Eutelsat will deploy a set of advanced systems on its Eutelsat 8 West B satellite. The systems were designed “to further raise the bar of performance, flexibility and signal security,” Eutelsat said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bnrdkk). The enhancements, developed by Thales Alenia Space, include mitigating interference effects “by increasing control over uplink frequencies to a satellite,” and expanding options for repositioning satellites “with frequency agile command receivers,” it said. The satellite is scheduled to launch in 2015 and will support the digital broadcasting market in the Middle East and North Africa, Eutelsat said.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is inviting organizations to submit products and technical expertise for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), part of the Department of Commerce’s Secure Exchange of Electronic Health Information project. NCCoE is a public-private collaboration meant to speed up adoption of integrated cybersecurity tools by developing interoperable approaches to address the needs of real-world IT systems, NIST said. The project is open to all organizations, rather than just those that must comply with the standards of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, NIST said. Organizations that want to participate in the project should contact NIST for a certification letter within 45 days of the announcement’s publication in the Federal Register, which was set for Tuesday (http://xrl.us/boas4s).
Progeny countered concerns raised by various parties on the tests it performed on whether the company’s multilateration Location and Monitoring Service (M-LMS) network would cause harmful interference to unlicensed devices in the 902-928 MHz band (CD Dec 26 p13). “In their comments on the combined test results, the opposing parties seek to avoid the substantial evidence of Progeny’s effective mitigation strategies and demonstrated co-existence with Part 15 devices by focusing on worst case and break case test results,” Progeny told the FCC in a filing (http://xrl.us/boas39). “Many of the concerns raised by the commenters relate to situations that do not, and often will not, occur in real world circumstances. Despite these characterizations, and indeed because of them, it is important to repeat that the standard of review for this proceeding is objective and based on actual Part 15 devices and conditions that exist in the 902-928 MHz band.” Progeny said the FCC should recognize that typical of any “Part 15 environment” is a “high level of existing sources of harmful interference.” Progeny had conducted tests of its system in conjunction with Itron, Landis + Gyr and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. “The joint test results from July-September 2012 clearly demonstrate that Progeny’s M-LMS system will not cause unacceptable interference to the devices tested,” Progeny said.
Thunder Bay Broadcasting’s WBKB-TV Alpena, Mich., will add an ABC affiliation on a third digital multicast channel, Disney’s ABC said. The station already carries Fox and CBS affiliations on its main and secondary channels, according the TV and Cable Factbook.
Local TV is alive and well, said Credit Suisse analyst Michael Senno in a note to investors initiating coverage of Nexstar. The company agreed to buy 17 TV stations over the past 12 months. “We are positive on the acquisition strategy given the fixed cost of local broadcasting and the increased leverage in retrans and affiliate contract negotiations,” Senno said. “Local station ownership remains fragmented and we expect further consolidation over the next few years,” he said.
Viggle said it called off an agreement to buy GetGlue, a social TV application. “During the time we started talking to GetGlue about an acquisition and since the merger agreement was signed in November, we have seen impressive growth in our business,” said Robert Sillerman, CEO of Viggle. “We are pleased with this positive momentum.”
The California Public Utilities Commission outlined pole maintenance failures of phone and cable companies as well as Southern California Edison, a final staff report said (http://xrl.us/boas2q). The PUC’s Safety and Enforcement Division released the document Monday, which covered an investigation into a powerful wind storm that hit California in late 2011 and caused several outages. “Two-hundred forty-eight wood poles and 1,064 overhead conductors were affected,” the division said, saying more than 225,000 people were simultaneously out of power during that time. Although the focus was on the electric utility, the report did identify maintenance failure of the communications infrastructure providers -- a group comprising AT&T, Champion Broadband, Charter Communications, Sunesys, Time Warner Cable, tw telecom and Verizon -- that jointly owned poles in this territory of Southern California Edison. Safety requirements fell short at “at least 211 poles and 17 guy wires” these communications companies oversaw, the report said. The staff recommendations center on South California Edison, not the communications companies, and staff will inform the PUC as it seeks compliance and potentially financial penalties if necessary.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., was “astounded” by the violence she observed in first-person shooter video games like Call of Duty, she said in a CNN interview Sunday with Candy Crowley. “We need to get in behind some of these videogames,” Blackburn said. “I watched a couple of these last night in preparation for this segment and Candy, as a mother and a grandmother, I was astounded at some of the things that I was seeing on Call to Duty (sic) and of course we know the Norway shooter would go in and use that as target practice. This is something where we think, number one, let’s keep children safe, number two, let’s protect our freedoms and let’s put these issues on the table and have a good, solid conversation about it.” Last year, Anders Behring Breivik, the shooter who killed 77 people in Norway, told a judge that he trained for the attack by playing Call of Duty. Activision, which publishes the Call of Duty games, had no comment. Last week Vice President Joe Biden met with videogame and entertainment industry representatives to discuss policy proposals regarding violence (CD Jan 10 p3). This week Biden will present his recommendations to President Barack Obama, who will then “announce a concrete package of proposals he intends to push without delay,” a White House official said.
There’s more backing for proposals to increase minority media ownership without targeting particular demographic groups, a coalition of entities seeking such deregulation told the FCC, as a telecom association sought rules against TV-station sharing agreements in a coming ownership order. This month’s reply comments on minority and women ownership data show Bonneville International, Morris Communications and Scranton Times LP support a minority ownership incubation proposal (CD Jan 8 p4), the Diversity and Competition Supporters coalition that includes the Minority Media and Telecommunications Counsel said (http://xrl.us/boaszr). The Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance, which backs the FCC’s conclusion to attribute ownership of a TV station that’s having its ads brokered to the broadcaster doing the brokering in joint services agreements, wants “other formal or informal sharing arrangements” addressed, an ITTA executive reported (http://xrl.us/boas2s) saying in phone conversations last week with aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and to Commissioner Ajit Pai. Such additional deals that involve coordinated negotiation of stations’ retransmission consent deals include shared services agreements and local marketing agreements, the association said.
Several civil rights organizations asked the FCC to reconsider its February decision to deny Lifeline support for payphones. In a letter to Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, National Black Chamber of Commerce and others warned that very low-income people could be harmed if payphones don’t get any Lifeline funding. “Just as the exploitation of the poor by prison ‘payphones’ is wrong, it would be just as wrong if the nation lost the legitimate pay telephone business upon which the lowest income Americans depend for essential communications,” they said. The commission’s decision to exclude payphones from Lifeline because they're not linked to specific individual program beneficiaries “overlooked the fact that the nature of a payphone is that it is there to serve everyone,” they said. Letting the service “die out” would be a “grave mistake, a disservice to the poor and to those finding themselves lost in an emergency,” they said. They asked the commission to open a proceeding to “explore all aspects of payphone service and how they can continue to provide service.” Without action by the commission, the groups said they expect payphones to completely disappear within a year or two.