The ZeroAccess botnet infected 2.2 million home networks worldwide during Q3, making it the most active botnet for the year thus far, said a malware report from security analysis firm Kindsight. The Alcatel-Lucent subsidiary’s Security Labs team found ZeroAccess infected one in 125 home networks during the quarter. “Cybercriminals are primarily using it to take over victim computers and conduct ad-click fraud,” Kindsight Security Labs security architect Kevin McNamee said Tuesday in a news release. “With ZeroAccess, they can mimic the human behavior of clicking online ads, resulting in millions of dollars of fraud.” The botnet may be costing advertisers $900,000 per day in ad-click fraud, Kindsight said. About 13 percent of home networks in North America were infected in Q3, with 6.5 percent of all home networks having high-level threats like bots and banking Trojans, Kindsight said (http://xrl.us/bnww7h).
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission wants to know if its proposed retail telecom deregulation will hurt the economy. A Monday letter seeks broad input on whether a proposed deregulatory rulemaking “would adversely affect, in any material way, the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, jobs or the competitiveness of this state,” the PSC said (http://xrl.us/bnww27). Comments are due Nov. 12 by noon. “At this point, the Commission believes the rule will not result in any adverse economic impact, but rather have a positive effect in reducing telecommunications providers’ compliance monitoring costs,” wrote Assistant Telecom Division Administrator Gary Evenson. The letter includes a summary of some proposed changes and simplifications.
Intelsat requested a 30-day special temporary authority from Dec. 3 to Jan. 1, to use its Hagerstown, Md., Ku-band earth station. Intelsat plans to “provide launch and early orbit phase services for the Eutelsat 70B satellite that is expected to be launched on Dec. 3,” it said in its application with the FCC International Bureau.
New Jersey suffers from an “unnecessarily burdensome regulatory structure,” said Hesser McBride, chair of Wilentz, Goldman’s energy and telecommunications practice group. Competition has risen and erased the need for much past regulation, he wrote in a law article first published in October’s New Jersey Lawyer Magazine and reposted with permission online at the law firm’s site this week (http://xrl.us/bnwws5). Bills from recent years, namely A-3766 and S-877, attempted to push deregulation while maintaining Lifeline and Linkup subsidy programs and consumer protections, he said. These bills argue that competition exists due to new services like wireless and VoIP. But consumer advocates killed the legislation, he said, despite what he called “sufficient” protections. The article questions whether this regulation is necessary due to recent changes to the telecom industry. “There is little doubt that eliminating the competitive disparity among providers and unnecessary utility-type regulatory requirements will benefit the industry and consumers,” McBride wrote after reviewing the state’s regulatory history. “In the interests of promoting competition and investment in the state, the Legislature may wish to reevaluate the benefits of implementing regulatory reform similar to that contemplated by A-3766."
Virgin Media said it completed a debt offering made up of $900 million in 4.875 percent senior notes due 2022 and a roughly $644 million in 5.125 senior notes due 2022. The company said it plans to use the proceeds to buy back other debt maturing in 2016 and 2019.
OnAir and Honeywell signed an agreement with Inmarsat to provide Ka-band aircraft connectivity services for Inmarsat’s forthcoming Global XPress network. The five-year agreement “gives passengers access to high-speed, in-flight wireless broadband,” OnAir said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bnwwj5). The contract will allow airline passengers to use their devices in the sky just as they do on the ground, OnAir said.
First Telecom Services is ceasing service in New York. The company will shut down Nov. 16, according to a Tuesday letter from the New York State Public Service Commission (http://xrl.us/bnwvzk). The PSC has approved First Telecom’s application “to cancel its tariff, to surrender its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, and to relinquish all rights associated therewith,” Telecom Director Chad Hume said.
The Zenit-2S launch vehicle from Sea Launch is on track to launch Intelsat 27 in January, Sea Launch said. The vehicle left a Ukraine port this week and is scheduled to arrive at Sea Launch’s facility in Long Beach, Calif., Dec. 7, Sea Launch said in a news release. Intelsat 27 was built by Boeing and it’s expected to arrive in Long Beach “in preparation for the start of standalone and combined spacecraft operations,” it said.
Barnes & Noble is adding NBCUniversal and Fox Home Entertainment content to the Nook Video service via new licensing deals, the retailer said Tuesday. The deals will bring “thousands” of movies and TV shows to the Nook Video catalog, including the films Snow White and the Huntsman, Battleship, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Ice Age: Continental Drift and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, Barnes & Noble said. The chain also said it shipped the Nook HD and Nook HD+. The tablets will “start arriving throughout the week” to consumers who pre-ordered the devices online at Nook.com and at Barnes & Noble stores, it said. The devices will go to the chain’s 700 or so stores for demonstration and purchase and into “15,000 additional locations” including Best Buy, Target and Walmart this holiday season, Barnes & Noble said. The 7-inch Nook HD costs $199 for an 8-GB SKU and $229 for a 16-GB version. The 9-inch HD+ costs $269 for a 16-GB SKU and $299 for a 32-GB version. The devices are the “first UltraViolet-enabled tablets,” and “will seamlessly integrate a customer’s UltraViolet digital video collection across their devices right out of the box,” the chain said. Customers can “easily link their UltraViolet accounts” to the Nook Cloud, allowing them to view UltraViolet-enabled movies and TV shows they bought across the two tablets, with free Nook Video apps “coming soon,” it said. Customers can also shop for DVDs and Blu-ray discs with the UltraViolet logo at Barnes & Noble and other retail stores, add them to their digital collections, and instantly view compatible titles from the Nook Cloud, it said. “The cloud based service integrated with UltraViolet really increases the value proposition of digital media, giving consumers total freedom” to view their content “wherever and whenever they want,” Michael Bonner, NBCUniversal Digital Distribution executive vice president-Product Development & Strategy, said in a news release. “The ability to access digital HD movies” from Fox via Nook Video “complements our existing strategy of delivering the best entertainment experience to consumers and to enrich digital ownership,” said Mike Dunn, Fox Home Entertainment president-worldwide.
FairPoint Communications’ petition for a waiver to let it conditionally accept $2.8 million in Connect America Fund Phase I subsidies that it previously declined has “no support in the record,” the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association said Friday in reply comments opposing the petition (http://xrl.us/bnwo69). FairPoint’s “untimely waiver request” seeks more than $4,000 in subsidies per location even though the commission already determined the level should be fixed at $775, WISPA said. The American Cable Association and NCTA also opposed FairPoint’s request for waiver, but the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance supported it (CD Oct 15 p5). FairPoint said in its own reply comments that it has met the requirements for a waiver because it had identified special circumstances, and the waiver would serve the public interest. Deploying rural broadband has “tremendous” costs, and a waiver acknowledging the “true costs of serving FairPoint’s most rural areas” would let the FCC “recalibrate its per unserved location support amount in order to fulfill the rapid broadband deployment goals of the CAF Phase I incremental support program,” FairPoint said. “This should steel the Commission’s resolve to end the rural-rural divide,” FairPoint said, arguing the $775-per-location rule was “an unrealistic benchmark” (http://xrl.us/bnwpar).