Satellite coverage is uniformly high quality, “offering a true alternate communications platform -- which is so important for emergency response and recovery activities when disaster strikes and terrestrial wireline and wireless broadband networks are most vulnerable,” said Tony Bardo, Hughes Network Systems vice president. Weeks after Superstorm Sandy pummeled regions of the U.S., “many thousands of people and businesses were still without power,” he said in prepared remarks for FCC field hearings on the so-called superstorm Sandy to take place this week in New York and New Jersey (http://xrl.us/boeshf). “Conversely, satellite networks withstood the disaster well, with limited or no reported disruption to service.” Hughes’ role in keeping responders, businesses and people connected during the storm and its aftermath include providing disaster recovery centers with its broadband terminals and high-speed satellite broadband service, he said. Bardo said Hughes provided key communications capabilities to Habitat for Humanity, “including broadband services, that the organization needed to coordinate rebuilding efforts.”
Since media, technology, telecom and online companies agreed to make the Internet safer for children, tools to report online abuse or bullying are becoming universal, and parental controls are now available across more products, the European Commission said Monday before Tuesday’s Safer Internet Day observance. Content ratings for apps, online videos and films are now widely used and the industry coalition has defined and shared best practices for age-appropriate privacy settings, it said. Moreover, industry is open about what it does to filter out child sexual abuse material before it’s reported and to take down offensive content, it said. Safer Internet Day 2013 is about online rights and responsibilities, and aims to encourage users to “connect with respect,” it said. This year, the EC plans to advance the coalition’s work by: (1) Setting up a corporate responsibility platform to monitor coalition results and merge it with other self-regulatory streams. (2) Supporting the development of browser buttons for reports and links to help lines. (3) Backing industry research and innovation on interoperability of content classification systems. (4) Promoting development of age recognition services. (5) Investing in research into tools and technologies to detect child abuse content. Coalition members include Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
NARUC’s new telecom task force on federalism met in private for much of Saturday, as Telecom Subcommittee Chair Gene Hand told his colleagues that morning. That task force, comprising several state commissioners and created at the November NARUC meeting (CD Nov 14 p5), has occupied much of the National Regulatory Research Institute’s time, said Sherry Lichtenberg, who heads telecom research for the NARUC affiliate. “Commissioner [Phil] Jones, [NARUC] President Jones, put together the federalism task force to take a look at our existing 2005 telecommunications and federalism paper and see what needed to be updated and what NARUC should look like in terms of the changing of the network, the world going forward and how we as states can best work with all the organizations we work with,” she told her subcommittee colleagues. The task force can’t yet disclose much and wants “a process where everyone can speak their mind” and listen for now, she said. “The goals of the task force are a white paper, talking points as commissioners deal with various organizations and a resolution” integrating the paper and talking points into NARUC’s policy, she said, saying Jones intended the task force as a yearlong project and with greater plans to show these efforts at NARUC’s July meeting. Members of the FCC’s Technology Transition Task Force met with the NARUC task force Saturday, said Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey Sunday.
The FCC International Bureau granted special temporary authority to Intelsat, SES Americom and EchoStar. EchoStar was granted a 180-day STA to continue operating EchoStar 15 at 61.65 degrees west on channels 1-22 and 25-32 using the 17.3-17.8 GHz and 12.2-12.7 GHz bands, the bureau’s Satellite Division said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/boer8z). The satellite company was granted an STA to do telemetry, tracking and command operations to maintain EchoStar 3 “as an in-orbit spare at the 61.8 degrees west orbital location,” it said. The bureau granted Intelsat a series of 30-day STA licenses, including an STA to provide fixed satellite service with Intelsat 701 at the 157 degrees east location, it said. SES was granted a 60-day STA to repoint the spot beams of the AMC-16 satellite at 85 degrees west in the 18.6-18.8 GHz, 19.7-20.2 GHz, 28.4-28.6 GHz and 29.5-30 GHz bans, the bureau said.
A European Commission digital content initiative launched Monday could result in solutions to the most vexing copyright issues, Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier said. “Licenses for Europe” is a “structured dialogue” among all stakeholders on four issues: (1) Cross-border portability of services that offer online access to content. (2) Internet availability of European films. (3) Content which reuses other online content. (4) Tapping into the potential of new text- and data-mining activities. Licenses for Europe won’t be just a talking shop but a place where industry and consumers find fast, specific solutions, Barnier said. Contractual arrangements generally work faster than laws, but legislation can, where appropriate, answer certain problems, he said. Digital technology used to be viewed as a threat to content rather than an opportunity, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. That “wrong approach” led to “a lot of highly polarised debates,” but didn’t create any winners, her written comments said. The right approach is to adapt practices to fit new digital opportunities, she said. Music streaming services are increasingly popular and widespread, she said. There’s a “Spotify effect” in which music piracy is no longer an issue in Sweden because there’s a good legal alternative. And in France, digital is now the third largest revenue source for collecting society SACEM, she said. Technology and society are moving forward faster than the law and content licensing practices, she said. Content is needed for the digital economy, and the dialogue is intended to show that “technology and copyright can go together.” Kroes urged stakeholders to keep open minds and not to assume that new licensing mechanisms will resolve every issue. The solution could come from technology and data, along the lines of the global repertoire database, or something not even on the table yet, she said. Europe’s cultural and creative sectors account for up to 4.5 percent of EU GDP and employ more than eight million people, said Education and Culture Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. Licenses for Europe is about “searching for pragmatic, ‘bottom-up’ and short-terms solutions” to urgent questions such as the rights and obligations of users, re-users and creators of digital content, she said. French citizens’ advocacy group La Quadrature du Net, however, accused the EC of an “outrageous attempt to avoid copyright reform.” Licenses for Europe won’t amount to broad reform of sharing and remixing rules, but will be a “parody of a debate,” it said. Three-quarters of the participants in the working group on “users” are industry-affiliated, and the themes and objectives are defined to ensure that industry has its way, it said. La Quadrature is registered to take part in the working group on user-generated content, but everything “in its name, theme and mission is biased to fit the views of the entertainment industry,” the group said. The EC has shown its contempt for citizens by framing the talks to benefit industry and not to reform copyright, it said.
The FTC’s settlement with a mobile app developer over privacy violations -- including against children -- should prompt Hill action, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Friday. The co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus said the app maker, Path, “has not only violated its own privacy policies, but also took advantage of children. How many more times does this need to happen before my colleagues in Congress are convinced to act?” Steps taken by companies thus far to adhere to their own privacy policies are “simply not enough,” he said: Without the FTC’s Section 5 authority to punish unfair and deceptive practices, “there would be absolutely no accountability.” A spokesman for Barton told us the lawmaker wants both Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) reform and “to go further by protecting our teens and addressing the usage of newer technologies,” which is why Barton and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and fellow caucus co-chair, plan to “soon” reintroduce their Do Not Track Kids Act. The FTC said social network Path violated COPPA by collecting personal information from users it knew to be under 13. The company also asked users if they wanted the app to scan their mobile device’s contact list to find other Path users but did so regardless of the user’s response, the FTC said Friday (http://xrl.us/bod672). Under the proposed settlement, Path faces a civil penalty of $800,000 for the COPPA violations and “is prohibited from making any misrepresentations about the extent to which it maintains the privacy and confidentiality of consumers’ personal information,” according to the agency’s news release. Path said the child users were able to create accounts because the company’s system failed to automatically reject users that indicated they were under 13. “Before the FTC reached out to us, we discovered and fixed this sign-up process qualification, and took further action by suspending any under age accounts that had mistakenly been allowed to be created,” the company said in a statement (http://xrl.us/bod68k).
Massillon Cable TV should have paid Fox Sports Net Ohio the amount the cable operator owed the network under an FCC Media Bureau order that reversed an arbitrator’s decision, a new order from the bureau released Thursday said (http://xrl.us/bod63). The dispute dealt with the terms and conditions for carriage of the Fox regional sports network. In an order granting Massillon’s request to withdraw and dismiss its application for review of the earlier bureau decision, the bureau admonished the cable operator for failing to comply with the initial order on review. Massillon never sought a stay of the earlier order and the FCC didn’t stay the order on its own motion, the bureau said. Massillon withdrew the application for review after reaching a settlement with the sports network, the order said.
Clearwire said in a proxy statement it still prefers Sprint Nextel’s buyout offer, but has not yet ruled out a competing bid from Dish Networks. A special committee that is examining both offers on stockholders’ behalf will “continue to evaluate the DISH Proposal and engage in discussions with each of DISH and Sprint, as appropriate,” but “has not made any determination to change its recommendation of the current Sprint transaction,” it said Friday. Sprint offered Clearwire shareholders $2.2 billion in December for the nearly 50 percent of shares the carrier did not already own, plus (CD Dec 18 p1). Dish made a competing bid in January for Clearwire’s spectrum and up to all of Clearwire’s non Sprint-owned shares for up to $5.15 billion (CD Jan 10 p1). Dish’s proposal “is only a preliminary indication of interest and is subject to numerous, material uncertainties and conditions, including the negotiation of multiple contractual arrangements being requested by Dish (some of which, as currently proposed, may not be permitted under the terms of Clearwire’s current legal and contractual obligations) as well as regulatory approvals,” Clearwire said (http://xrl.us/bod6da). Clearwire’s proxy “makes very clear that Sprint’s definitive agreement to acquire Clearwire provides both the best value for shareholders and stability amid an uncertain future,” Sprint said in a separate statement. “We continue to believe that the DISH proposal is illusory and conditioned on many things, including the receipt of governance rights, a spectrum sale and a commercial agreement which are not actionable under our merger agreement and other agreements between Clearwire and Sprint” (http://xrl.us/bod6de).
Friday marked some consolidation among social TV startup companies. Dijit Media, which makes an iOS app called NextGuide, said it agreed to acquire GoMiso. GoMiso makes the Miso, SideShows and Quips, which allow TV viewers with tablet PCs to interact with TV shows in various ways. “Miso was one of the first to define the burgeoning social TV space and became a major contributor to where the industry is today,” Dijit CEO Jeremy Toeman said. “We're excited to be able to continue their vision.” GoMiso founder Somrat Niyogi will join Dijit as an adviser.
Moody’s said the outlook for TV broadcasters is stable. It expects core ad sales to increase 1 percent to 3 percent this year, though total ad revenue will drop because of the lack of political ad spending. “Given increasing competition from cable, as well as online media … Moody’s does not expect television advertising revenues to return to the peak levels seen in 2006 for another two years,” it said. Higher retransmission consent fees will help station groups’ revenue, Moody’s said. It predicted another busy year of mergers and acquisitions as stations that are flush with political ad revenue have the cash to spend on deals.