ViaSat urged the FCC to help foster the use of satellite broadband. Consumers increasingly select satellite broadband “in lieu of DSL, cable and wireless,” ViaSat said in an ex parte filing in several dockets, including 09-51 and 07-135 (http://xrl.us/bnqnb2). The Connect America Fund should allow satellite broadband “to compete fully with terrestrial providers,” ViaSat said about a meeting with Wireline Bureau staff. ViaSat said the CAF should facilitate ILEC use of satellite broadband. ILECs “can leverage satellite to quickly extend broadband to the unserved,” it said: They “should have to use satellite to extend service before seeking waivers, additional funds, etc. regarding their CAF obligations.” The company also urged that rules for the Remote Areas Fund should facilitate market-driven service terms and pricing.
The FCC should keep the example of NextWave in mind as it moves forward on rules for the pending incentive auction of broadcast spectrum, said Free State Foundation’s Seth Cooper on the group’s blog. NextWave won spectrum licenses in a 1996 auction then filed for bankruptcy two years later, after paying the government just $500,000 of the $4.7 billion it bid. NextWave succeeded in an auction “conducted according to a restrictive, protectionist approach instead of a truly free market approach,” leading to a decade of “messy legal battles” when that company wasn’t able to pay for the spectrum it bought, Cooper wrote (http://xrl.us/bmziav). “The FCC will hopefully show it has learned the lessons of NextWave in implementing spectrum incentive auctions and in reviewing spectrum secondary market transactions,” he said. “For the FCC, this means ensuring there is open eligibility for those entities offering the highest bids to obtain spectrum licenses. It also means auctioning spectrum licenses free from encumbrances that could depress their value. A pro-investment policy for spectrum, so vital to job growth and economic expansion, requires reliance on free market forces for ensuring spectrum licenses obtain their highest value."
About 188 million U.S. Internet users watched about 37.6 billion videos online during August, comScore said. The total amount of video ads viewed during the month was 9.5 billion, it said. Google continued to dominate online video delivery, delivering 13.7 billion videos to some 150 million unique viewers. Online video ads reached more than half the total U.S. population in August, comScore said. ComScore said it updated some of its survey methodology to include demographic estimates based on 2010 census data, more efforts to reach cellphone-only homes and a new technique to account for cookie rejection in Safari Web browsers.
Liberty Global said it plans to offer to buy the remaining public shares of Belgian cable operator Telenet Group Holding for about $45 a share, a 14 percent premium over Telenet’s average closing share price for the prior month after capital adjustments. The deal values the Telenet shares not already owned by Liberty Global at about $2.5 billion, it said. “We believe this is the right time to become a wholly-owned part of Liberty Global’s pan-European platform,” Liberty CEO Mike Fries said. Telenet said an independent panel of directors on its board will review the proposal. Meanwhile, the company is continuing with a planned stock buyback program “in case LGI does not proceed with the Intended Offer … or in case Telenet’s shareholders tender in the Intended Offer by LGI but the conditions to which LGI’s Intended Offer are subject are not met and not waived by LGI,” it said. Disney is “very close” to releasing movies and other content with KeyChest digital rights locker technology, and will likely deploy it “broadly” across many titles, Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo told us. He wouldn’t say when the first KeyChest-enabled titles will hit the market and at what price.
The Utility Reform Network (TURN) ramped up its opposition to California’s SB-1161 in launching a new Web campaign. The bill would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission from regulating VoIP service for the next eight years and currently awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) signature or veto by Sept. 30. TURN posted a form letter that people can send to oppose the bill (http://xrl.us/bnqmye). The organization calls SB-1161 “AT&T’s wolf in sheep’s clothing” in its petition. “Other states that have passed similar, phone company-sponsored deregulation bills have quickly seen prices rise and services deteriorate,” TURN said. “Don’t let California be next!” TURN sent Brown a detailed letter of opposition in September (CD Sept 13 p11), which inspired strong blowback from AT&T and Verizon. Both companies support the bill, which has many industry backers. The bill’s supporters have long fought the perception that the bill will hurt consumer protections or goes against prevailing telecom policy throughout the country (CD June 25 p6).
British Sky Broadcasting is “fit and proper” to retain its license despite the phone-hacking and other illegal shenanigans carried out by its owner News Group Newspapers (NGN), the U.K. Office of Communications said Thursday. Nevertheless, it came down hard on News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s son James, saying his conduct in relation to events at NGN “repeatedly fell short of the conduct to be expected of him as a chief executive officer and chairman.” However, Ofcom said, the evidence available to date isn’t enough to conclude that James Murdoch deliberately engaged in any wrongdoing. A company director is required to exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence in carrying out his functions, Ofcom said. “We consider James Murdoch’s conduct, including his failure to initiate action on his own account on a number of occasions, to be both difficult to comprehend and ill-judged.” The regulator also found no available proof that Rupert Murdoch or News Corp. acted inappropriately in relation to phone hacking, concealment or corruption by employees of NGN or News International. Sky’s compliance record in broadcasting matters in 2006-2012, which included James Murdoch’s stint as CEO, has been good, Ofcom said. During that time, Sky “continued to be a successful company.” James Murdoch is no longer chairman of the board, and his retention as a non-executive director doesn’t mean the broadcaster is unfit to have a license, it said. Nevertheless, Ofcom said, findings by the Leveson inquiry into phone-hacking and other unlawful activities, and the results of pending criminal proceedings, “could be relevant” to Sky’s performance of its duty. News Corp. said it’s pleased Ofcom found the broadcaster fit to hold its license and that it’s “proud of both News Corporation’s and James Murdoch’s distinguished record in facilitating the transformation of Sky into Britain’s leading pay television and home communications provider.” But the company disputed Ofcom’s comments about James Murdoch’s prior actions, saying they're “not at all substantiated by evidence."
HTC America agreed to pay $515,000 and to take other steps to show continued compliance with FCC requirements it hit benchmarks for offering handsets that meet agency standards for radio frequency interference (M rating) and inductive coupling (T rating). The consent decree settles a Wireless Bureau investigation dating to 2009. “HTC asserts that the company is now fully compliant with the hearing aid-compatible handset deployment requirements and that, as of June 2012, all handset models offered by HTC met or exceeded both the M3 and T3 rating for hearing aid compatibility,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bnqmwv). “In express reliance on the covenants and representations in this Consent Decree and to avoid further expenditure of public resources, the Bureau agrees to terminate the Investigation."
Unwired Planet is moving its operations from California to Reno, Nev., it announced Wednesday. The 18-year-old company “has invented and patented technologies foundational to today’s mobile communications,” registering about 200 patents and with about 75 pending applications, according to its announcement (http://xrl.us/bnqmr8). The move began a week before the announcement and corporate headquarters should completely transition to Nevada by June 2013, Unwired Planet said. Its CEO cited Nevada as a “business-friendly, cost-effective and convenient location from which to run our intellectual property business” in the company’s statement. The announcement came the same day Unwired Planet sued Google (http://xrl.us/bnqms9) and Apple (http://xrl.us/bnqmtj) for infringing its patents.
Regulatory predictability, not just “certainty,” is key to investment in broadband, the Phoenix Center says in a new study (http://xrl.us/bnqmqi). “The effective stimulus of broadband investment requires regulators not only to make prudent decisions today, but also to signal to investors that the future is a favorable investment climate and, if possible, to make inter-temporal commitments to particular regulatory paradigms,” the paper said. “The FCC frequently claims that reducing regulatory uncertainty improves investment incentives, but the agency is wrong,” said center Chief Economist George Ford. “The question is not just about certainty, but what are providers more certain about? If providers become more certain that regulation will reduce future profitability on network infrastructure, then regulation reduces investment incentives. Unquestionably, the FCC’s aggressive regulatory approach has signaled an unfavorable climate for network investments."
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and Wireless Bureau launched an unlicensed wireless microphone registration system covering seven states and Washington, D.C., another step toward more widespread use of the TV white spaces for wireless broadband. The system allows “major event/production venues” to register with the TV bands database systems “so that operations of unlicensed wireless microphones and other low power auxiliary station devices at specified times will be protected from potential interference caused by other unlicensed devices,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bnqh3m). States covered are New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. The system is at http://www.fcc.gov/uls/login.