AT&T submitted a paper at the FCC contradicting a report by V-Comm that was submitted by small carriers (CD July 16 p10). V-Comm argued that band class distinctions aren’t needed to protect 700 MHz operations from interference, and the agency should move forward on an interoperability mandate. The paper was written by Jeffrey Reed and Nishith Tripathi of Reed Engineering. “The V-COMM Report concludes -- contrary to multiple other tests and analyses -- that although Band 12 devices are far more susceptible to interference from Channel 51 and E block signals than are Band 17 devices, the Channel 51 and E block signal levels required to cause such interference are so high as to be irrelevant in most real world situations,” AT&T’s paper said (http://xrl.us/bnsmqx). “Upon careful review of the V-COMM Report and of the results of further testing conducted by 7Layers (a well-regarded independent testing firm), it is apparent that the conclusions in the V-COMM Report are wrong and reflect incorrect assumptions, parameters and methodologies."
Internet companies continue to drive growth and jobs in the information and communications technology sector, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Thursday. The OECD Internet Economy Outlook 2012 report said the top 250 ICT businesses, ranked by revenue, boosted employment by 4 percent in 2010 and 6 percent last year. Hiring grew faster among Internet companies, which increased employment by 20 percent in 2011, mostly driven by Amazon and Google adding 50 percent more employees in 2010-2011, it said. ICT sector employment is highest in the U.S., followed by Japan and Germany, it said. The IT services industry survived the 2009 financial downturn better than manufacturing, returning to positive growth in early 2010, it said. That’s likely attributable to growing specialization in ICT services in OECD countries, while manufacturing has shifted to lower-cost production, it said. ICTs increasingly help business become more efficient, it said. Companies may look to ICTs to cut costs during the financial crisis, creating a continuing demand for such services as other budgets are cut, it said. That’s true for the telecom sector, which continued to perform well because households and individuals consider its services essential, it said. Globally, ICT spending is expected to reach over $4 billion in 2012, the OECD said. The structure of ICT spending is shifting as consumers now make up one-third of the total ICT market, mainly driven by increasing demand for mobile devices, it said. The report launched a new methodology for measuring the economic benefits of the Internet. Based on national statistics, the OECD found that for 2010, up to 13 percent of American business GDP could be attributed to the Internet. The report underscores the “need to promote Internet openness and balanced approaches to intellectual property policy” so the tech sector can continue to thrive, said Computer & Communications Industry Association Vice President and Brussels Director James Waterworth. European policymakers must ensure that laws don’t harm the Internet economy and that vested interests don’t impede important economic, political and social changes, he said.
Any Alaskan telecom relay service (TRS) provider should “remain mindful of the confidential nature of the data it will handle,” a rural coalition of telcos told the Regulatory Commission of Alaska Wednesday. These data are “competitively sensitive,” it said. Alaska’s relay provider, Communications Services for the Deaf, receives data from the state’s telcos and had previously put the data in a public monthly report, with “granular detail, including subscriber line counts broken down by business and residential customers,” it said. Once the concern was raised, the relay provider submitted the data in a redacted form, the coalition said. It proposed an alternative to redacted filings, and suggested the TRS provider give “a public compilation of all LEC data, presented as aggregations of all individual LECs’ data by category (i.e. residential lines, single-line business lines, multi-line business lines).” The coalition asked future TRS applicants to remember the confidential nature of the data, especially due to what it called a far more competitive telecom market of the last decade.
Cross River Fiber extended its dark fiber network with a new backbone reach into New Jersey of more than 50 miles, the company said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnsmfx). It has strategically partnered with Atlantic Health System to extend its health vertical, it said. Atlantic Health receives “single-source, secure, reliable and scalable solution” with this new relationship, said Cross River Fiber CEO Vincenzo Clemente in a statement. “Our dark fiber infrastructure seamlessly converges Atlantic’s voice, video and data solutions, connecting back office, telecom network, servers and data centers.” The organization receives “critical ultra-low latency, unlimited bandwidth, increased data speed and complete independence, while significantly reducing the overall telecom budget,” he said. Cross River is a CLEC based in New Jersey and a provider of boutique dark fiber solutions, according to the company.
Public funding could play a key role in extending basic broadband and next generation access coverage to areas where operators aren’t likely to invest anytime soon, but it shouldn’t necessarily be used in all EU countries, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications said Thursday. Instead, the emphasis should be on reaching digital agenda targets via a market-based approach, it said in an opinion (http://xrl.us/bnskq4) on European Commission-proposed draft revisions to state aid rules for rapid deployment of broadband networks. The national regulators welcomed the EC’s intention to ensure that public financing measures don’t distort competition unnecessarily and support competitive infrastructures. They also backed the EC stance that state intervention should limit the risk of crowding out private investment incentives. That means that any state funding regime should be designed for the best cost-benefit outcome, BEREC said. In the telecom sector, the main tradeoff is between the level of public funding needed; the positive impacts the state aid measure has on consumers, the market and the wider economy; and the negative effects it has on existing and future commercial investments and competition, it said. Any state aid grants should come with wholesale access obligations attached, to spur downstream competition, it said. BEREC also praised the EC plan to cut red tape and increase legal certainty in state aid awards. But it said the draft guidelines lack consistency on several issues relating to the role of national regulators in public funding decisions.
The NCTA criticized proposals from USTelecom that the cable association said would have the commission prejudge, in carriage disputes, in favor of competing MVPDs “virtually all of the key issues relevant to assessing the competitive impact of an exclusive contract” between a cable operator and network it owns (http://xrl.us/bnshpu). The FCC’s ban on such exclusive contracts is set to expire Friday. USTelecom’s approach “is tantamount to extending the per se ban,” the NCTA said. “Just as there is no factual or legal basis for retaining the per se ban ... there is no justification to adding new burdens to the standard for case-by-case adjudication of program access complaint,” it said. There’s no basis for adopting special presumptions for the “top 20” cable-affiliated networks, or for regional sports networks (RSNs) or networks that carry lots of sports programming, it said. “Unlike the presumption for terrestrially-delivered RSNs, which was at least based on some record of evidence and studies, such an expansive presumption would have absolutely no evidentiary support,” it said. It also attacked arguments that the commission should adopt a preemption that exclusive contracts involving such networks is “unfair” and “significantly hinders competition,” it said. An attorney for Time Warner Cable raised similar arguments during a meeting with Commissioner Ajit Pai’s chief of staff, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnshq3). “The Commission should reject recent proposals to presume that withholding any RSN programming or certain other content necessarily” is an unfair act, hinders competition, or entitles a complainant to injunctive relief. Former Wireless Bureau Chief Fred Campbell wrote on the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project Blog that the FCC should let the ban expire this week (http://xrl.us/bnshrd). “With the exception of sports programming, which ‘may be nonreplicable,’ the program access concerns that animated congress in 1992 no longer exist,” he wrote. He pointed to Netflix’s recent investments in developing its own programming as a success where there’s no regulation guaranteeing it a right to access other’s content. “Verizon, AT&T and the satellite providers are, however, eligible for statutory access to cable programming, which reduces their incentives to invest in their own programming.”
Samsung wants a new trial in Apple’s U.S. lawsuit against the company. A federal jury in San Jose ruled Aug. 24 that Samsung had violated multiple Apple patents related to its iPhone products. The jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages, though that award is not official until U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh makes a final ruling on the case (CD Aug 28 p6). Samsung claimed a federal jury’s verdict was tainted because jury foreman Velvin Hogan did not disclose he had filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and had been sued by Seagate Technology, a company that has a “substantial strategic relationship” with Samsung, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday night (http://xrl.us/bnsh2i). The verdict was also tainted because a lawyer who sued Hogan on behalf of Seagate is married to a lawyer that represented Samsung in the Apple lawsuit, Bloomberg reported. Hogan told Bloomberg the court instructions for potential jurors only required him to disclose lawsuits dating back 10 years, so the 1993 lawsuit was outside that time period. Samsung’s move went public a day after Koh threw out a temporary injunction barring the U.S. sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, which had also been targeted in the Apple lawsuit, because the federal jury found the tablet did not violate a design patent on Apple’s iPad (CD Oct 3 p15).
Stock buybacks aren’t always the best use of a media company’s cash, especially when its shares aren’t underpriced, Sanford Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger wrote investors. The media companies he covers -- Disney, CBS, Discovery, News Corp., Time Warner and Viacom -- have spent about $24 billion over the past six quarters buying their own shares, he said. “While most investors are delighted, the debate remains unsettled over whether and how this creates value for equity holders … and what are the implications in the long run.” In some cases, companies may have better uses of cash than buying back shares, such as investing in programming development or other areas of its business, he said. “Long term investors should also be mindful of where this trend leads if allowed to play out to its full conclusion,” he said. “At the current pace, in less than a decade, we will be left with many (relatively) smaller market cap media companies, with no more shares to repurchase and no new growth platforms from which to build,” he said. “Although they'll probably start paying a heck of a dividend yield.”
The Federal Trade Commission brought six law enforcement actions against individuals and companies who allegedly defrauded computer owners through “scare ware.” Chairman Jon Leibowitz said scammers across the globe, but mostly located in India, would perpetrate “outrageous and disturbing cons” by cold calling individuals, “remotely diagnose” their computers, telling the individuals that the computers were infected with malware, and then charge between $49 and $450 to “remove the phantom malware.” Working with Australia’s Communication and Media Authority and Canada’s Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, the FTC has brought claims against 14 companies and 17 individuals, has frozen $188,000 in U.S. funds held by the alleged scammers. The U.S. agency said it worked with U.S. phone and Internet providers to ensure that the alleged scammers won’t have access to the phone lines and Internet connections used to facilitate the scams. Congress needs to renew the SAFE WEB Act for the FTC and agencies abroad to keep going after such scams, Leibowitz said. The act allows the FTC to share information and collaborate with foreign law enforcement agencies for consumer protection investigations. Renewing the act is important because the FTC and other foreign agencies “are much more effective working together than we would be individually,” Leibowitz said. “We need enforcement tools that keep up with the bad guys,” Leibowitz said, thanking the “bipartisan champions of the renewal of the U.S. SAFE WEB Act authority.” The House has already voted to renew the act, he said, but if the Senate does not vote to do the same after the elections, the FTC’s authority in cases like these will expire next year. Leibowitz said he hopes the enforcement actions would be “a wake up call for computer users around the world that there are some useful strategies” when it comes to recognizing scams. Educating users is necessary because “consumer awareness is often the first line of defense,” he said, pointing to online resources such as OnGuardOnline.gov. Consumers should be suspicious of any companies that place cold calls and remotely diagnose computer problems, said Microsoft Director of Consumer Affairs Frank Torres. “Microsoft will never cold call a consumer,” he said, and other “legitimate companies” are “very unlikely to do these sorts of cold calls.” If a consumer receives one of these cold calls or is concerned about their computer, he should seek legitimate resources, such as McAfee, Torres said. Solving such scam threats “takes the cooperation of industry, government and regulators,” he said.
Vislink International debuted Mantis MSAT, which it claimed is the world’s smallest and lightest satellite data terminal. It’s a rugged terminal that’s resistant to extreme environmental conditions and is deployed from a single lightweight pack, Vislink said. The terminals “are currently undergoing field trials for battlefield, command center and special operations implementations,” it said. The terminal can operate in X, Ka and Ku bands, and it meets military specifications “for shock, vibration, sand and rain and is provided as a ‘one box’ solution incorporating antenna, modem and all electronics,” Vislink said.