The European Commission will grant 50 million euros ($65 million) for “5G” research, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. “I want 5G to be pioneered by European industry, based on European research and creating jobs in Europe -- and we will put our money where our mouth is,” she said. It’s part of the plan to remove roadblocks mobile operators face in Europe’s fragmented market, she said. One challenge is spectrum, a resource increasingly in short supply and ever more expensive. Some EU governments see auctions as mere revenue-raisers, ignoring the wider public interest for consumer prices and network investment, she said. And many countries have different assignment systems, forcing operators to deal with a kaleidoscope of varying rules and practices. Other challenges to mobile rollout include widely different planning and permit rules, uncertainty about infrastructure-sharing, and uncoordinated research, she said. The recent political agreement on the next EU budget cut more than eight billion euros from the “Connecting Europe Facility,” in practice not leaving enough money to invest in broadband, she said. But Kroes said she’s determined to deliver broadband for all, and for that the market must be improved. Among other things, there will be a wireless action plan to find more spectrum and make it easier for providers to invest in new networks, she said. She will take a holistic look at new wireless services to boost transport, health and cities, she said. The EC will also go after countries that haven’t awarded spectrum already harmonised across Europe or are violating other EU laws, she said.
Verizon is pursuing initiatives to migrate customers from copper to fiber where they are “experiencing repeated problems” with their copper-based services, the telco told FCC officials Friday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/ZEEsva). “These customers have access to the same traditional voice service that they had received over copper, but now provided over the more reliable fiber network,” Verizon said. Where fiber is not available, a “wireless solution” could be an option to provide voice service, it said.
VOD vendor Concurrent said a “Top 5” North American multiple service operator has field-deployed Concurrent’s MediaHawk VX unified content delivery network (CDN). Concurrent did not identify the service provider that is using the CDN, but noted that it allowed the provider to “more than double the number of titles available for on-demand playback.” The MediaHawk VX CDN combines CDN and VOD technology to provide a cost-effective way to support a multiscreen content library, Concurrent said Monday. MediaHawkVX provides support for both traditional and online video services, the vendor said. “As service providers consider how to invest their money, they have to decide whether to expand core TV services or focus on deploying next generation multi-screen services,” said Jim Marino, Concurrent senior vice president-global sales. “Core TV services like VOD are generating revenue today, while online services promise to generate new revenue in the future” (http://bit.ly/13bro1p).
Cox Media Group agreed to sell five TV stations in four markets to Sinclair and Deerfield Media. Sinclair will buy KFOX-TV El Paso, Texas, WJAC-TV Johnstown, Pa., KRXI-TV, Reno, Nevada, and WTOV-TV Steubenville, Ohio. Deerfield will buy KAME-TV Reno but Sinclair will operate it. Citi will be Cox’s financial adviser and Dow Lohnes its transaction and regulatory counsel, Cox said. Sinclair said it agreed to pay $99 million less a $4.3 million working capital adjustment. Sinclair said it set up a new subsidiary, Chesapeake TV through which it will buy small-market TV stations. Sinclair said it expects the transactions to close before July.
The recently launched original series House of Cards has been a “great success” for Netflix and it’s “performing as we had hoped,” CEO Reed Hastings told a Morgan Stanley investor conference in San Francisco Monday. While the show will be a “big part of our press,” he said “that doesn’t mean it’s a big part of the total viewing” of Netflix content or “why a subscriber joins” the service now. The “real value” from the show, which premiered Feb. 1 and stars Kevin Spacey, will come in season two and future seasons after that if the show continues, he said.
Several companies oppose Georgia House Bill 282, they said in a letter to a Georgia legislator (http://bit.ly/YvVads). The bill would place restrictions on whether a municipality can build its own telecom network, limiting that option to occasions where a region receives insufficient service (CD Feb 21 p11). Signatories include Alcatel-Lucent, the American Public Power Association, Atlantic Engineering, the Fiber to the Home Council, Gigabit Squared, Google, NATOA, OnTrac, the Southeast Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, the Telecommunications Industry Association and the Utilities Telecom Council. “We, the private-sector companies and trade associations listed below, urge you to oppose HB 282 because this bill will harm both the public and private sectors, stifle economic growth, prevent the creation or retention of thousands of jobs, hamper work force development, and diminish the quality of life in Georgia,” said the letter, dated Feb. 18 and addressed to Rep. Don Parsons, the Republican chairman of the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee overseeing the bill. The letter was posted on the website of attorney Jim Baller, an advocate for municipal networks. “HB 282 is a step in the wrong direction,” the letter said. “It is bad for Georgia’s communities, bad for Georgia’s private sector, particularly high-technology companies, and bad for America’s global competitiveness.” The bill will receive an initial hearing Tuesday at 3 p.m., a spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association -- an opponent of the bill -- told us.
House Republicans continue to be concerned that the federal agencies responsible for managing broadband stimulus funds aren’t using taxpayer dollars efficiently, according to a memo made public Monday. The memo circulated ahead of the House Communications Subcommittee’s broadband oversight hearing with NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling and Rural Utilities Service Acting Administrator John Padalino scheduled for Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn. The committee memo said Republicans were particularly concerned about allegations that funds had been used to deploy broadband access in areas that are already served. The memo said it would have been better to direct the $7 billion granted by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act towards areas where there was no economic business case for the private sector to deploy services. “That, at least, would have focused government intervention on market failures and been more targeted to the ostensible goal of expanding broadband access to people for whom service was not available,” the memo said. The memo added that GOP members are also concerned that NTIA and RUS have failed to reduce financial waste at a time when the federal government is considering drastic cuts to all federal agencies.
The FTC issued a final order approving its settlement with Compete, which was alleged to collect personal information through its Web-tracking software without disclosing the extent of the collection and to misrepresent that it would protect personal data, the agency said Monday (http://1.usa.gov/X6oozI). It requires Compete to get consumers’ “express consent” before collecting data from its software that’s downloaded on consumers’ computers, delete or anonymize already-collected consumer data and “provide directions” for uninstalling software, the FTC said. Compete can’t misrepresent its privacy and data security practices under the settlement, and it must implement a comprehensive information security program with independent third-party audits every two years for 20 years, the agency said in the order (http://1.usa.gov/15eNw9s). FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who is stepping down, and Commissioner Joshua Wright didn’t participate in the 3-0-2 vote. The settlement received three comments. The FTC responded to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (http://1.usa.gov/XxiGXf) that the agency doesn’t think it’s “appropriate” to revise its “Policy Statement on Deception” to refer “specifically to particular areas of business activity,” because that statement is a “broad document” intended for “all types and aspects of business activities.” EPIC had asked the commission to amend the policy statement to “explicitly categorize omissions affecting consumer privacy as deceptive under Section 5” of the FTC Act. Creating a best-practices guide for anonymization techniques, as EPIC also suggested, would go against the FTC’s practice of not giving “specific technical guidance in areas like this, which are constantly changing,” the agency said. It can’t impose on Compete “additional obligations that are not reasonably related to such conduct or preventing its recurrence,” the FTC said, responding to EPIC’s request that Compete be required to follow all “fair information practices” in the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. Steerads, a provider of “real time price optimization” for display ads, said the order should require Compete’s licensees to destroy their collected data. The order requires Compete to notify third parties of the settlement, and it prohibits Compete from collecting data either directly or through licensees unless they get consumer notice and consent before such collection, which is adequate, the FTC said in response (http://1.usa.gov/126v5pF). The commission noted it entered a separate agreement with Compete licensee Upromise earlier this year, which includes a data-deletion requirement. Steve Fleckenstein of Virginia complained as an individual that the agency had simply accepted another “promise regarding user privacy”; the FTC reiterated what it saw as the sufficiency of the order’s provisions, including its 20-year duration and $16,000 penalty per violation, in a response (http://1.usa.gov/13KH4ED).
Communications Workers of America members testified in favor of New Mexico House Bill 277, it said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/WmXaRw). The proposed law would prevent employers from mandating that workers attend meetings for the purpose of pushing the employer’s religious or political opinions, it said. T-Mobile workers testified, it said. “We were advised that we shouldn’t worry about union representatives or supporters being able to interact with us, as T-Mobile personnel would be patrolling the grounds to prevent any interaction,” T-Mobile worker Lynda Parrish said, according to the post. “I felt so intimidated after the meeting and since then it has created a consistent, underlying sense of fear in me.” CWA focused on a past incident that targeted unionizing: “The team manager called workers off the phones for about 5 minutes to read a letter that supposedly had the ‘facts’ about joining a union, from lies the union would tell to union dues.” The bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee Feb. 18. “T-Mobile USA is a great place to work,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told us in a statement when asked about the CWA testimony. “In a recent anonymous third party employee satisfaction survey, 77% of T-Mobile’s 34,000 employees said they would recommend T-Mobile as a great place to work, and 83% said they are proud to work at the company, placing T-Mobile on par with the top 25% of all companies surveyed in the United States.”
General Motors (GM) said Monday it partnered with AT&T to include embedded 4G LTE mobile broadband in most 2015 models of its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC vehicles -- what it bills as the “largest deployment in the automotive industry to date” (http://bit.ly/XVZZIS). AT&T said its technology will power OnStar safety and security services, as well as a new suite of entertainment services, including streaming audio and video (http://soc.att.com/YR6fnp). GM said it plans to expand its 4G LTE capabilities to foreign markets, and will announce partnerships with additional carriers and suppliers in the coming months. GM did not say why it chose to drop Verizon Wireless, which had provided wireless service for OnStar since its 1996 debut, but lauded AT&T for “its network performance and deployment strategy have been lauded by industry analysts and other experts.” AT&T’s 4G LTE network is set to reach 300 million potential customers in the U.S. by the end of 2014. Verizon Wireless will continue to provide wireless service to existing vehicles and any new vehicles sold prior to the rollout of GM’s 2015 models. “Introducing 4G LTE into GM vehicles is a game-changing opportunity, and we couldn’t be better positioned to help drive this movement,” said AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega in a news release. “We're working closely with GM to grow the connected car base, and provide unique and relevant services that will improve the connected experience inside automobiles for both drivers and passengers.” The 4G LTE structure will be integrated into the vehicle’s electrical system and will include an external antenna to improve connectivity. Customers will not need a smartphone to use the vehicle’s connected services, GM said.