Consumers will redeem 10 billion coupons via smartphones and tablets this year -- a more than 50 percent increase over 2012, Juniper Research said Wednesday in a report. Consumers redeem 10 percent of mobile-issued coupons, a far higher rate than the less than 1 percent redemption rate for print and PC-issued ones, Juniper said. Retailers are increasingly using mobile as a delivery channel for coupons in order to drive sales, as well as enhance consumer engagement and retention, Juniper said. “While we've heard that online retail is killing the High Street [the U.K.’s term for Main Street] ... mobile offers a means of engaging with the consumer at every point in the retail lifecycle, from product discovery to product purchase,” said Windsor Holden, the report’s author, in a news release. Mobile-issued coupons should include a time-based element, Juniper said, noting that several mobile-issued offers have gone “viral,” rendering retailers unable to meet consumer demand (http://xrl.us/bodowv).
Guidance on net neutrality is one of 10 steps the European Commission plans to take this year to ensure that broadband is at the core of the digital agenda, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes at a Center on Regulation in Europe seminar in Brussels Wednesday. New services rely on that bedrock, which is why “2013 will be the year of broadband,” she said. “I'm in a fighting mood, and Europe can’t wait.” The more consistent the rules, the fewer the obstacles to investment, and the more consistent the environment, the wider ambitions can spread, she said. Completing the telecom single market could give Europe an economic boost of 110 billion euros ($149 billion) a year, she said. Kroes will offer a package of 10 steps to make the market more integrated, coherent and efficient, she said. One is guidance on net neutrality. Kroes said she fully supports an Internet that’s open, dynamic and innovative, but “there are untransparent practices and restrictions” such as blocking or throttling VoIP on smartphones. There’s no net neutrality now but “we do need to use the rights tools for the right job,” she said. Kroes said she’s wary of any attempt to regulate the way the Internet functions, so her threshold for intervention is high. National regulators already have the power to deal with net neutrality problems but the European Commission will give them strong guidelines, she said. More transparency and easier switching of providers can boost consumer choice and power, but “I am also aware of the limits of switching, and my thinking has adapted accordingly: in my view, for choice to be real, every ISP should offer an accessible Internet service without application restrictions.” Other steps include: (1) A final recommendation on rules to stimulate investment in fixed broadband, due in July. (2) A wireless action plan for an integrated European approach to making spectrum available, assigning it and helping network rollout without excessive duplication. (3) Cutting project civil engineering costs. (4) Publishing a study on actual Internet download speeds, to help users and policymakers gauge the scale of the issue. (5) A recommendation on universal service in the digital society. The EC will also open its “urgent dialogue” Monday with stakeholders on market-based solutions to digital copyright issues, and is planning to release a discussion paper in March on connected TV, Kroes said.
Three House subcommittees plan a hearing on Feb. 5 to discuss recent efforts to expand international regulation of the Internet. The joint hearing will be held by the House Communications Subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade and the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. Witnesses have not been announced. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said the Internet has “thrived in large part because of the government’s hands-off approach, and we will continue our fight to ensure the global Internet remains free from government control,” in a joint statement this week.
An EU cybersecurity strategy to be launched Feb. 7 will require governments to set up computer emergency response teams (CERTs) and mandate breach reporting by the energy, transport, banking, and health sectors, Internet service enablers and public administrations, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes Wednesday at a global cybersecurity conference in Brussels. Despite the high costs of insecure network and information systems, most information and communication technology users aren’t aware enough of the risks they face online and many aren’t prepared to deal with them, she said. Most cyberincidents could be prevented through simple or cheap measures, she said. And because the risks aren’t contained within borders, fragmentation and duplication of preventative measures must stop, she said. The European Commission will propose a comprehensive approach and legislation to strengthen cyber-resilience and network and information security, she said. The strategy will be a joint effort by Kroes, Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, a briefing document said. The strategy aims to attain a high level of cyber-resilience by boosting capabilities, preparedness, cooperation, information-exchange and awareness at the national and EU level in network and information security, and to drastically cut cybercrime by strengthening the expertise of agencies dealing with such cases. The strategy also calls for development of an EU cyberdefense policy, and the creation of a European industry and market for secure ICT. It will also expand EU international cyberspace policy to promote the respect of core EU values, and help non-EU third countries toughen their information infrastructure, the document said. The strategy will also clarify the roles and duties of the various EU players in the cybersecurity field. The EC is also proposing, in a draft directive, to require all governments to set up a well-functioning national CERT, appoint a national network and information security (NIS) authority, and adopt a national NIS contingency and cooperation plan and strategy. The EC also wants to extend breach reporting requirements now applicable only to the telecom sector to banking, energy (electricity and natural gas), transport (air and maritime freight and passenger carriers and ports among them), health; key Internet services companies (social networks, search engines, cloud providers and others), and public administrations. For example, it said, an incident affecting an e-commerce platform that prevents the completion of online transactions over several hours would have to be reported, as would a maintenance incident of an information system at a power plant that stops electricity to a small city for several hours. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) would continue to offer support and technical advice to EU government and the private sector, it said. There will be other measures as well, Kroes said. They include further measures to fight botnets; improve the security and resilience of industrial control systems and smart grids; and make users more aware of the risks and how to tackle them, she said. The plan “will help Europe get its own house in order.” Kroes announced Tuesday night that the EC, European Parliament and Council of Ministers reached political agreement on renewing ENISA’s mandate. “This is a timely development” in light of the upcoming cybersecurity strategy and legislative proposals, she said.
A bipartisan group of four Senators introduced the Immigration Innovation Act Tuesday, which would raise the cap on H1-B visas from 65,000 to 150,000 immigrants per year. The legislation was lauded by members of technology industry, who said it would permit more skilled immigrants to stay and work in the U.S. CTIA said in a news release Tuesday that if enacted, the bill “will alleviate this problem and help the United States to remain the world’s leading wireless market.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce believes the bill “makes critical reforms to our legal immigration system that would, among other things, establish a market-based system to increase and decrease the allocation of H-1B visa numbers,” said Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s executive vice president-government affairs. The bill is a “solid step in ensuring that the U.S. remains the global center of innovation,” said Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. It does so by addressing both the “short-term problems of visas and green cards, and investing in the longer-term issue of STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] education and training,” he said. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said the bill offers a “common sense solution to the high skill immigration issue by allowing companies access to the skills they need, while also assisting American workers in developing the talents necessary to better meet those needs,” said the group’s President, Robert Atkinson, in a news release. Telecommunications Industry Association President Grant Seiffert said in a separate news release the group “supports efforts to increase the allotment of H-1B visas and to improve STEM education efforts in the United States.” The sponsors are Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
USTelecom supported reinvesting the $185 million in unused Connect America Fund Phase I money, in comments filed Monday with the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance and the ABC Coalition (http://xrl.us/bodeec). A proposal to allow carriers to build “second mile” fiber to neighborhoods to increase broadband speeds is “most likely to advance the goals of the CAF Phase I program,” the group of ILECs said. They estimated the plan would double the number of households for which carriers would be able to receive funding. They said they supported the FCC’s proposal to allow carriers to accept additional funds to target consumers and businesses that are in areas unserved by broadband that meets the 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream standard. This approach would more closely align the program with the commission’s broadband, the comments said. “The potential benefits of the modifications presented today by the price cap carrier community are huge,” said ITTA President Genny Morelli. “These benefits, in the form of significantly increased levels of rapid broadband deployment to rural consumers throughout the United States, will pay substantial dividends for years to come.” But the American Cable Association said the FCC should “stay the course” and not expand the Phase I CAF criteria. Phase I was designed “to reach a significant number of relatively low-cost locations with up to $300 million in federal support,” said ACA CEO Matthew Polka in a statement. “With the funding allocated last year, the program’s stated objective is in the process of being achieved. Until that is no longer the case, the FCC need not substantially alter the program.” NCTA encouraged the commission to open up the fund to “any interested provider willing to bring broadband to unserved customers” (http://xrl.us/bodeek). Rather than continuing to give Phase I money to ILECs only, “the Commission should focus on the actual goal of universal service support: providing service to consumers,” NCTA said.
AT&T’s boost to capital expenditure spending (capex) will improve the carrier’s competitive position against Verizon Wireless, but will “temporarily stress free cash flow,” Moody’s analyst Mark Stodden said in a note on the investor service’s downgrading of AT&T’s credit ratings. The higher capex spending will also “not offset the higher leverage from debt-financed share repurchase,” Moody’s said.
TV station joint sales agreements help enhance localism, diversity and competition, Bonten Media Group said in an ex parte FCC filing in docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/bodeee). While the concerns that some have raised about JSAs and shared services agreements are speculative, “the benefits are quite concrete,” a Bonten attorney said about a meeting with Bonten CEO Randall Bongarten and staff from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s office. These real-world benefits would be jeopardized “if such agreements were deemed to be attributable,” the filing said. Economies of scale in operating costs and in capital expenditures enabled Bonten “to support and to expand top-ranked local news operations and to hire more reporters and to invest in HD upgrades,” it said. In a separate ex parte filing in the same docket, Cox reiterated its interest in changing the FCC’s cross ownership rules (http://xrl.us/bodefj). Cox also supports moving from a contour-based approach to a modified designated market area-based and Arbitron Metro-based approach “for identifying newspaper-broadcast combinations that would be covered by any remaining rule,” it said Cox executives told staff from offices of all the commissioners.
Charter said it costs $40 to $50 to include a CableCARD and CableCARD interface in set-top boxes, a figure that is somewhat lower than previous FCC estimates (http://xrl.us/bodect). But that cost can spike when including such interfaces in set-top boxes that support downloadable security, Charter said. The company has asked the commission to waive a requirement that it include CableCARDs in some set-top boxes while it deploys a new downloadable security technology. “The reason for the significant differential is that the technology and price of the box for which Charter seeks a waiver have been built from a non-US set-top with integrated security to which downloadable security has been added. Redesigning the device to include a CableCARD is one cost element, it said. It also “increases costs even further by removing the development base of a set-top box in use outside the US and the pricing discipline that comes from the availability of a competing world market,” it said. “To be able to afford the costs of this transition and upgrade ... Charter needs to take advantage of the more efficient and less costly downloadable security devices that do not include an unnecessary CableCARD and card interface."
Trade in developing Asia drove global exports of information and communication technology (ICT) products up to $1.8 trillion in 2011, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said Tuesday. ICT exports in Asia stood at $1.2 trillion -- 64 percent of the global total in 2011; China was a major contributor to the Asia figure, with exports worth $508 billion that year, UNCTAD said. Africa and Latin America exports declined in 2011; those regions had maintained a fairly steady share of the ICT export market since 2000, UNCTAD said (http://xrl.us/bodeck).