Public Knowledge defended Dish Network’s “AutoHop” product and consumers’ rights to record TV programming, in a brief it sought to file with a federal court. News Corp.’s Fox sued Dish over the service and sought to block it (CD Aug 28 p5). The service makes it easier for subscribers to watch prime-time TV shows without ads. Public Knowledge said it filed the brief, but it had not yet appeared in the docket for the case in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, a review of the records showed. The court should reject Fox’s attempts to assert rights it lacks, the Public Knowledge brief said (http://xrl.us/bnqbyk). Fox “attempts to erase the long-settled distinction between direct and secondary copyright infringement in an attempt to portray its anti-consumer lawsuit as a business dispute,” the brief said. “Its argument -- that it is unlawful for a viewer to record a program and then play it back without commercials -- is not limited to DISH customers. If Fox prevails, all private, noncommercial home recording is in peril.” A Fox spokesman said the company plans to file an opposition to the Public Knowledge brief. “We are not challenging consumers’ DVR use, but we are attempting to stop Dish’s unauthorized VOD service that strips out our commercials, in violation of our Contracts with Dish and copyright law,” he said. “Additionally, Dish itself has admitted that disabling those features will have no impact on consumers’ DVR usage."
Jonathan Adelstein, who took over this week as president of the Personal Communications Industry Association (CD Sept 17 p15), said in an interview his message will be the importance of building out infrastructure and how it offers a key solution to solving the expected spectrum crisis. “People are running around talking about the spectrum crunch, that there’s a need for spectrum,” he said. “I'd like to define it more broadly as a data crunch. The ultimate goal for consumers and the economy is to accommodate the need for more wireless data. More spectrum is sort of the effective means for getting there.” Just making spectrum available for broadband isn’t enough, Adelstein said. “As more spectrum comes online it will ultimately require new infrastructure to accomplish the ultimate goal of meeting the data crunch,” he said. “Infrastructure deployment addresses the data crunch with or without new spectrum, but new spectrum can’t help without new infrastructure.” Policymakers do recognize the importance of infrastructure, he said, with Congress approving a collocation by right provision as part of the February spectrum law, the FCC imposing a shot clock for wireless zoning decisions and the White House issuing an executive order on deployment of facilities on public lands. “I really think you are seeing policymakers get it that infrastructure is an essential element of a solution,” Adelstein said. Still, he said that “demand for wireless data is exploding and you can’t build infrastructure fast enough to keep pace with it.” Adelstein said local and state officials are important and one of his top focuses will be on “really energizing our state operations.” Companies that build out telecom infrastructure are getting lots of bipartisan support nationally and in the states, he said. “This industry is creating jobs,” he said. “You have people who want to hire people to build today, right now.” Adelstein, a Democrat, is a former FCC commissioner, who left his job as administrator of the Rural Utilities Service to take the top job at PCIA Monday.
Nintendo of America declined to say if any of the videogames that will be released for the Wii U at its Nov. 18 U.S. launch take advantage of the near field communication (NFC) technology in the console’s GamePad controller. NFC enables mobile devices to establish radio communication with other devices that are in close proximity. The company “had a lot of information to share” at its Wii U launch event in New York last week and “didn’t have the time or space needed to do” that service, as well as video chat, “justice,” NOA said. “More details will be announced soon” about those technologies, it said.
Investor concern about the potential for extra regulatory scrutiny on transactions combining cable operators and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) was removed by Monday’s FCC order granting NCTA’s forbearance petition, Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant wrote in a note to investors. He said the commission’s legal analysis should survive any court challenge to its forbearance order (CD Sept 18 p4), if one materializes. Though expected, the ruling is nonetheless good news for CLECs, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote in a note to investors. “We do not believe there are specific transactions that were awaiting this ruling, but the ruling does allow for potential future transactions if the cablecos continue to enhance their enterprise offerings or if they become interested in fiber networks outside of their regional footprints,” she wrote.
All new Fox Home Entertainment movie releases will be UltraViolet-enabled, starting with the science fiction thriller Prometheus, a company spokesman said Tuesday as it introduced a Digital HD initiative that will make its titles available via download or streaming on connected devices ahead of their Blu-ray, DVD and video on demand releases. Prometheus was made available Tuesday through Digital HD at under $15, three weeks before its Blu-ray, DVD and VOD availability, said Fox. Fox will release five UltraViolet-enabled movies by the end of this year, including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Ice Age: Continental Drift, The Watch and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, the spokesman said. Fox said all those titles will also be Digital HD offerings. The company was a founding member of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), but waited until now to release an UltraViolet-enabled title because it “wanted to wait for the user experience to be far superior than what it was when it launched,” the spokesman said. There is more retail support now and penetration is growing, he said. But he told us UltraViolet is part of Fox’s digital strategy, not its entire strategy. The UltraViolet rollout started in October with the release of Warner’s movie Horrible Bosses on Blu-ray and DVD. Disney remains the sole UltraViolet holdout among the major Hollywood studios. More than 600 Fox movies can now be viewed “anywhere, anytime” under the Digital HD initiative through Amazon.com, CinemaNow, Google Play, iTunes, PlayStation, Vudu, Xbox Live and YouTube, Fox said in a news release. The spokesman said not every title is available via every third-party company’s digital delivery platform. Retailers are setting the pricing, but all new releases will be under $15, the spokesman said.
Verizon Wireless kicks off the second annual meeting of the participants in its LTE in Rural America program Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnqbt2) at the Verizon Innovation Center East in Waltham, Mass. “To date, 18 rural carriers participate in the program, through which Verizon Wireless leases 700 MHz C block spectrum to companies to build and operate their own 4G LTE networks in rural communities,” Verizon said. “Earlier this year, Cellcom and Pioneer Cellular were the first to introduce 4G LTE service for their customers. Four other rural carriers are scheduled to launch later this year."
Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., urged President Barack Obama to take steps to protect U.S. networks from the “enormous and growing cyber threat,” in a letter sent Tuesday. The senators asked the president to direct the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to convene an interagency group to develop voluntary standards for the private sector to safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure. Janet Napolitano already has authority to issue advisory guidelines under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 “and we ask that you instruct her to do so,” the senators said. Coons and Blumenthal, both sponsors of the stymied Cybersecurity Act (S-3414), acknowledged that an executive cybersecurity order “cannot and should not be the final word in cybersecurity,” but said a well-crafted set of voluntary cybersecurity standards could be an important step. “Only legislation can replace the existing legal regime -- which stifles information sharing -- with new laws that are consistent with both the protection of civil liberties and the promotion of cybersecurity.” The White House did not comment.
AT&T has offered the FCC “only make-weight arguments in defense of the status quo” of the special access marketplace, “that do not hold up under any reasonable level of scrutiny,” tw telecom said in a letter posted Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnqbgm). Tw telecom criticized what it called “attempts to divert attention away from the incumbent LECs’ overwhelming control of the special access marketplace.” AT&T downplayed the significance of ILEC market shares, even though it is an “essential element” of the analysis, tw telecom said. AT&T also made much of the concentration of special access demand in about 1,500 buildings, and would likely argue that competitors can construct their own facilities to those buildings, tw telecom said. But that ignores the buildings that show lower levels of demand, but still need special access services, the telco said. And “AT&T offers no more than empty semantics in response to legitimate concerns about the terms of its special access discount plans,” tw telecom said. “AT&T requires a customer to commit to maintaining at least 80 percent of its volume service in order to receive the lower overall rates associated with circuit portability,” tw telecom said: “This provision is clearly problematic, as it severely limits the ability of customers that need circuit portability to purchase circuits from alternative providers."
The former secretary and treasurer of Halo Wireless wants to ensure the North Carolina Utilities Commission knows Halo was liquidated effective July 19. The company was liquidated amid multiple cases alleging it never paid necessary access charges (CD Aug 2 p8). Former employee Carolyn Malone sent the NPUC a Sept. 13 letter, posted Monday, reiterating its collapse. Halo “is now the responsibility of Linda Payne, the Chapter 7 United States trustee,” she wrote, and told the commission to nix eight names, including her own, from any correspondence relating to Halo (http://xrl.us/bnqaso). Despite its liquidation, Halo has not disappeared from all state commission proceedings. This month the Arkansas Public Service Commission has attempted to continue tax assessment proceedings with Halo initially begun prior to the company’s liquidation (CD Sept 17 p18).
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is going paperless, it said Monday. The commission no longer has “requirements for parties to submit multiple paper copies of documents, beyond a signed original, filed with the PUC,” according to the announcement (http://xrl.us/bnqaf2). “The PUC also is ending the practice of distributing paper copies of filings throughout the Commission,” it said. “Employees are being encouraged to read documents electronically, think twice before printing, use network printers rather than desktop printers when documents need to be printed, and rely on the PUC Bureau of Administration to print lengthy documents.” Utilities, telcos and other filers are also able to file larger documents now, 10 megabytes up from five, the PUC said. It has also ended internal sharing of printed documents, it said. PUC Chairman Robert Powelson attributed the decision, in part, to “keeping paper costs in control,” in a statement.