Business services and in-flight offerings are among several remaining marketplaces that satellite broadband providers plan to address now that Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat have added much higher capacity satellites to their systems, said executives from both companies, speaking Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While consumer satellite broadband will continue to be the primary focus, ViaSat is now spending a lot of time preparing to offer more enterprise services for business needs, said Dan Turak, ViaSat vice president-sales and distribution. Businesses will likely look to satellite broadband as a way to improve from dial-up or DSL service or to be a redundant service, he said. ViaSat will also begin offering some voice service soon, he said. In-flight services are also a source of potential revenue growth, said Allen McCabe, Hughes director-sales. Although the in-flight services are able to use some auto-adjusting technology to keep the satellite dish aligned with the satellite, such technology isn’t expected to be soon available to regular consumers, such as mobile homes, the executives said. That’s still “down the road” as ViaSat will focus on other priorities in the immediate future, said Turak. Much of the work for satellite broadband continues to be successfully explaining to consumers exactly what satellite broadband can provide, said McCabe. The satellite providers don’t expect to compete with the other major providers in urban areas, but can still be a very useful option for the unserved and underserved, said Turak. Some of that education includes discussions with the FCC so it’s aware of satellite broadband’s role, he said. There’s been some recent success in working with the government, most recently through grants from the Rural Utilities Service, said Turak. The industry can still be very successful without government assistance, but if the government is in the business of supporting broadband, satellite should be at the table, said Turak. Dish Network’s acquisition of AWS-4 spectrum is expected to be a piece of a comprehensive product offering by the company that will also include Hughes’ offerings, said McCabe. The option of offering bundled services will continue to be important, even though it’s not for everyone, said Turak. The purchases of WildBlue by ViaSat and Hughes by EchoStar have validated the satellite industry, said Turak.
Lockheed Martin delivered the core structure for the first in a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) next-generation geostationary weather satellites. Lockheed designed the structure of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series, which will enclose the satellite’s propulsion system and support the payloads, it said (http://xrl.us/bn9su7). The company plans to integrate GOES-R’s fuel tanks, lines, thermal controls and other systems, it said.
Maryland’s largest tech trade group wants the state to continue fostering “innovative” telecom policies in 2013, it said in its policy platform. The Tech Council of Maryland outlined many priorities Monday (http://xrl.us/bn9smp) and included the state’s support of telecom innovation and its role as a cybersecurity leader among them. “Policymakers should support the continuation of broadband development by fostering the deployment of high-speed data service to rural and underserved areas, encourage the adoption of information technology services and invest in emerging technologies,” the platform said. “Additionally, policymakers should support a modernized, competitively neutral communications tax and fee system that eliminates the disparate treatment of similar communications service providers.” Maryland has assets in place to fight cybercrime and in 2011 created the Commission on Maryland Cybersecurity Innovation and Excellence, which helps position the state as a leader, the group said. The 2013 session of the Maryland General Assembly begins Wednesday, and the Tech Council (http://xrl.us/bn9smz) plans to outline its platform at a Jan. 31 dinner in Annapolis, Md.
Analyses of FCC broadcast ownership data should be performed before the commission moves forward with adopting new ownership rules, said a group representing free community newspapers in response to agency’s recent ownership report. “However troubling the data in the Ownership Report, it cannot be treated as another footnote, exhibit or de minimis item checked off the to-do list for the current rulemaking,” the Association of Free Community Papers and the Mid-Atlantic Community Papers Association said (http://xrl.us/bn9eoy). To start, the commission could list all the broadcast or newspaper entities the commission would deem “combination eligible” under the proposed rules, they said. “A further step would be to publish Commission analysis on projected Spectrum Auction participation, license transfer and subsequent market-specific valuations,” they said. “We respectfully request that the Commission abandon any plans to issue Final Rules in the absence of aforementioned analysis and the rightful opportunity to comment on same."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., assigned incoming Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, to the Senate Commerce Committee. Schatz will fill the seat vacated by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who died last month.
USTelecom filed a Paperwork Reduction Act challenge to the FCC’s “Study Area Boundary Order” Thursday, arguing the Wireline Bureau didn’t sufficiently justify the data collection order, and “severely underestimates the burden” to price-cap ILECs (http://xrl.us/bn9epe). The Wireline Bureau in November passed an order requiring ILECs to submit certified study area boundary data in “esri shapefile” format (CD Nov 9 p17). The commission had said the exchange boundary data would help it implement universal service reforms: the high-cost loop support benchmarking rule, which limits the capital costs and operating expenses a rate-of-return carrier can recover for HCLS; and the unsubsidized competitive overlap rule, which phases out a rate-of-return carrier’s universal service support where unsubsidized competitors offer voice and broadband services in the entire study area. But those rules “only apply to rate-of-return ILECs,” USTelecom said. “Even the Bureau acknowledges as much. Exchange area boundary data of price cap ILECs are not needed to enforce rules directed to rate-of-return ILECs, and the Bureau does not claim otherwise.” Because the information collection has no “practical utility,” it cannot pass muster under the PRA, USTelecom said. The bureau’s PRA analysis also underestimates the “substantial burdens” of the proposed information collection, given that such data are not available at the level of accuracy the commission seeks, USTelecom said. It would take an ILEC far more than the agency’s estimated 26 hours and $489 to comply, the association said. “Nobody maintains data at that level of accuracy,” a USTelecom spokeswoman said. “It would be practically hard to comply with, and particularly hard for small companies."
The Library of Congress attempt to preserve Twitter’s first four years of existence has resulted in an archive of 107 billion public tweets, but one that is inaccessible, the LOC announced in a report last week (http://xrl.us/bn9eos). The LOC has reached its “first objectives” which were “to acquire and preserve the 2006-10 archive; to establish a secure, sustainable process for receiving and preserving a daily, ongoing stream of tweets through the present day; and to create a structure for organizing the entire archive by date,” according to the report. However, the archived tweets are not accessible, including to researchers and policymakers, due to “technology challenges,” the report continued. “It is clear that technology to allow for scholarship access to large data sets is lagging behind technology for creating and distributing such data,” and “executing a single search of just the fixed 2006-2010 archive on the Library’s systems could take 24 hours,” the report said.
News Corp. and Suddenlink reached a tentative carriage agreement and have agreed to a short-term extension while they work out the final details, a Suddenlink spokesman said. The deal covers Fox’s cable networks and its TV stations that operate in Suddenlink’s service area, a spokesman for News Corp.’s Fox Networks said.
Liberty Media’s transfer of de jure control of Sirius XM is secure from any regulatory challenge, analysts and attorneys said. The FCC’s order issued Thursday, which granted Liberty permission to take de jure control, notes Liberty’s intent to own more than 50 percent of Sirius within 60 days of commission consent (CD Jan 4 p9). With the FCC ruling, “it’s pretty straightforward and looks to be a done deal,” said Jeff Silva, analyst with Medley Global Advisors. “The only real unknown is when, in the next 60 days, Liberty will gain hard control of Sirius.” Liberty is likely to do so sooner rather than later, he said. The next step for Liberty Chairman John Malone is to figure out how to achieve maximum value for Sirius in a very tax-efficient way, he added. Sirius can buy back shares, other than Liberty shares, in the market, said independent analyst Tim Farrar. If Sirius buys back shares, “then that will be a way to get Liberty to the majority,” which would require less capital from Liberty, he said. “Liberty may be able to influence Sirius to follow that path with Mel Karmazin gone.” James Meyer became Sirius CEO after Mel Karmazin resigned last month (CD Dec 20 p21). Liberty completing its transfer is certain, Farrar added: “It’s just a question of whether they'll do it in a way where they have to put up more capital to get to that majority stake or whether Sirius does some buyback of its own and allows Liberty to get to a majority.” It appears the FCC approval is sufficient, a communications attorney said. “The commission signed off and said ‘you guys are good to go, just buy your shares and tell us about it after the fact,'” he said.
Rovi is putting up its Rovi Entertainment Store video streaming platform up for sale, having apparently abandoned plans for restructuring the unit. Rovi Entertainment Store, which Rovi renamed after acquiring Sonic Solutions and its RoxioNow platform in 2011, provided video streaming for Toys ‘R’ Us, Best Buy’s CinemaNow, Dixons and Dish Network’s Blockbuster On Demand, but also lost Sears as a customer. The sale of the unit will allow Rovi to focus on “core enabling technologies” including its TotalGuide interactive program guide, DivX Plus streaming and Rovi Cloud services, the company said. While Rovi Entertainment Store will “continue to grow and provide and excellent platform for on-demand media delivery,” selling the business will ensure Rovi management is “fully focused” on “building our core assets,” CEO Tom Carson said in a statement. Rovi, which hired GCA Savvian Advisors to help with the sale, last fall slashed 127 jobs and dropped development of embedded TotalGuide for CE products, moving to cut $31 million in annual operating costs. Rovi said then it also planned to restructure Rovi Entertainment Store, seeking to reduce the cost of goods sold by 25 percent through improved contracts and job cuts. Rovi Entertainment Store was moved into its own business unit last year after it struggled with a high number of customer service calls and late deployments, Rovi has said. Rovi’s Q3 “other” revenue, which includes the video streaming platform, dropped to $18.3 million from $19.7 million a year earlier.