The Sprint-Softbank transaction probably won’t change the amount of interest paid or the amount due upon the maturity of Comcast Holdings’ 2 percent exchangeable subordinated notes due 2029, or its 2 percent exchangeable subordinated notes due November 2029, the cable operator said in an SEC filing. “Comcast has concluded that, as currently structured, the Sprint Softbank transaction constitutes a ‘Reference Share Offer,'” for the purposes of the notes, it said. “Subject to market conditions and possible future changes in the terms of the Sprint Softbank transaction, Comcast Holdings expects to elect to increase the ‘Early Exchange Ratio'” of the notes from 95 percent to 100 percent, while the transaction is pending, instead of making a “reference share offer adjustment,” it said. “There will be no changes in the payment terms” of the notes except “that upon consummation of the Sprint Softbank transaction, the Reference Shares underlying each … will change from shares of Sprint Nextel common stock to an equivalent number of shares of New Sprint common stock."
The FCC must issue its special access data request as quickly as possible, Sprint Nextel executives told aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnuwf9). The request should include a de minimis exemption for companies that lease a small number of circuits, Sprint said. It should also distinguish between owned-and-operated and resold circuits, requiring ILECs to disclose the locations of all relevant facilities they serve, and the companies from which they lease special access circuits, Sprint said. CLEC marketing maps are “unreliable and inappropriate” subjects of the data request, the carrier said.
Work is under way getting cable networks ready for new broadband specifications, including DOCSIS 3.1, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers said. It formed a working group, chaired by Jack Moran, a technical staff fellow at Motorola Mobility, to develop best practices and requirements to prepare hybrid fiber-coaxial networks for higher-capacity signaling schemes, including DOCSIS 3.1. “With intelligent and proactive RF plant maintenance techniques, as well as advancements in higher-power laser technology and enhanced RF spectrum, cable operators are extremely well-positioned to keep up with … growth in demand for speed and services,” Moran said.
Washington Post Co. opposed a petition for waiver of the FCC’s significantly viewed exception to network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules for the company’s WJXT-TV Jacksonville, Fla. MPS Media of Gainesville petitioned the commission to let it assert its local exclusivity rights against WJXT in Gainesville, Newberry, Alachua City and Alachua County, which Cox Communications also opposed. The Post’s Post-Newsweek unit also asked (http://xrl.us/bnuwfe) permission to file its opposition late, because its station personnel “failed to timely notify Post-Newsweek management of the station’s receipt of the MPS Petition.” Post-Newsweek argued that the viewer data MPS submitted to support its waiver request was faulty.
Tuesday’s “Internet Transformation Panel,” hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Communications Liberty and Innovation Project (CLIP), was little more than a “scripted reading” of the “wish list” of giant phone companies, the Broadband Coalition said in a blog post Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnuwe2). At the event, speakers endorsed FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s push for the creation of an Internet Protocol transition task force to speed the industry’s transition to all-IP networks (CD Oct 17 p3). The Broadband Coalition, which represents competitive carriers, said the panel wasn’t about the Internet at all, but was actually “a front for phony phone company arguments designed to eliminate the competitive policies that govern such basic obligations as connecting networks to one another so everyone can talk.” It doesn’t matter whether packets are traveling over copper or fiber, or using TDM or IP technology; “it’s all the same to the 1996 Act and to the wires,” the coalition said, arguing the FCC needs to “continue enforcing technology-neutral policies governing last mile connectivity and interconnection.” Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said Pai’s comments “repeat a common theme” pushed by AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, which “distorts reality and ignores the plight of consumers in America’s uncompetitive broadband market.” The principles undergirding common carriage are “not outdated,” are “incredibly important,” and are “directly responsible for producing the Internet revolution,” Wood said. “We need regulators to understand that new technology is not a magical solution to the natural monopoly problems inherent in communications networks. The transition to new transmission technologies didn’t alter the fundamental reality that the wires and channels carrying our communications are sold in a near-monopoly environment."
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel and other officials hosted a cybersecurity “listening session” Wednesday to hear from the business community about their concerns with a potential executive order. BSA was encouraged by the event and the group “agrees with the administration that at the end of the day we need Congress to pass legislation,” said BSA Director-Government Relations Tim Molino. A White House spokeswoman would not provide any details of the meeting but said the administration is “continuing to meet with Congress and key stakeholders on how departments and agencies can act to protect our critical infrastructure in the absence of comprehensive legislation.”
Verizon Wireless’s “Share Everything” shared mobile data plans were a major boon in Q3 for one of its co-owners, Verizon Communications. Verizon owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, while Vodafone owns 45 percent. The plans apparently helped propel Verizon’s $1.59 billion in earnings for the quarter, up 14.3 percent year-over-year from $1.38 billion in 2011, the company said Thursday. Verizon Wireless added a net 1.8 million devices in Q3 -- including 1.5 million on contract-based plans -- well above an analyst consensus of about 900,000. “This margin is especially impressive given that gross adds were as high as they have been in last 4 yrs.,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said in a report to investors. About 13 percent of Verizon’s customers on contract-based plans are using Share Everything, which the company said was evidence the plans were becoming popular. The plans have also raised customers’ monthly bills to an average of $145.42 per month, up 6.5 percent year-over-year from 2011, Verizon said. Verizon Wireless’s gains were also helped by the iPhone 5 -- the carrier had activated 650,000 of them, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo told investors Thursday during a conference call. The carrier activated 3.1 million iPhones of all kinds during Q3, according to Verizon. Verizon’s wireline business remained soft during Q3, with total wireline revenue of $9.9 billion, down 2.3 percent from 2011. Shammo said there was no new news to report on Verizon’s anticipated 700 MHz spectrum auction, although he noted it would not be a “fire sale” and that the company may yet decide to use the spectrum internally. The company’s wireline revenue margins will likely be down for the second half of the year compared to the first half, mostly because of weaker enterprise demand and the length of time it took to complete union deals, Shammo told investors. Verizon reported its first decline in total broadband customers in four years, due in part to its decision to stop marketing DSL connections to customers not using the company for phone service. Verizon said it added a net 135,000 subscriptions to its faster FiOS Internet service and a net 119,000 to its FiOS Video service. Verizon expects to see its FiOS Internet net adds grow to between 150,000 and 170,000 in Q4, Shammo told investors.
Gray TV asked the FCC to waive its freeze on TV station community of license change applications, so the company can move its WSWG-TV Valdosta, Ga., to Moultrie. The station would retain its same channel, 43. The city of license change is a “straightforward solution to a longstanding problem that will have no impact whatsoever on the planned reallocation of the television broadcast spectrum,” Gray said in a petition for rulemaking (http://xrl.us/bnuwdp). The proposal doesn’t involve any technical changes, and Gray said its over-the-air coverage won’t change either. WSWG largely serves the Albany designated market area, the DMA Nielsen has assigned to the station, and its transmitter site is in that market, it said. But Valdosta, its city of license, is in the Tallahassee, Fla.-Thomasville, Ga., DMA, where Gray already operates another station with the same CBS network affiliation, it said. Most of WSWG’s viewers are in the Albany DMA, but “its association with out-of-market Valdosta has hampered WSWG’s ability to compete,” Gray said.
Netflix began its streaming service in Finland Thursday at 7.99 euros a month ($10.45 at $1 = 0.76 euros), it said. Earlier this week, it expanded the service to Sweden, Denmark and Norway. “Initial signups exceeded our expectations,” said CEO Reed Hastings. At launch, Netflix is offering movies and TV shows from content providers including Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, BBC Worldwide, CBS Studios, ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Shine International, Nordisk Film Distribution, AB Svensk Filmindustri, Scanbox Entertainment and Norsk Filmdistribujon in the Nordic countries, Netflix said.
LIN TV said its digital advertising unit RMM opened a new office in Los Angeles to work more closely with the entertainment industry.