AT&T is concerned about the availability of some data requested in the proposed “Intercarrier Compensation Reform Compliance and Monitoring Form,” it told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Wednesday and Friday (http://xrl.us/boc33y). The telco wants the bureau to clarify the line items it seeks in the form, it said.
The FCC should reverse its decision allowing payphone service providers (PSPs) to file retroactive claims for payphone compensation for certain prepaid calls, the American PrePaid Phonecall Association told Wireline Bureau officials and aides to commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Ajit Pai and Mignon Clyburn last week (http://xrl.us/boc34e). The ruling lets PSPs file claims for prepaid calls where the completing carrier received no payphone-specific coding digits, and thus had no notice the call was payphone originated, APPPA said in its ex parte filing describing the meetings. If the decision stands, prepaid calling card and PSP customers will be harmed, because the businesses “will be forced to prospectively increase the payphone surcharges on their products in order to recover for this retroactive liability,” the association said. PSPs and completing carriers must work together to improve the reliability of the transmission of payphone-specific coding digits, it said. “The burden of retroactive charges skews the respective sides’ bargaining positions too far in the PSPs’ favor” and makes the parties unlikely to work together toward a solution, it said. Without a solution, “prepaid providers are even more likely to block payphone-originated calls, which will remove a significant revenue source for PSPs,” APPPA said. “This will undermine the widespread deployment of payphone services to the benefit of the general public, in contravention of the Commission’s statutory obligation."
Instead of a notice of proposed rulemaking currently circulating that seeks mandatory data collection to quantify the problem (CD Jan 25 p1), “action should come in the form of an order mandating data collection now,” representatives from NECA, OPASTCO, NTCA and the Western Telecommunications Alliance told an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai Friday (http://xrl.us/boc36k). Despite falling intercarrier compensation rates, call completion problems in rural areas are likely to persist without further FCC action, they said. “It is unclear why the Commission needs to ask questions regarding which questions to ask; with its authority well-settled and its investigations ongoing for well over a year, there is no reason why the Commission could not issue mandatory data collections right now.” The commission should require originating carriers retain call completion performance data for at least one year, provided separately for consumers in rural and non-rural areas, they said. The commission should establish “minimum performance threshold ratios” and “rural versus non-rural performance deltas as a trigger to require additional reporting requirements and/or originating carrier investigation,” the rural associations said. The groups also supported the proposed rule preventing phantom ringback signals, and supported providing a “streamlined online form” for consumers to quickly report call completion problems.
Homes using Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA)-standard home networking products will exceed 25 million in 2014, with a similar number using HomePlug at that point, ABI Research said Monday. The first significant shipments of products using the newest version of both standards -- MoCA 2.0 and HomePlug AV2 -- are set to deploy this year, offering higher speeds and more robustness under different line conditions. The pathway to stronger consumer mindshare of such products will come via hybrid networking solutions, consumer education and a large focus on the retail market, ABI said. “Entropic is working to bring MoCA a stronger retail presence with solutions like its multi-band MoCA adapter, simplifying the shopping experience,” said ABI Research senior analyst Michael Inouye in a news release. “Integrated STB [set-top box] solutions will also help expand the footprints of these technologies with companies like Broadcom, Entropic, STMicro, and MStar leading the way.” A wider range of products will be necessary to simplifying home networking, said Sam Rosen, ABI Research’s TV and video practice director, in a news release. “While cost and adoption remain barriers, technology is improving both in terms of HomePlug’s integration with power supplies and multi-band MoCA solutions. Without stronger consumer demand there is little incentive for CE manufacturers to integrate wired networking rather than rely on external adapters” (http://xrl.us/boc35q).
The launch of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry 10 (BB10) mobile operating system this Wednesday “will provide a temporary boost in performance but no salvation” for RIM, said Ovum analyst Jan Dawson. RIM “continues to face the twin demons of consumer-driven buying power and a chronic inability to appeal to mature market consumers,” he said Monday. “Nothing” seen to date with BB10 indicates that the new OS will “conquer the second of these demons, and the first is utterly out of RIM’s control,” he said. RIM has “no debt, 80 million subscribers and profitability in the black in at least some recent quarters,” so it “can continue in this vein for years,” but RIM’s “glory days are past, and it is only a matter of time before it reaches a natural end,” he said. There have been “two major factors” working against RIM the last two years, he said: (1) Companies no longer account for the bulk of smartphones sold today; and (2) Individuals overwhelmingly choose devices other than a BlackBerry “when they make buying decisions.” Exact data weren’t made available, but Ovum’s analysis “suggests that RIM has always sold about half its devices to new customers and half to existing customers upgrading to a better phone,” he said. In most of the past two years, the percentage bought by upgrading customers has “significantly outweighed the portion bought by converts, and this makes it all the more important for RIM to retain existing subscribers,” he said. Most of the installed base in mature markets “delayed upgrading while BlackBerry 10 is pending, something that has unfortunately dragged on for far too long, thus lengthening the upgrade cycle and depressing results in the interim,” he said. “If BB10 delivers, it should produce a nice” boost for RIM’s results in the first two quarters of 2013, “at least as this pent up demand finally meets supply,” he said. “At its peak,” RIM shipped 12-15 million devices a quarter, but “there is no way it can hit this number on a sustainable basis once the BB10 launch filters through,” he said. BB10 “should have significant appeal to existing users,” but he doesn’t expect it to “win significant numbers of converts from other platforms,” he said. RIM didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the analyst’s remarks. The company said Monday that its new BlackBerry World storefront, formally BlackBerry App World, for BB10 will provide “one of the most robust music and video catalogs in mobile today.” BlackBerry World will include an extensive catalog of songs, movies and TV shows, with “most movies coming to the store the same day they are released on DVD, and next day availability of many current TV series,” RIM said. “The competitive offering will feature content from all major studios, music labels and top local broadcast networks,” and consumers will be able to preview tracks and access the content using multiple payment options, it said. The video download and rental section in BlackBerry World will initially be available in the U.S., U.K. and Canada only, it said. Varying by region and distributor, customers will have access to movies from companies including 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Starz Digital Media, Disney, Universal Pictures in the U.K. and Warner, RIM said. TV shows will be available from companies including ABC, BBC Worldwide, CBS, National Geographic, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Starz, Fox, Univision and Warner, also varying by region, RIM said. BlackBerry World’s digital rights management-free music download section will feature music from labels including Matador Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, RIM said. The music section will initially be available in 18 countries: Canada, the U.S., U.K., Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Australia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore, it said.
Music lovers aren’t the only ones affected by the miserable state of digital music in Europe, said European Commission Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier over the weekend at the midem conference in Cannes, France. Investors in new talent often find the work is immediately available on illegal download sites, and entrepreneurs who want to offer innovative streaming-based services, social media or cloud services come up against compartmentalized national markets, he said. That’s despite the fact that the potential of the online music sector is “immense,” with 30 percent of worldwide record label sales already taking place on the Internet and revenues up by 8 percent in 2011 alone, he said. “It is incomprehensible that Europeans are finding on the Internet obstacles they have been removing in the physical world for over 50 years.” He said copyright must no longer be part of the roadblock, he said. The European Commission will lead a “structured dialogue” among all stakeholders beginning by the end of the year that will try to address two issues: (1) How can digital content be made portable across borders? (2) How can legal certainty be established regarding user-generated content? If no answers are forthcoming, the EC is prepared to regulate, he said. Royalty collecting societies play a key role in Europe but the 30 organizations that collect copyright on musical works are subject to 30 different sets of rules, he said. The directive on collective rights management will ensure the societies are properly governed and make it easier to grant multi-territory licenses, he said. Besides licenses, creators’ works must be better protected online, and the EC is discussing the best way to respect copyright. The discussion should be broadened, moreover, to issues such as whether it’s acceptable to allow advertising revenue to be collected by service providers who facilitate illegal file-sharing, he said. Solutions must stress the fight against infringement on a commercial scale in accordance with the principle of “follow the money,” he said. Barnier called on stakeholders to discuss the “legitimization” of copyright in the digital age. “We cannot give free rein to the illusion that everything is free” or allow the impression that in an age where full duplication is instant and infinite, unlimited sharing of protected content is covered by a kind of “digital natural law,” particularly when the objective is profit, he said. On Monday at midem, the Worldwide Independent Network of indie music companies unveiled a manifesto. Among other things, the manifesto: (1) Calls for equal market access and parity of terms with Universal, Warner and Sony in exchange for growing the value of music and the music industry. (2) Supports artists’ freedom to decide how their works can be used commercially and encourages them to speak out against unauthorized uses. (3) Promotes transparency of commercial terms in the digital music market. (4) Opposes further consolidation in the recorded music, publishing and radio sectors. (5) Backs the establishment of a worldwide, track-level, sound recording rights database to ensure accurate distribution of royalties.
The United Church of Christ reiterated it’s concerned media ownership rules could be relaxed before the FCC completes its studies on the information needs of communities, UCC said in an ex parte filing in docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/boc3rj). UCC said it’s also concerned that the current proposals aimed at overcoming disadvantage aren’t ready to be adopted with speed. The FCC hasn’t fully developed a record “to the effectiveness of a small business preference and thus it did not seem an effective means to promote ownership diversity,” it said a lawyer for the group told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. The American Cable Association asked the commission to “recognize the practice of separately owned, same market” TV stations coordinating their retransmission consent negotiations creates an “attributable interest under existing broadcast ownership rules,” ACA reported a lawyer told Rosenworcel’s aide (http://xrl.us/boc3t4).
The next-gen High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard just adopted by the Motion Picture Experts Group will cut the bit rate needed to deliver high-quality video in half compared with the H.264 standard, the group said. The HEVC codec (H.265 or ISO/IEC 23008-2) was developed jointly with the Video Coding Experts Group of ITU-T Study Group 16, it said. HEVC includes three profiles. The “main profile” relates to mass-market consumer video products that require only eight bits of precision for processing, while the “main 10 profile” will support up to 10 bits of processing precision for applications needing higher quality, it said. The “main still picture profile” allows HEVC’s underlying technology to be used for still-image applications as well, MPEG said. HEVC advances the state of the art for still-picture coding, because video products can use it for still-picture photography and other purposes, it said. The current standard (H.264) “underpinned rapid progression and expansion of the video ecosystem, with many adopting it to replace their own proprietary compression codecs,” said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré. The new standard will be as effective as its predecessor in enabling the next wave of innovation, he said. MPEG has already started work on further enhancements to HEVC, it said after its Jan. 21-25 meeting in Geneva. Application range extensions will allow higher-resolution color for 3D and higher precision for video-processing applications. Extensions for 3D and multiview video coding will enable applications such as stereoscopic 3D TV. Extensions for scalable video coding will enable flexible extraction of subsets of the coded video content for direct use as lower bit-rate encodings of the same content. The first of the range extensions planned for HEVC will support HEVC video coding using alternative color formats such as the 4:4:4 “full color” format needed for high quality encoding of content that may include a mix of text, graphics and video, and the 4:2:2 horizontally sub-sampled color format used in many professional studio video applications, MPEG said. The group has also completed a new addition to the Advanced Video Coding standard for encoding multiview with depth maps, it said. Meanwhile, the Digital Media Project (DMP) announced the public availability of Open Connected TV software to enable TV services with two-way interoperable and multichannel content access and delivery. The OCTV software is broadly related to HEVC because TV, whether open and connected or not, still needs video, MPEG Chairman and DMP President Leonardo Chiariglione told us. That video could be HEVC as well as other standards, he said.
Intelsat requested 180 more days to consummate the transfer of control the FCC previously approved for all of the earth station, satellite and wireless licenses and authorizations held by Intelsat. Grant of the extension will serve the public interest “by permitting Intelsat an opportunity to complete the approved transfer of control in a time frame consistent with current business and market considerations,” it said in a letter in docket 11-205 (http://xrl.us/bocb5z).
LightSquared further urged the FCC that its proposed use of 1675-1680 MHz spectrum is feasible. The wholesale satellite capacity is still planned to be deployed in a terrestrial 4G network, it said in an ex parte filing in docket 11-109 (http://xrl.us/bocb4y). The filing recounted a meeting between LightSquared executives and staff from the International Bureau.