The Yahoo Bing Contextual Ad Network will be powered by Media.net, Yahoo said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnroqb). It said Web publishers that receive most of their traffic from the U.S., U.K. and Canada and use the Yahoo Bing Network can use Media.net’s self-serve platform to add ads to their websites. The ads are “contextual,” meaning Media.net matches the ads to the websites based on a scan of each site’s content. Web publishers can indicate keywords or block specific advertisers or ad topics through Media.net’s platform, which, coupled with the ability to customize the look and sizing of the ads, gives Web publishers the “control and flexibility that they would like,” Media.net CEO Divyank Turakhia said in a news release. It said the Yahoo Bing Network consists of “millions of ads and ad topics."
"The days of the old-style triple or quad-play bundles are numbered,” Informa Telecoms & Media said in a report released Thursday. It said telecom operators will need to offer a broader range of content and applications within bundled products -- for example, over-the-top (OTT) content from Netflix and Spotify or VoIP from Skype -- to satisfy subscribers. Operators may not always get the direct financial rewards from improving their bundled offerings, Informa senior analyst Tony Brown, lead author of the report, said in a news release. “We have already seen from the early deployment of multiscreen TV services by operators that many subscribers are highly resistant to paying extra for new services,” he said. “Operators need to see the addition of these new services, such as cloud storage or OTT content, as something that brings extra value and increases customer loyalty -- and go at least some way to neutering the threat posed by OTT players in a number of fields” (http://xrl.us/bnroic).
Alaska Communications Systems seeks a waiver of FCC Connect America Fund Phase I incremental support rules, to let it use all of the $4 million it accepted for broadband buildout. The rules require deployment of broadband to one household for every $775 accepted. When ACS accepted the commission’s offer, it thought it could fulfill that requirement. But a “more detailed analysis” showed that given the high cost of deployment, “the business case for broadband was untenable in many areas where ACS had originally intended to deploy broadband,” the company said. Wireline Bureau staff also informed ACS that hundreds of census blocks ACS had initially targeted for deployment were “ineligible as a result of the presence of fixed wireless broadband providers,” the firm said. The telco is now able to deploy broadband to only 2,100 qualifying locations, using $1.7 million of the funding, it said. To enable it to use the rest, ACS is seeking a waiver of either the $775 per location rule; a waiver of the definition of “broadband”; or a waiver of the definition of “unserved” to ignore the presence of fixed wireless broadband providers, it said.
Frontier reduced the amount of possible credit it would give to customers in its Broadband Adoption Lifeline Pilot Program. Frontier’s initial application had proposed credit amounts of $25 to $35 depending on the program a customer chose, but “upon further reconsideration” Frontier reduced the amounts by $5 per month. “The new credit structure reduces the amount of funding for which Frontier is applying,” the telco told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Wednesday, according to its ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnrofu).
Vringo remains confident as an Oct. 16 trial approaches over claims that Google infringed its search patents, CEO Andrew Perlman said Thursday at the Craig-Hallum Capital Group conference in New York. Vringo was expected to file Friday a reply to Google’s motion for summary judgment, setting the stage for what is expected to be a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson in Norfolk, Va. Vringo entered the fray in acquiring Innovate Protect, which controlled eight Lycos search patents granted in the late 1990s and early 2000s, two of which are at the heart of the Google case. The patents, which Lycos acquired form inventor Ken Lang, cover a means for organizing how a search engine ranks and displays results for a search request. Central to the process are “clicks,” with more clicks making one site more relevant than others to a search. Lycos sold the patents to Innovate Protect, which in turn sold them to Vringo earlier this year. In a suit filed last year, Vringo alleges that Google’s AdWords and AdSense platforms violate the patents and is seeking damages dating from 2007 and royalties going forward. “We feel good that we will win,” Perlman said. AOL settled a separate infringement suit filed against it for $100,000, relating to violations that occurred before it adopted the Google platform, Perlman said. Google invested $1 billion in AOL in 2005 and a development agreement between the companies was extended in 2010. AOL is a defendant in the Google case. Since the Google case began, legal expenses have been in the “mid-single digit millions” of dollars, Perlman said. In addition to the Lycos IP, Vringo also recently acquired more than 500 patents related to 3G, 4G and LTE cellular technology from Nokia, 25 percent of which are considered “essential,” Perlman said. The portfolio includes 432 issued patents and 75 applications, Perlman said. There are 126 U.S. patents and 42 in China, he said. Vringo bought the IP for $22 million using part of the $31.2 million it raised earlier this year in issuing 9.6 million shares to three unidentified investors. The agreement also requires Vringo to pay a 35 percent royalty on patent-related gross revenues of more than $22 million. Some of the Nokia IP relates to patents considered “essential” for GSM/GPRS infrastructure equipment and mobile stations that comply with European Telecommunications Standards Institute specifications. In light of those patents, Vringo sent a letter to ZTE, maintaining the Chinese equipment supplier didn’t have a license despite supplying GSM/GPRS infrastructure gear since 2002, the company said in an SEC filing. ZTE officials weren’t available for comment. While much of its focus is shifting to IP, Vringo also continues to market free and subscription-based video ringtones as well as Facetones, an automated video slideshow that uses friends’ photos from social media websites, primarily Facebook. Facetones has gained 1.5 million downloads and will be preloaded on Nokia’s Series 40 phones due in Q4. Verizon sells Facetones through its app store for 99 cents, but that represents a small percentage of the downloads, Perlman said. Vringo has 227,000 subscribers to its video ringtone service across seven carriers, the largest being 38,000 with Orange U.K., which launched them in February 2011, Vringo said in an SEC filing.
That the divisions once part of AOL Time Warner changed so dramatically in the 12 years between when the FCC allowed AOL to buy Time Warner in 2000 and earlier this month, when the commission lifted the last curbs on the deal (CD Sept 13 p16) OR (WID Sept 13 p11), shows the folly of such conditions, a frequent foe of them said Thursday. “The FCC’s experience” in the AOL deal’s “competitive assessment should cause the agency to adopt a more modest, perhaps even humble, posture with respect to its ability to discern the future parameters of” a market, Free State Foundation President Randolph May wrote (http://bit.ly/PIvZPU). “Time Warner, Time Warner Cable, and AOL officially severed their corporate ties in 2009, although as close observers recall, the chief corporate components of the merged entity seemingly began falling apart not too terribly long after the AOL-Time Warner merger was consummated."
China’s effort to promote “indigenous innovation” systematically favors products and services of that country’s companies over those of foreign companies, especially in the government and public procurement markets, the Telecommunications Industry Association said. It commented on China’s compliance with its World Trade Organization obligations, in a filing Monday with the U.S. Trade Representative (http://xrl.us/bnrods). TIA said piracy and counterfeiting remain high due to inadequate penalties, uncoordinated enforcement among local, provincial and national authorities, and the lack of transparency in China’s administrative and criminal enforcement system. Companies that are members of the U.S. Information Trade Office continue to be concerned about governmental interference in licensing agreements, they said. USITO was begun by TIA, the Software and Information Industry Association and American Electronics Association (now TechAmerica) in 1994, in cooperation with the International Trade Administration. China is aggressively implementing and utilizing technical standards to support development of key industries, especially the ICT industry, TIA said. It said China’s current type of approval process for telecom equipment is not sufficiently transparent and is burdensome.
Robert McDowell is the latest FCC member to back reinstatement of tax breaks for companies selling radio and TV stations to certain small businesses. “A new and improved tax certificate program” would “help tremendously” entrepreneurs like members of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, he told NABOB’s conference Thursday. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told the conference Wednesday she supports bringing back the program, which, before Congress ended it in 1995 amid concerns about misuse, gave sellers of stations and cable systems tax benefits when the assets were bought by minorities (CD Sept 27 p2). “Providing broadcasters with a tax incentive to sell to small and disadvantaged businesses would increase the volume and frequency of such exchanges dramatically,” McDowell said. “We could accomplish these goals without the flawed loopholes of yore, thus restoring integrity and certainty to the program. The tax certificate bills sponsored during the last Congress didn’t move, but that is no reason to despair. Don’t give up the fight.” McDowell joked that he’s been giving speeches for several years backing a return of a tax certificate program, just as during that time he has been seeking completion of the FCC’s Adarand studies. The Supreme Court’s 1995 Adarand ruling limited government programs with race-based classifications. McDowell also repeated his desire that the commission should “largely, if not completely” end the ban on common ownership of a radio or TV station and a daily newspaper in the same market.
Sorenson gave the FCC updated data regarding the percentage of hearing-to-deaf calls it handles that terminate to deaf parties’ toll-free numbers (http://xrl.us/bnrn67). The information was provided in response a request from Wireline Bureau staff. Sorenson also revised data it provided to the commission in July, with corrected calculations. The data itself was redacted from the version of the report that was made public.
It’s “time for the FCC to drop the hammer” on rural call termination issues, which continue to be a problem despite FCC efforts, NARUC told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a letter Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnrn7u). Although the commission in February issued a declaratory ruling to “remind” carriers about its prohibition on traffic restriction (CD Feb 7 p10), “the problem persists,” wrote John Burke, chair of the NARUC telecom committee. NARUC encouraged the commission to pick a provider that has not resolved questionable call termination practices, and “take appropriate and swift action.” Only “actual enforcement actions with significant consequences” will modify the behavior of noncompliant carriers, NARUC said. NARUC’s general counsel also spoke to aides to commissioners Robert McDowell, Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai regarding the issue.