The proposed bidding process for the local number portability administrator will “fail to resolve neutrality issues in a fair, open and timely fashion,” Telcordia and Ericsson executives told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Thursday, a Telcordia ex parte filing on LNPs said (http://xrl.us/bnscuj). Telcordia urged the commission to “bifurcate the neutrality review from the merits evaluation,” to provide more time for both neutrality and merits evaluations, the company said. The request for proposals should require bidders to provide an “auditable” code of conduct, rather than prescribe the Neustar code of conduct for all number portability administration centers, Telcordia said. It encouraged the commission to require all bidders to submit regional bids in addition to any national bid submitted; prevent single-party negotiations by requiring that a “best and final offer” be solicited from at least two bidders; and make the RFP process for communicating selection recommendations consistent with those in the federal acquisition regulations. The FCC sought comment last month on the procurement documents submitted for the LNP database platforms and services (CD Sept 17 p9). Neustar has been the LNP administrator since portability started in 1997, but its current contract is scheduled to end in 2015.
Six Senate Republicans urged President Barack Obama to work with Congress to pass cybersecurity legislation rather than issue an executive order, in a letter sent Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnscsb). John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, confirmed last month the White House is considering an executive order to secure critical infrastructure. But the six senators said the gravity of the cybersecurity threat “requires a genuine bipartisan effort to advance legislation, not a selective and unilateral executive order which simply cannot provide the incentives to encourage private sector participation and the requisite information sharing to address evolving threats.” The letter was signed by Republican Sens. Dan Coats, Ind., Saxby Chambliss, Ga., John McCain and Jon Kyl, Ariz., Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas, and Roy Blunt, Mo. All the signers except Blunt and Kyl are sponsors of the SECURE IT Act (S-2151). The White House did not comment. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., urged Congress to again consider the Cybersecurity Act (S-3414) as a means to help protect U.S. networks from cyberattacks. His comments came in a news release Tuesday. Carper, who sponsored S-3414, said the bill would update U.S. cybersecurity laws and provide the government with “the tools we need to combat those who seek to attack us through the Internet. I am hopeful the Senate will pass this legislation as soon as possible.” The bill remains on the Senate calendar because Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., moved to reconsider the bill in August after it became clear that GOP members would filibuster the legislation (CD Aug 3 p3). On Monday Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, threw her support behind Carper as a likely candidate to lead the Senate cybersecurity effort after Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., retires this year (CD Oct 2 p13). Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano meanwhile discussed ways to recruit and maintain a cybersecurity workforce in a meeting Tuesday hosted by the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Task Force on Cyberskills. The council recently published a report with recommendations and objectives that they say will improve the agency’s cybersecurity team, like creating new university partnerships to expand cybersecurity training programs. “DHS is committed to working with our partners at universities and throughout the private sector to develop the next generation of cyberprofessionals to protect against evolving cyberthreats,” Napolitano said.
Cable stocks, which rallied during the first half of 2012, should continue to add value through the end of the year, UBS analyst John Hodulik wrote in a note to investors. Increasing cash returns to shareholders at Time Warner Cable and Comcast will help boost share value, he said. Moreover, share gains in broadband and video are helping cable operators’ operating results, which could be further buoyed by a rebounding housing market, he said. “We believe cable stocks remain attractive despite their 1H outperformance,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., handed Samsung a win Monday, overturning an injunction barring U.S. sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet (http://xrl.us/bnscqq). She had originally ordered the temporary sales ban prior to a trial to decide dueling lawsuits brought by Apple and Samsung over claims of patent infringement. A federal jury ruled Aug. 24 that Samsung had violated multiple Apple patents related to that company’s iPhone products. The jury found Samsung had not infringed on an Apple design patent on its iPad products, which was the sole basis for the injunction (CD Aug 30 p9). “The jury has found otherwise,” Koh said in her ruling Monday. “Thus, the sole basis for the June 26 preliminary injunction no longer exists.” Koh originally refused to rule last month on lifting the injunction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday that she could rule on the case, but said in its ruling that it would not give its opinion on the case. Koh said in the ruling that she is also retaining Apple’s $2.6 million bond on the injunction. She will decide whether to award the bond money to Samsung based on the outcome of post-trial motions in the case. Koh is set to make a final ruling on the post-trial motions in December. Neither Samsung nor Apple immediately commented on the ruling.
Chadbourne & Parke launched a blog to provide “fresh insights, analysis and practical perspectives” on the telecom industry, the law firm said Tuesday. The blog is at tmtperspectives.com.
The Jobs4America coalition is “ahead of schedule” in creating or returning to the U.S. from abroad 100,000 call center jobs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday. In August 2011, the coalition said it aimed to reach the goal within two years. “In just 14 months, more than 75,000 call center jobs have been created or on-shored back to the United States,” Genachowski said in a written statement. According to a map provided by an FCC spokesman, most of the created jobs are east of the Mississippi River (http://xrl.us/bnscti).
Major League Baseball said it signed 8-year licensing agreements with Fox and Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting. Taken together with baseball’s recent ESPN pact (CD Aug 29 p8), the agreements will more than double the amount of annual rights fees the league takes in, it said. The deal gives Turner interactive TV rights, “which includes the rights to create companion and ancillary products related to the TBS broadcasts of regular and Postseason games,” the league said. Fox will keep the World Series and All Star Games. The two networks will share the League Championship Series and Division Series along with the MLB Network. “Both deals also include ‘TV Everywhere’ rights to stream televised games and other MLB-related programming online and through mobile devices,” the league said.
The FCC International Bureau accepted an application from Post-Newsweek for a transportable Ku-band video uplink. The company plans to transmit news and event coverage mainly in the area served by NBC station WDIV-TV Detroit, the application said (http://xrl.us/bnsctr).
The merger of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) and Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) is mostly about “back office” savings for the latter group, SIPA President Bob Brady said on a conference call Tuesday. When SIPA’s newsletter-focused predecessor got off the ground, there wasn’t much competition in the young industry, and “all of us thought that would last forever -- woe to us, the technology changed,” Brady said. Last spring, with its membership and revenue declining, the SIPA board started looking for merger opportunities with “nine or 10 different players,” settling on three that seemed “viable,” including one option that would leave SIPA independent, he said. The board two weeks ago approved a merger with SIIA, the “most interesting” of the candidates, Brady said: There are still a “couple of legal contractual things” holding up the merger now. SIPA will be its own division in SIIA with its own members, due structure and programs, but the “back office functions that really have become onerous for volunteers in the past couple years” will be handled by SIIA, he said. Benefits of SIIA include its antipiracy program and webinars, Brady said: There’s “not a lot of difference” between the groups’ missions, except SIIA has more publishers of consumer services. Brady is right that organizations in the “information business” are like a “country club” in that they have similar missions but members tend to stick with one or the other association, said SIIA CEO Ken Wasch on the call. With members like Reed Elsevier, McGraw Hill and Intuit, SIIA has seen a “significant blending between software and content in enabling technologies to deliver content anywhere, anytime,” Wasch said. The old distinctions -- ad-supported controlled circulation publishers, subscription models and “aggregation and delivery of large volumes” of information -- “don’t make sense today,” Wasch said. SIPA is most similar to SIIA’s content division but the groups decided merging it into that division was “a bridge too far” since their missions are different, Wasch said. The groups nonetheless have “cross-fertilization” between member companies, and that will be reflected in board composition, with three members each of the SIPA and content-division boards sitting on the other, and SIPA controlling one slot on the full SIIA board, he said. All SIIA divisions care about intellectual property protection, data security and cross-border data flows, and SIIA and SIPA are already partners on antipiracy litigation, Wasch said. The SIPA board will continue to have “autonomy” to pursue its own interests and all benefits will be continued. The main change will be SIPA dues, rising to $495 minimum from the current $295, Wasch said: “It has been a point of careful consideration” and SIPA as an SIIA division will have its budget determined by how successful its events and programs are. Even before the merger closes SIPA members can take advantage of SIIA benefits, Wasch said. Brady told a questioner on the call that SIPA would put together accounting documents for members to review: “It’s been difficult frankly with volunteers” that SIPA relies on for much of its functions. SIPA staff will be absorbed into SIIA’s, as well as moving into the latter’s office, and SIPA will keep its annual conference, Brady said. SIPA as a division will keep 70 percent of its dues and 30 percent will go to “absorb overhead services” like finance and renewals, he said. Warren Communications News, publisher of Communications Daily, is a SIPA member.
Spanish Broadcasting System said it will add the Associated Press’s Spanish Online newsfeed to the websites at 10 of its radio stations.