Net neutrality was a “time suck” for a lot of people in Washington, and “people are tired of it,” CEA President Gary Shapiro told reporters at a lunch event in Washington Monday. “No one’s complaining about net neutrality” these days, he said. It might be different if there were any “bad players” who do something that changes the dynamic, he said. It was a big deal four or five years ago, but “I want those two years of my life back,” Shapiro said. “Nothing happened.” Companies on both sides of the issue “hated it because it was a waste of their time,” Shapiro said. “All of us have bigger issues now” to focus on, he said, though he acknowledged that net neutrality was “a lobbyist’s dream.” For the hired lobbyists, “this is the best thing in the world.” Regardless of what U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit court decides on the FCC’s Open Internet order, “I think the network neutrality debate goes away,” provided that there’s real competition in broadband, transparency to consumers about an ISP’s network management practices and an ability for consumers to leave their contract for a competing provider, Shapiro said. On spectrum efficiency, Shapiro thinks one of the “great accomplishments” of the Obama administration is that federal spectrum is on the table, and there’s more discussion about how federal and private users can use the spectrum together. Shapiro was pessimistic on the near-term ability to embed software in hardware to be able to look for the best of available spectrum. “I don’t think it’s close to being realized in terms of actual physics, yet,” he said. “But it’s possible -- theoretically.”
The FCC should exempt wayside poles and similar facilities from review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) as railroads build out congressionally mandated positive train control (PTC) networks, the Association of American Railroads said in a filing at the commission. “The AAR’s member railroads urgently need to install wayside communications poles on the railroads’ rights of way to test and implement this nationwide interoperable safety technology,” the group said (http://bit.ly/19AoXn9). “Because of their small size, minimal area of direct and indirect impact, and location along previously disturbed industrial rail corridors, the potential effects of PTC and similar wayside poles on historic properties are foreseeable and minimal or not adverse.” PCIA said the FCC should request a broad program comment from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation on the PTC buildouts rather than requiring individual site review. “Absent adoption of a Program Comment, the rail industry and its partners may be unable to implement PTC by the December 31, 2015 deadline mandated by Congress,” PCIA said (http://bit.ly/1amUAVA).
Charter Communications and Comcast were freed of local cable rate regulation in FCC Media Bureau orders granted after local oppositions and released Monday. Charter, which withdrew a request for the Massachusetts municipalities of Paxton and Spencer after the state’s Department of Telecommunications and Cable opposed the request, got deregulation in three other areas. In Boylston, Leicester and Northbridge, the bureau said (http://fcc.us/1aNzN9s) at least 15 percent of households got direct-broadcast satellite. Comcast was found to face sufficient video competition in Maplewood and four other Minnesota areas, after the Ramsey/Washington Counties Suburban Cable Communications Commission opposed the request, said another bureau order (http://bit.ly/1hSK5Pm). And the operator got a similar finding (http://bit.ly/19ArQEf) in Danville after that Virginia city opposed the request.
The due date for FCC biennial broadcast ownership forms was delayed 18 days to Dec. 20, said a Media Bureau order Monday (http://fcc.us/1dbpcgd). It said the start date for filing Form 323s on Oct. 1 “coincided with the government shutdown,” during which the FCC Consolidated Database System through which they are filed was “inaccessible” until Oct. 17 when the government reopened. Melodie Virtue of Garvey Schubert sought (http://bit.ly/1dP4Jdt) the delay Nov. 6, and NAB backed it, said the order. It noted the forms are due from commercial and full-power radio and TV stations and “entities with attributable interests."
Major U.S. multichannel video programming distributors lost about 25,000 net video subscribers in Q3, Leichtman Research Group said in a note (http://bit.ly/18JVJ5B). That number is down from about 50,000 of subscribers lost in the same period last year for companies including Comcast, Charter Communications and Cablevision, it said. The top nine cable companies lost about 600,000 video subscribers in Q3 2013, with the highest quarterly losses experienced by Time Warner Cable, it said. That company’s Q3 loss of more than 300,000 subscribes was due in part to the retransmission consent dispute with CBS, said the market research firm. For Q3, satellite-TV providers added about 174,000 subscribers, “compared to a gain of 48,000” in Q3 2012. Major wireline providers added 400,000 video subscribers this quarter, an increase from 317,000 net additions last year, Leichtman said.
Washington Post Co. is changing its name to Graham Holdings, and its stock ticker symbol to GHC, all effective Nov. 29, said the owner of TV stations and cable systems. It said the changes stem from Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the Post newspaper and other Post publishing businesses Oct. 1 (CD Oct 3 p9), in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1fPz254).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed Apple a partial victory Monday in the company’s quest to obtain a permanent sales ban on some Samsung mobile devices. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose erred when she ruled last year against Apple’s request for a permanent injunction barring the sale of 26 Samsung devices (http://1.usa.gov/19zwwdE). Apple had requested the injunction after a federal jury found that the Samsung devices violated six Apple patents. Apple argued before the Federal Circuit in August that Koh’s ruling -- that Apple had not sufficiently proven that the devices were a main reason behind Apple’s lost sales -- was a “fundamental change” to U.S. patent law. Koh is currently hearing a retrial of the case over the amount of damages Apple is entitled to receive; Koh had reduced an initial award of $1.05 billion to $595 million (CD Aug 12 p10). The Federal Circuit panel Monday let stand Koh’s ruling that Apple was not entitled to an injunction over three design patents, but ruled Koh needed to reconsider her ruling as it related to three utility patents. “Rather than show that a patent feature is the exclusive reason for consumer demand, Apple must show some connection between the patented feature and demand for Samsung products,” the court said in its ruling. “The district court abused its discretion by failing to properly analyze whether damages would adequately compensate Apple for Samsung’s infringement of these patents.” Although the Federal Circuit ruling ordered a reconsideration of the injunction over Apple’s utility patents, “the remand concerns a very narrow scope of evidence presented by Apple,” Samsung said in a statement. “Therefore, we are confident that an injunction will be avoided.” Apple did not comment.
About 84 percent of travelers included in an AnchorFree survey reported they do not take necessary steps to protect their personal information while using public Wi-Fi, even though nearly as many -- 82 percent -- said they believe their information is not safe while they use public networks. The survey polled 2,200 U.S. travelers over the age of 18. About 89 percent of all global public Wi-Fi hotspots are not secured, AnchorFree said. “Many travelers don’t realize that they are unsuspectingly sharing sensitive information with others on public Wi-Fi,” said AnchorFree CEO David Gorodyansky in a news release. “Looming threats -- from cyber thieves to malware and snoopers -- are skyrocketing on public Wi-Fi and travelers need to be vigilant in protecting themselves.” About 51 percent of those surveyed said they were concerned about being a victim of identity theft while engaging in a financial transaction using public Wi-Fi, and 45 percent were concerned about making purchases over public Wi-Fi using an account in which personal information is stored. Only about 16 percent of those surveyed used a VPN while traveling, AnchorFree said (http://bit.ly/1b3PwYb).
C Spire broke ground on a $20 million data center in Starkville, Miss., to provide businesses in the southeast with a full suite of cloud solutions, said the company in a news release Monday (http://yhoo.it/1f8DvlZ). The 23,800-square-foot data center is located at the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park in Starkville, said the company. C Spire’s Tier 3-plus facility will provide businesses with ample commercial space, and it will be directly connected to C Spire’s fiber network. C Spire recently said Starkville is a winner of its competition to build out fiber networks in Mississippi (CD Nov 5 p12 ).
To address “principles for global Internet cooperation, proposed frameworks for such cooperation and a roadmap for future Internet governance,” the Panel on the Future of Global Internet Cooperation was created, said a press release published Sunday. ICANN was the initial “catalyst” for the panel, with the idea that the group would “address issues outside it’s [ICANN’s] sphere of responsibility.” The inaugural meeting of the panel will be Dec. 12-13 in London and its first report is expected in early 2014. The chairman of the panel is Toomas Ilves, president of Estonia. Other panelists include Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google; Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; and Fadi Chehade, CEO of ICANN.