through integrating MobileNet’s products and services, Orbcomm will “directly address opportunities within the heavy equipment industry through original equipment manufacturers, dealers and fleet owners,” it said. The MobileNet transaction will close within 30 days. Orbcomm also reported Thursday a 14 percent revenue increase to $12.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011 (http://bit.ly/152eqiI). For 2012, revenue reached $49 million, a 31 percent increase from 2011, it said.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission shot down CenturyLink’s latest appeal of the PUC’s telecom deregulation order. The PUC adopted its new order in December and modified it since due to several appeals at the beginning of the year. CenturyLink asked for more changes at the beginning of March, focusing on white page directory listing obligations and how those should factor into the PUC’s effective competition rulings. “We disagree with CenturyLink’s threshold premise that maintaining regulation over ‘any’ aspect of telephone service is discriminatory and inconsistent with Commission policy,” the PUC said in its Wednesday order denying CenturyLink (http://bit.ly/10SoLBb). “The information constituting white page directory listing -- a customer’s name, address, and telephone number -- is correlated to emergency services due to its necessity to the Automatic Location Identification (ALI) database providers for the provision of 9-1-1 services and emergency notification services.” The PUC pointed to the significance of these directory listings, in contrast to CenturyLink’s arguments. “Emergency and related services are more than ‘competitive features,'” the PUC said. “They are vital to the public interest, and market forces cannot ensure the availability of basic emergency services, including 9-1-1 services, in time of need."
Last year’s derecho communications failure in the mid-Atlantic region created the need for ongoing regional assessment, said the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) in its final report on the storm and 911 failures (http://bit.ly/ZKJEcs). The review, in progress since last summer, noted the 911 outages inspired many investigations, including those by the FCC and the Virginia State Corporation Commission, and pointed to issues that state and local government officials should consider. State and local 911 authorities need to assess fully their 911 systems and review 911 laws and regulations, the report said: “The interest of the public and public safety should come first over the interest of commercial providers.” The report addressed both funding and coming technology changes: “State and local 9-1-1 authorities should work with their Legislators to ensure the funding required to support the current 9-1-1 services and future Next Generation 9-1-1 are adequate and available, and that the fees and funds collected from the citizens of their States for 9-1-1 services are dedicated and used solely for the purpose as intended for the implementation, operation and maintenance of 9-1-1 emergency telephone services and other supporting technologies,” and that they're “equitably distributed to the 9-1-1 authorities,” it said. The MWCOG should form a more permanent committee of 911 directors and “take the lead to work cooperatively in the development of a multi-year 9-1-1 strategic plan to include development and implementation of Next Generation 9-1-1,” it said. Verizon’s 911 service failed due to backup power issues and could have done better during the derecho and must do more, on an ongoing basis, to regain the trust of public safety officials, the report said. Verizon defended its activities and “acted decisively and aggressively to identify and resolve 911 issues and other areas for improvement,” said Verizon Mid-Atlantic Vice President of Network Operations Maureen Davis in a statement. She described “substantial progress,” ranging from “audits of key 911 facilities to improved communications with the public safety community -- progress that was borne out in our solid performance during and after Hurricane Sandy last fall and, most recently, last week’s winter storm that brought heavy snow and high winds to parts of the region.” Verizon has worked “actively” with the MWCOG, she added. Davis authored a Wednesday blog post (http://vz.to/Z6ygsu) outlining the telco’s efforts, such as backup power audits and diversifying its network monitoring system.
Average U.K. residential broadband speeds tripled in four years to 12 Mbps, the Office of Communications said Thursday. Its latest report into fixed-line speeds (http://xrl.us/boohnw) showed average speeds rose 3.1 Mbps from May-November 2012, driven by takeup of “superfast” services (up to 30 Mbps or higher). The average speed was 3.6 Mbps in November 2008, it said. As of last November, 77 percent of U.K. fixed-line broadband users were on packages with advertised speeds of “up to” 10 Mbps, up from 58 percent the year before, it said. Cable broadband connections generated the largest increase in average speeds from May-November, but average actual speeds for fiber connections also rose. Speeds for ADSL also increased but not as much as those on the other two platforms, Ofcom said. Virgin Media has the fastest download service, at “up to” 100 Mbps, and BT Infinity the fastest upload service, at “up to” 76 Mbps, it said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on a Five9 request for review of a Universal Service Administrative Co. decision (http://bit.ly/YdkKAZ). That decision requires the call center software provider to file Forms 499-A for 2003 through 2007, and pay contributions to USAC for the same period. Comments in docket 06-122 are due April 12, replies April 29.
Comments are requested on NECA’s proposed 2013 further modification of average schedule formulas, the FCC said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/Ydl8iK). NECA proposed to replace its single formula governing average schedule settlement for DSL services with two formulas: one designed to compensate average schedule companies for the costs of providing traditional voice-data DSL service, and the other designed to compensate average schedule companies for the costs of providing data-only DSL services. The modifications would be effective from July 1 through June 30, 2014, the public notice said. Comments in WC docket 12-369 are due March 28, replies April 8.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., urged the FCC to take “bolder action” to reform the Lifeline program, in a letter sent Wednesday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Pryor said more must be done to prevent abuses by some wireless companies that he said are using the program to offer subsidized wireless services to low-income Americans. “While I recognize that the program does not actually pay for free cell phones, the manner in which some wireless companies provide and aggressively market these prepaid phones to vulnerable consumers is cause for concern,” Pryor said. “These practices create confusion among consumers and, as we have seen, provide fertile ground for those who would abuse this program.” Specifically, Pryor urged the FCC to stop prepaid wireless providers from participating in the Lifeline program, place a hard cap on the FCC’s annual amount of Lifeline support, freeze Lifeline certification for new telecom carriers until a comprehensive review is conducted by the FCC inspector general and study the effectiveness of the current Lifeline program.
Several CEOs and general managers of small telcos wrote to President Barack Obama this week to highlight the effects of the FCC’s “flash-cut elimination” of Safety Net Additive (SNA) support in the 2011 USF/intercarrier compensation order. SNA has historically provided small rural telcos with USF support over a five-year period starting two years after qualifying investments are made. In its order, the FCC “unfairly eliminated the mechanism looking backward for carriers who made qualifying investments in 2010 and 2011 -- prior to the release of the FCC’s order,” the letter said. That provision “threatens to undermine steps taken in the past few years to deploy broadband-capable communications networks,” it said. “Although the amount of SNA support at issue is relatively small in the grand scheme of things,” the $5 million to $10 million in support that “has been yanked away” will make it harder to pay down Rural Utilities Service loans and harder to keep prices low for consumers, the letter said. “We ask that you please encourage the FCC to reconsider the retroactive, flash-cut elimination of SNA support and to address the risk it poses to our shared public policy objectives."