Comcast agreed to take an equity stake in Arris because the cable operator was interested in making sure Motorola’s set-top box and network equipment business lands “in a good place,” Arris CEO Bob Stanzione told analysts Thursday during the company’s earnings call. Arris agreed to buy the Motorola Mobility business from Google late last year (CD Dec 20 p4). “You can think of it not only as an endorsement, but they were interested in the Motorola Home business winding up in a good place,” Stanzione said. “Their investment was aligned with that motive.” When the deal closes both Google and Comcast will own a little less than 8 percent of Arris’s shares. Comcast’s investment in Arris probably won’t mean the cable operator will buy more Arris or Motorola equipment than it already does, Stanzione said. “I don’t think this is going to sway their purchasing decisions,” he said. Both Arris and Motorola are suppliers to Comcast but the cable operator has a multi-supplier policy it’s expected to uphold, Stanzione said. The transaction is proceeding, Stanzione said. “We've received the debt ratings we anticipated and the financing commitments are nearly finalized,” he said. “We are now in that awkward period of awaiting DOJ approval,” he said. The company said it still expects the deal to close before July. Q4 sales increased 22 percent from a year earlier to $344 million, Arris said. The company recorded a net income of $14.8 million, up from a $59.6 million loss a year earlier that followed a one-time write-down and amortization charge.
O3b Networks and ITT Exelis became members of the Satellite Industry Association. O3b, a global satellite services provider, plans to launch a constellation of medium earth orbit Ka-band satellites, SIA said in a press release. ITT Exelis, a satellite technology provider, offers next-generation solutions “for the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance market,” it said.
The House Communications Subcommittee hearing on satellite video will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Room 2322 Rayburn, the committee said this week. Among the witnesses invited to testify are: Jane Mago, NAB executive vice president-legal and regulatory affairs and general counsel; and Stanton Dodge, executive vice president-general counsel at Dish, sources confirmed Thursday.
An executive from Bryan Broadcasting Corp. suggested to the FCC that a review of protections from AM skywave interference could allow for waivers that would give daytime AM stations relief. Ben Downs, Bryan Broadcasting vice president, met with Commissioner Ajit Pai and Media Bureau staff in separate sessions, an attorney for Bryan Broadcasting said in an ex parte filing in dockets 12-268 and 07-294 (http://xrl.us/bofftb). Downs’ suggestions pertain to Pai’s proposals to study AM radio in an effort to improve the service, it said. As part of such a review, Pai proposed focusing on regulatory barriers to be removed (CD Sept 20 p6). Downs also suggested the possibility of using TV Channels 5, 6 and 4 “to maximize the potential use of these channels for AM users,” following the repacking process in connection with the TV spectrum incentive auctions, it said. Representatives from Texas Association of Broadcasters attended the meeting for informational purposes only, the notice said.
A comprehensive FCC approach to spectrum and frequencies that aren’t licensed but are available for public use was supported by Commissioner Ajit Pai. White spaces aren’t just about the part of the band used for broadcast TV, he said during Q-and-A after a speech at a Media Institute luncheon Thursday in Washington. (See separate report in this issue.) Pai pointed to the 5 GHz band that he noted is to be the subject of a coming rulemaking notice (CD Jan 16 p1). That and other bands “will be on the commission’s radar” for possible unlicensed use, not just the TV band, Pai said. “That will allow … innovation on the edge to thrive.” He sidestepped some media-related questions, including one about whether he thinks CBS should be fined for allowing to air un-bleeped cursing by Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco after the end of Sunday’s Super Bowl game (CD Feb 5 p3). Pai said perhaps jokingly that he hadn’t seen that part of the broadcast.
The United Church of Christ further urged the FCC to delay actions that loosen media cross-ownership restrictions until it conducts studies examining their impact on ownership diversity. UCC reiterated its concerns in an ex parte filing in dockets 09-182 and 07-294 (http://xrl.us/boffqc). The filing recounted a meeting between UCC and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and staff from the bureau. UCC said that repealing or relaxing the cross-ownership rules would have a detrimental impact “on the already low levels of radio station ownership by minorities and women.” It also expressed interest in the possibility of making the waiver process for newspaper/television cross-ownership restrictions more predictable and uniform, it said: It’s essential “that any modified waiver process grant the public adequate notice to exercise the right to comment on proposed waivers.” UCC also met with David Grimaldi, chief of staff for Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. UCC put its support behind the FCC’s “long-held common sense position that ownership diversity affects viewpoint diversity,” it said in another ex parte filing in the same dockets (http://xrl.us/boffsk).
Hill Country Telephone Cooperative has a few less opponents in its struggle for USF support in Texas. Last fall, the telco asked the Texas Public Utility Commission for more than half a million dollars in state support (CD Nov 29 p10) because, due to Texas state law restricting the level at which it can raise its rates, it’s losing that large a sum from the FCC’s USF. The loss is associated with the FCC’s quantile regression analysis rate benchmark, implemented last July as part of the FCC’s November 2011 USF order. At the time and in months since, a coalition of Sprint Nextel, tw telecom of Texas and the Texas Cable Association had intervened, providing scrutiny of Hill Country’s petition. But on Jan. 31, the coalition asked to drop its intervention before the PUC (http://xrl.us/boffr8), a request the commission granted Wednesday in an order (http://xrl.us/boffsi). The coalition doesn’t want to stand between PUC staff and Hill Country as they're likely to reach an agreement, it said, despite the coalition’s disagreements with certain Texas regulations. “Section 56.025 [of the Texas Public Utility Regulatory Act] undermines the FCC’s policy determinations and constrains the Commission’s ability to make an independent determination of the extent to which the deliberative conclusions reached by the FCC should be, in effect, countermanded,” the coalition told the PUC. The Texas law allows for companies to seek replacement from the Texas USF of high-cost support money it’s lost federally. The coalition’s still not completely satisfied and said that nothing in recent months “provides the assurance that Texans should be entitled to with respect to the [Texas USF], namely, that they are not being called upon to provide a subsidy where it is not necessary” for Hill Country. But the Texas act “simply precludes the type of investigation that would make that assurance possible,” it said.
A broadband stimulus grant increased the use of broadband by 15 percent in nine Chicago neighborhoods from 2008 to 2011, a Broadband Illinois study showed (http://xrl.us/boffkb). Fellow stimulus grantee Partnership for a Connected Illinois helped support the study of how nine neighborhoods, designated as Smart Communities, responded to a $7 million grant as part of NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. But Smart Communities’ broadband adoption rates in the home didn’t differ from those in other Chicago neighborhoods, it said in the report released Thursday. Internet use included access on smartphones, in other people’s homes and at public sites, according to the study. The study attempted to limit its look specifically to the effect of the stimulus effort: “The statistical controls used here are useful for eliminating known challenges such as demographic change.” The “substantial increase in Internet use is a step toward creating the culture of digital excellence that is the goal of the Smart Communities” but “falls short of full access and participation in society online,” the researchers said. They explained that their citywide broadband surveys are an ongoing effort that will be repeated this year.
Academic institutions and employers should not have access to applicants’ online accounts, said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., Wednesday as he reintroduced HR-537, the Social Networking Online Protection Act (SNOPA) with Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. The bill would make it illegal for schools, universities and employers to ask applicants, current students and employees and anyone facing disciplinary action to turn over their login information for online accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and email services, their offices said in a joint statement (http://1.usa.gov/11pUf1Y). “The lack of clarity in the law puts individuals in a position where they either have to give up vital, private information, or risk losing their job, potential job, or enrollment in school and involvement in the school’s sports programs,” Engel said. “When there are no laws prohibiting institutions from requiring this information, it becomes a common practice.” In the statement, Schakowsky compared asking an applicant for his password to asking him for his house key. “Privacy is a basic right that all Americans share, and one that we should act to protect; this legislation sets boundaries,” she said. The bill was assigned to the House Education and Workforce Committee. Other cosponsors include Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine.
Sales at News Corp. for the three months ended Dec. 31 increased 5 percent from a year earlier to $9.43 billion, the company said. That growth was driven in part by an 18 percent boost in sales at its cable network business, it said. Sales at its TV unit were about the same as the year-earlier quarter at $1.5 billion as gains in retransmission consent and political ad revenue were offset by lower national ad spending, it said. Net income more than doubled to $2.45 billion.