The NFC Forum, which advances the use of near field communication, created “special interest groups” (SIGs) that will each tackle a particular sector -- consumer electronics, healthcare, payment, retail and transport, the group said late Thursday. Leaders in the SIGs will collaborate on NFC implementation, interoperability, best practices and future requirements, the forum said (http://xrl.us/bocbww). It cited analyst estimates that more than 100 million NFC-enabled phones were sold in 2012 and “close to” 300 million will be shipped this year. Each SIG will bring together top experts, member companies and NFC developers to share business and technical needs and develop programs to support them, the forum said. The group held two webcasts to discuss the initiative featuring forum Chairman Koichi Tagawa of Sony, Vice Chairman James Anderson of MasterCard and other officials (http://xrl.us/bocbxi).
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said he will retire when his current term ends in January 2015, in a news release Friday (http://xrl.us/bocbu2). The two-term senator is vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Chambliss has been an advocate for more cybersecurity information sharing between the public and private sectors and opposed an approach that would have required owners and operators of critical infrastructure systems to adhere to baseline cybersecurity standards. He co-sponsored the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information, and Technology (SECURE IT) Act (S-2151), which competed directly with the Cybersecurity Act (S-2105). Both legislative attempts failed to pass the Senate last Congress (CD Aug 15 p3) . Chambliss was critical of several media reports last year that revealed information about a classified project called “Olympic Games” which allegedly helped develop and launch cyberweapons against Iranian nuclear facilities. Last Congress Chambliss withdrew his support for the PROTECT IP Act (S-968) after thousands of websites blacked out their homepages in a coordinated protest of the bill and its House companion the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)(HR-3261) (CD Jan 20 p5).
The FCC Public Safety Bureau on Friday sought comment on a request for declaratory ruling by Sprint Nextel that the carrier will not have to make an “anti-windfall” payment to the U.S. Treasury as part of the ongoing 800 MHz rebanding (CD Jan 24 p12). Comments are due Feb. 25, replies March 11 (http://xrl.us/bocbqf). Sprint also asked the FCC to allow it to reduce below $850 million the minimum amount of the Letter of Credit that Sprint was required to obtain to secure its relocation funding obligations. “The Commission has allowed reductions in the original $2.5 billion Letter of Credit amount as Sprint has paid rebanding expenses, but previously established an $850 million ‘floor’ for the Letter of Credit balance,” the notice said. “Sprint contends that this minimum balance no longer serves the public interest because it exceeds the amount that Sprint will need to pay to complete the rebanding of 800 MHz systems that have not rebanded to date."
The FCC should reject as untimely comments filed by the Greenlining Institute (CD Jan 24 p12) on Deutsche Telekom’s proposal to buy MetroPCS to merge it with T-Mobile USA, DT, T-Mobile and MetroPCS said in joint comments at the commission. “Greenlining has filed its ‘Opening Comments’ 57 days late,” they said (http://xrl.us/bocbqh). “Petitions to deny and comments in the above-captioned proceeding were due on November 26, 2012, yet Greenlining knowingly waited until January 22, 2013 to submit its filing. Greenlining has conceded that it was aware of the pleading cycle established by the Commission, yet made a ’tactical decision to delay filing at the FCC’ and did so on its own initiative.” The public notice on the merger “makes clear that ‘a party or interested person seeking to raise a new issue after the pleading cycle has closed must show good cause why it was not possible for it to have raised it previously,'” the filing said. “If the Commission were to accept such late-filed pleadings, the Applicants -- and the agency -- would be placed in the untenable position of having to re-initiate a pleading cycle at the whim of any entity seeking to delay a transaction."
CEA on Friday lauded the introduction of the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act by Rep. Todd Young, R-Ind. Young’s HR-367 would clarify that executive branch orders have no force or effect unless a joint resolution of congressional approval is enacted into law. “By requiring that every major new rule be specifically approved by the House and Senate, the REINS Act is a first step in restoring sanity to our regulatory process,” CEA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement.
CEA and three member companies lobbied the FCC to stick to a rulemaking notice’s proposal to limit emergency programming video description rules to devices that show broadcast- and pay-TV programming and not also include Internet Protocol video. Groups representing those with hearing and vision problems had sought IP rules (http://xrl.us/bn9xna), in replies in docket 12-107 (CD Jan 9 p7), where CEA’s ex parte filing was posted Thursday. The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act didn’t “extend” the emergency information and video description provisions to IP-delivered video, executives of CEA, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony told Consumer & Governmental Affairs and Media bureau officials implementing the act. Don’t include “'video players’ installed by manufacturers as a defining characteristic of ‘apparatus'” covered by Section 203 of the act, “because the statute limits such apparatus to a subset of video players -- those designed to receive or play back ‘video programming,'” the filing said (http://xrl.us/bocbex). Deaf groups also recently lobbied some of the same bureau staff on the emergency information accessibility issue (CD Jan 25 p13).
The FCC proposed fining a Puerto Rico FM station $8,000 because its emergency alert system gear couldn’t automatically interrupt programming with EAS messages and the station isn’t staffed 24 hours a day, said an Enforcement Bureau notice of apparent liability to WVID Anasco. The NAL gave licensee Centro Colegial Cristiano Inc. 30 days to provide the agency with a sworn statement that the system is working (http://xrl.us/bocbev).
The first phase of Iowa’s statewide Next-Generation 911 system is complete, said TeleCommunication Systems. That makes Iowa “the first state in the nation to complete a statewide deployment” of a National Emergency Number Association i3-compliant NG-911 system, with all 119 911 centers in the state interconnected to the system that'll eventually allow people to send text, images and video, the company said Friday (http://xrl.us/bocax6). It’s part of a five-year contract with the Iowa Homeland Security Emergency Management Division, the company added.
The FCC Wireline Bureau denied a petition by the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association to rescind its public notice seeking comment on a list of unserved census blocks in price cap territories based on the National Broadband Map (http://xrl.us/bob64i). In an order Wednesday, the bureau said WISPA’s petition was not ripe for decision, because the public notice is not a final action. “If and when the Commission uses the list as part of a final action, WISPA may request reconsideration of that final action; however, it may not seek reconsideration of the issuance of a Public Notice seeking comment,” the bureau said. The bureau also denied WISPA’s request to extend the deadline for filing comments until after the commission has adopted final rules in the matter. WISPA argued it would be “prudent to wait,” but the association “has failed to persuade us,” the bureau wrote. “Waiting until final rules are adopted to establish a comment cycle to update the most recent map available at that time would frustrate this goal, as the Commission sought to expedite the process of generating a finalized list of unserved census blocks,” it said.
Sales at Meredith’s TV stations during the three months ended Dec. 31 increased 32 percent from a year earlier to $111 million on higher political ad sales, Meredith said. Operating profit increased 65 percent from a year earlier to $45 million, it said.