The FCC granted Los Angeles County’s request for a waiver of its narrowbanding deadline to Oct. 31, in a Wednesday Public Safety Bureau order. The waiver affects 20 UHF licenses intended for Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS), the order said. The county had asked the FCC to extend its waiver from June 30, 2012, to June 30, 2013. It alternatively proposed Oct. 31 as another extension so the county can “complete an analysis of its options for continuation” of its communications system in the T-band, it said. “Granting the County a limited extension would be consistent with the County’s goals and the Commission’s waiver criteria, and would not adversely affect other licensees,” the bureau said. If the county wants to continue with its extension, it must file a report on the status of LA-RICS vendors, construction time frame and other relevant details by Oct. 31.
Kids’ advocates are concerned the FCC has “sent the message” it’s “not serious about enforcing the Children’s Television Act,” because the agency hasn’t acted on petitions to deny TV station license renewals that raised educational programming issues, advocates said. The Children’s Media Policy Coalition continues to want the commission to adopt in an order what was a 2004 rulemaking notice’s tentative conclusion that interactive ads on kids shows don’t fit with the public interest, ex parte filings said. They reported on meetings with Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel and aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski, attended by representatives of the Benton Foundation, Children Now and United Church of Christ. Those and other groups are part of the coalition that has said the agency ought to do more on kids’ media issues (CD April 16 p2). The coalition isn’t opposed to updating the record on interactive ads targeted at kids, the filings posted Thursday in docket 00-167 (http://xrl.us/bnsm8e) said: But “there is ample evidence in the record to support these restrictions.” An agency spokesman had no comment.
The “app economy” has created 519,000 jobs across the U.S., responsible for almost $10 billion in revenue in 2011, projected to grow to more than $46 billion by 2016, said a study by CTIA and the Application Developers Alliance. Top states are California, with $8.2 billon in annual “economic impact,” followed by Washington ($2.7 billion), New York ($2.3 billion), Texas ($1.2 billion) and Massachusetts ($1.1 billion). FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has emphasized the expanding size of the apps economy and its contribution to the overall economy (CD April 12 p6). “While app innovation is occurring across the country, particularly in renowned high-tech areas such as California and Washington, some unexpected states have emerged to the top app economy states,” the report said (http://bit.ly/QQVGj6). “For example, Virginia and Maryland have close ties to government agencies and the military thus are developing apps for those sectors. Massachusetts’ app developers are making higher education more accessible, while one Colorado app developer created the iTriage app, which helps people identify what could be wrong based on their medical symptoms."
The NFC Forum, the industry association for near field communications technology, approved and adopted the NFC analog technical specification, which it said is a “major step” toward global interoperability. The spec addresses the analog characteristics of the radio frequency interface of an NFC-enabled device, specifying the externally observable radio signals for an NFC-enabled device without specifying the design of its antenna, the forum said. Covered areas include power requirements (determining operating volume), transmission requirements, receiver requirements and signal forms (time/frequency/modulation characteristics), it said. The spec provides a common interface to the NFC chip, giving manufacturers greater flexibility to use NFC chips from different suppliers without putting device interoperability at greater risk, it said. A spokeswoman for the NFC Forum told us the analog specification gives device manufacturers “the information they need to build NFC-enabled devices and still maintain complete freedom to choose the RF antenna that best meets their needs.” Because it takes “one more variable” out of the product development cycle, it will speed product development and get more NFC-enabled devices onto the market, she said. The analog spec release “fills in the last remaining piece of the NFC puzzle for device manufacturers,” she said, giving them “virtually everything they need to know” to design, develop, and manufacture NFC-enabled devices that deliver on the promise of NFC. The contactless connectivity technology has current and future applications in consumer electronics, healthcare, information collection and exchange, loyalty and coupons, mobile payments and transport, according to the forum. Rumors went back and forth prior to the debut of the iPhone 5 last month about whether it would have NFC. All Things D recently quoted Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller on why the phone doesn’t include NFC. “It’s not clear that NFC is the solution to any current problem,” he said, adding that Apple’s new Passbook feature “does the kinds of things customers need today."
The FCC needs to take near- and longer-term steps to address statistical and data-related shortcomings of limits on reimbursable and operating expenses in the USF/intercarrier compensation order, the NTCA told an aide to FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnsm3y). The commission should test the data and then “correct concerns” before “racing forward with additional changes that undermine the core objectives of universal service by exacerbating consumer rate increases, deterring broadband investment, and encouraging cutbacks in service quality and customer service,” the association said.
A small cable company in Iowa will have difficulty providing information in response to the FCC’s upcoming special access data request, ImOn President Patrice Carroll told Wireline Bureau officials in a phone call Monday (http://xrl.us/bnsm2v). A representative from the American Cable Association was also on the call. With only one person dealing with regulatory filings, the CLEC will find it difficult to provide data about the services used by its 16,000 residential customers and 500 business customers, of which about 60 have dedicated circuits, the company said. ImOn asked for an exemption from the data request, or at the very least, for “flexibility in the format for and timing of the response."
Comcast wants out of video rate regulation in Sacramento city and county and two nearby communities in California, contending both U.S. DBS companies serve those areas where at least 15 percent of pay-TV subscribers subscribe to Dish Network or DirecTV. The cable operator’s petition seeks a Media Bureau effective competition order for Sacramento, Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova to no longer be able to regulate its rates. The filing was posted Thursday in docket 12-1 (http://xrl.us/bnsm3w).
The FCC granted a request from Border to Border Communications to correct its study area boundaries used in the regression analysis establishing USF reimbursement benchmarks for high-cost loop support, the Wireline Bureau said in an order (http://xrl.us/bnsmzo). The telco provided the updated wire center boundary information in July. The revised information reduces the company’s 90th percentile capital expenditure cost per loop (CPL) estimate by about $200 and its operating expenditure CPL estimate by $170. Border to Border has also submitted a broader petition for waiver of the high-cost support benchmarks generally (CD July 13 p16). Wednesday’s order correcting the study area boundaries “in no way prejudges the resolution of that pending petition for waiver,” the bureau said.
Corporate information technology departments have ad-hoc email retention policies that may place their companies at risk for legal and compliance issues, said a study by Mimecast, which provides cloud-based email management (http://xrl.us/bnsmv6). It consisted of interviews with 500 IT decision makers -- 200 in the U.S., 200 in the U.K. and 100 in South Africa -- this summer, the company said in a release. Forty-one percent of U.S. companies lack companywide email retention policies that meet industry standards and regulations, the release said, making it difficult to locate emails for e-discovery requests and determine if those companies comply with regulations. Mimecast Account Director Legal Eliza Hedegaard said these IT departments should be “adopting a more rigorous approach to email archiving” but are burdened “by a regulatory system that is incredibly confusing and difficult to navigate.” This can be fixed if regulators started “simplifying the regulatory framework and putting greater emphasis on clearly communicating what organizations need to do in order to comply instead of adopting scare tactics that focus on what will happen if organizations fall foul of the rules,” she said.
Apple and Android device users can download native apps to access videos from across AOL properties, the AOL On Network said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnsmsa). It said that with the apps, users will be able to view videos from AOL properties such as HuffPost Live, Engadget and TechCrunch as well as videos from AOL partners such as the Travel Channel and E!.