Users prefer direct access to 911 call centers without having to go through a third party, said a report by the Emergency Access Advisory Committee Subcommittee 1 on Interim Text Messaging. The EAAC earlier endorsed the use of SMS as an interim solution for text-to-911. “Utilizing the existing standards-based mobile SMS network architectures and capabilities currently offered by wireless service providers to wireless subscribers, with minimal modifications or alterations, would be the most technically and economically feasible way to ensure rapid deployment of SMS-based Text-to-911,” the report said (http://bit.ly/YPx89n). Many areas for further study remain, the report said. Among them it lists: “The impact of domestic and international roaming on the ability to successfully use the interim solution” and “The inability to provide feedback to users in some cases when the user cannot successfully use the interim Text-to-911 solution.”
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued forfeiture orders to licensees of three radio stations and a notice of apparent liability to an antenna structure owner for violating commission rules. Entertainment Media Trust was fined $8,500 for its failure to operate KZQZ(AM), St. Louis within the terms of its station authorization and to conduct required annual equipment performance measurements for the station, the bureau said (http://bit.ly/13I6Xcn). The bureau also said EMT’s public inspection files for KZQZ and KQQZ(AM), DeSoto, Mo., weren’t made available. The bureau said Inter-city Christian Youth Program must pay a $1,750 fine for failing to install and maintain an operational emergency alert system equipment at its low power FM station KCYP-LP in Mission, Texas (http://bit.ly/12xz7Yf). The bureau also said Paulino Bernal, owner of antenna structure number 1066001 in Tulia, Texas, is apparently liable for a $6,000 fine for not notifying the commission about a change in ownership information for the structure (http://bit.ly/13JqPvX).
Nearly half of Minnesota Lifeline customers were automatically de-enrolled from the program, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission said Thursday (http://bit.ly/16bZMc9). It described inquiries from residents baffled by their bills and noted that in 2012, “33,000 or 46 percent of about 71,000 Lifeline customers failed to return signed certification forms with required information to their service providers and were subsequently removed from the programs,” which occurred as part of federal reform to the low-income subsidy program. “While it is important to maintain the integrity of the programs by confirming that the benefits are extended only to those who truly qualify, it is also important that those who are eligible receive the assistance they need,” PUC Chair Beverly Jones Heydinger said in a statement. The PUC worried many customers eligible for these benefits, from both Lifeline and the Telephone Assistance Plan, lost them due to confusion over the forms and advised state residents on how to restore the benefits. The Montana Public Service Commission reported similar confusion among state residents and mass de-enrollment last month (CD Feb 27 p21).
Three top Democrats on the House Commerce Committee urged their Republican colleagues in a letter made public Thursday to hold a hearing on the Lifeline program. The committee should provide the opportunity for the FCC, states, carriers and other stakeholders to “examine current reform efforts and evaluate whether they are adequately ensuring the integrity of the Lifeline program,” the letter said. It was sent by House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif.; Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.; and Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.; to Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.; Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.; and Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa.
Minnesota may create an office of broadband development. Six legislators in the Minnesota House introduced a bill, HF-1255 (http://bit.ly/10m6pZ6), this week proposing such an office. The bill outlines several duties the office would be responsible for, effective immediately upon passing. The broadband office would help oversee effective management and deployment of broadband infrastructure, including efforts with the “dig once” initiative, which makes use of the 811 number to coordinate companies’ construction efforts. “The Office of Broadband Development shall conduct research and produce a report recommending a set of programs and strategies the state can pursue to promote the improvement, more efficient and effective use, and expansion of broadband services in ways that will have the greatest impact on the state’s economic development, by which is meant enhancing the ability of Minnesota citizens and businesses to develop their skills, to expand businesses to new markets, develop new products, reach more customers, and lower costs,” according to the bill, noting the office’s report “must consider broadband as an economic development tool.” The office would have to submit its first report to the Legislature by Jan. 15, the bill said. Minnesota’s Blandin Foundation consultant Ann Treacy suspects the bill will be “one big topic” at Thursday’s Telecommunications and Information Society Policy Forum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, she wrote on the foundation’s blog Thursday (http://bit.ly/10m7mjX). Minnesota has actively focused on fostering broadband deployment, instituting a statutory goal as well as creating a broadband task force (CD Dec 13 p15).
Nook Media signed licensing deals with Paramount Pictures and several other new content providers for its Nook Video service, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary said Thursday. Other content providers it signed deals with were Lionsgate, MGM, Relativity Media, National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff, said Nook Media. The new agreements will bring “thousands” of more movies and TV shows to the Nook Video catalog, including the films The Hunger Games, Twilight, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven and House at the End of the Street, and TV shows Mad Men and Amazing Planet, said Nook Media. The new content will be available in the Nook Video Store “as soon as this weekend,” said Jonathan Shar, Nook Media vice president and general manager-Emerging Digital Content. “Format varies by title, but the majority of the content is in SD and HD,” B&N spokeswoman Carolyn Brown told us. Content already available at the Nook Video Store includes movies and TV shows from Sony Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros., NBCU, Fox, Viacom/MTV Networks, HBO, Starz/Starz Media and Latin Anywhere, said Shar.
Senate Antitrust Subcommittee leaders unveiled a bill Thursday aimed at permitting wireless customers to unlock their phones in order to switch carriers. The Wireless Consumer Choice Act would direct the FCC to begin a rulemaking that ensures consumers can circumvent the technological protection measures that prevent their handsets from being used with other networks. The bill was introduced by Chairman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Ranking Member Mike Lee, R-Utah, and subcommittee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., will soon introduce a House version of the bill, a news release said. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) those who unlock their phones without permission from their carriers may be subject to civil suits, criminal fines or imprisonment. Last year the U.S. Copyright Office issued a rulemaking that removed an exemption for cellphone-firmware unlocking that had been granted in previous triennial reviews of the 1998 law. “Consumers shouldn’t have to fear criminal charges if they want to unlock their cell phones and switch carriers,” said Lee. “Enhanced competition among wireless services is the surest way to increase consumer welfare.” The bill follows a White House announcement this week that the administration supports “narrow legislative fixes” to permit consumers to switch carriers when they are no longer bound by a service agreement (http://1.usa.gov/14lub3Z). “This legislation is common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring healthy competition in the market,” said Blumenthal. Klobuchar said: “Consumers should have flexibility and choice when it comes to their wireless service and they deserve to keep and use cell phones they have already purchased.” Public Knowledge commended the lawmakers for introducing the bill but said there is more need for legislation that amends the DMCA to prevent further consumer abuses. “Amending the DMCA itself will ensure stronger competition, and also that consumers can use the devices they've bought in whatever lawful way they choose,” said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Affairs Christopher Lewis, in a release Thursday. Free Press Action Fund Policy Director Matt Wood also commended the bill for recognizing the need to “free our phones,” he said in a separate release.
EAGLE-Net may be fully active again within the next month, NTIA told the $100.6 million broadband stimulus grantee, which the federal government partially suspended in December for route changes and problems with its environmental assessment process (CD Dec 10 p6). “I believe that we remain on track to have the suspension lifted within the next thirty to forty days,” NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program Infrastructure Projects Director Laura Dodson told EAGLE-Net CEO Mike Ryan in a letter this week. The infrastructure grantee is tasked with a statewide mission to provide broadband for Colorado’s schools. Dodson visited Colorado in January and February and called all agencies “responsive and cooperative,” while underscoring NTIA’s sensitivity to the fact that “time is critical” in EAGLE-Net’s plans to finish its grant work by this fall. The suspension halted all its construction, and Colorado’s building season resumes in the next couple of months. One school district’s tech coordinator scheduled to receive EAGLE-Net service told us he fears the grantee won’t be able to provide service by the scheduled time this summer (CD Feb 27 p7). Dodson mentioned two other grantees that had been suspended and reactivated and said she looks forward to putting EAGLE-Net in that category. “I too am committed to supporting EAGLE-Net,” she said, adding she’s seen the grantee’s support among several stakeholders in Colorado. The grantee also faces ongoing accusations of overbuilding and waste, which culminated in a House hearing late last month, but has defended itself consistently, questioning the meaning of overbuilding. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s John Stephenson, director of its Communications and Technology Task Force, criticized the alleged overbuilding in a blog post earlier this week: “Rather than simply throw money at the problem, risking waste from overbuilding broadband, it makes more sense to take a closer look at the real reasons why people remain disconnected and focus instead on removing or lowering the regulatory, tax, and cost barriers to broadband deployment and adoption,” he wrote (http://bit.ly/Z2tk6R).
Aurora Networks completed the purchase of Harmonic’s optical transmission equipment business on Tuesday, the buyer said in a news release the next day (http://bit.ly/16bQGvS). The Cable Access unit was being sold for $46 million (CD Feb 20 p14).
Cloud-based services will continue to be a major focus for AT&T this year, said Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche Thursday in an email to investors. Wells Fargo hosted a dinner with AT&T management Wednesday night, including Steve Caniano, AT&T vice president-Hosting, Application and Cloud Services, Fritzsche said. AT&T owns 38 data centers. Based on conversations at that dinner, “we estimate it is one of the top 3 providers of cloud services in the U.S.,” she said. “We continue to believe Strategic Services will continue to show double digit percentage growth this year.” AT&T is optimistic about its growth prospects in enterprise, and seemed “particularly enthused as to the long runway it sees in the mobile app services arena,” Fritzsche said. AT&T is also “pushing a further diversification of the [smartphone] base,” even though subsidies are still a “point of pressure,” she said.