The European Commission wants to ensure that Europeans can go online “anywhere, anytime and through any device by 2015” and that the EU is fully interconnected across borders and networks by 2020, EC President José Manuel Barroso said Wednesday. Barroso outlined EC 2013 priorities in a letter to European Parliament President Martin Schulz following his State of the Union address to lawmakers. Effective networks will be central to Europe’s future and investing in modern infrastructure and the digital economy unlocks growth across the single market, he wrote. The EC work program could include measures to: (1) Use technology to remove barriers between networks, boost network security and improve consumer choice. (2) Free up spectrum bandwidth and create the right environment to explore the full potential of cloud computing. (3) Align value-added tax systems to make cross-border e-commerce business easier. Other priorities include updating Europe’s approach to intellectual property rights and spurring the development of smart energy grids and smart metering, he said. Meanwhile, as one of its 2013 priorities approved Tuesday, the European Parliament said the EC should keep working on copyright reform, “taking full account of the problems that arose during the debate and vote” on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
Comments are due Oct. 11 on a petition by Central Texas Telephone Cooperative for an FCC waiver of the rule limiting reimbursable capital and operating expenses for high-cost loop support (http://xrl.us/bnpcmt). Replies in docket 10-90 are due Oct. 26.
FairPoint wants to accept the $2.8 million allocated to it by the FCC in Connect America Fund Phase I support, a Wireline Bureau public notice said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnpcku). The telco previously declined the money, but wants a waiver to allow it to accept, “conditioned on the favorable disposition of litigation currently pending with the Maine Public Utilities Commission,” the notice said. FairPoint also seeks a waiver of the requirement to connect to one unserved location for every $775 in incremental support accepted. Comments in docket 10-90 are due Oct. 11, replies Oct. 26.
Motorola Solutions said it and Indigo Strategic Partners led an investment in Agent Video Intelligence, a video analytics provider. The company’s video analytics products are used with video surveillance networks to “analyze, alert and search for events of interest in video footage,” they said. The investment in the Israel-based Agent Video marks Motorola Solution’s first international investment since its split from Motorola Mobility last year, it said. “There is substantial growth in the amount of surveillance video that is being created each year,” said Boaz Or-Shraga, managing director for Motorola Solutions Venture Capital.
Representatives from the Sports Fans Coalition and the National Consumers League met with aides to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Monday to discuss the coalition’s petition to let the sports blackout rule expire, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnpcis). Sunday’s “blackout of a local Tampa Bay, Florida NFL game demonstrates that even under the NFL’s new policy, blackouts persist,” the notice said. “The Commission should consider eliminating or, in the alternative, establishing a two-year sunset of the Sports Blackout Rule so that at the very least, the League’s anti-consumer practice is not subsidized by a Commission rule."
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said in a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor the anniversary of 9/11 should remind lawmakers of the threats posed by cyberterrorists who seek to attack U.S. networks and critical infrastructure. “Today, we face another major potential attack on our country. This attack is not a hijacked plane or bomb, although that remains a threat, rather it is a cyberattack,” he said. “A major attack on our cybersystems could shut down our critical infrastructure -- financial systems, communications systems, electric grids, power plants, water treatment centers, transportation systems and refineries -- that allows us to run our economy and protect the safety of Americans,” he said. Coats is a cosponsor of the SECURE IT Act (S-2151), an alternative to the stymied Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-3414). Coats said Congress “really hit a low point this year when the Senate Majority Leader rushed a cybersecurity bill [S-3414] to the floor under strained circumstances. One-fifth of the U.S. Senate -- both Republicans and Democrats -- met every day for nearly two weeks to iron out our differences on cybersecurity legislation. And with the active participation of 20 senators representing both parties and key committees of jurisdiction, we came close. Unfortunately, politics threw a wrench in our plans before a negotiated settlement was reached.” In a veiled condemnation of a rumored cybersecurity executive order Coats said: “Rather than acting alone, I call on the President to join all the members of this chamber and work together to do the right thing -- cast aside partisanship and put the security of our country above political security.” In August, John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, suggested that the White House was considering an executive order to secure electrical power systems from cyberattacks. The White House did not comment.
Comments on a News Corp. petition for FCC declaratory ruling (http://xrl.us/bnpcmn) that would let the company’s entire shareholder base participate in a January 2013 vote on the company’s plan to split off its publishing units (CD June 28 p12) are due Oct. 15, oppositions Oct. 30 and replies Nov. 7, a public notice released Tuesday said (http://xrl.us/bnpchi). The vote would otherwise put the company at odds with the FCC’s foreign ownership interest limits on licensees, the notice said. The bureau also gave permit-but-disclose status to ex parte meetings on the issue, the notice said. The docket is 12-257.
Tribune said a federal appeals court dismissed one of its creditors’ appeals to block the company’s bankruptcy exit. In a letter to the FCC (http://xrl.us/bnpcgu), Tribune said the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Aurelius Capital Management’s challenge to a bankruptcy court order that required a $1.5 billion bond be posted by Aug. 29 to stay the certification of Tribune’s reorganization plan. Tribune said it will keep the FCC up to date on further developments.
Members of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade plan to ask mobile application experts how the industry has been able to achieve “explosive growth and job creation” in recent years, said a majority memo that circulated this week. The subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday at 9:45 a.m. in Room 2322 Rayburn featuring witnesses from the Association for Competitive Technology, TechNet, Flurry and FastCustomer. Members will also ask what federal policies are fostering more growth in the sector and whether there are federal roadblocks that inhibit future growth and expansion in the mobile app economy, the memo said.
"There’s an alignment of the planets,” and “by the time we get to the next World Cup in June 2014, we could be looking at Super Hi-Vision 4K in some way or other.” So said Richard Lindsay-Davies, director general of the U.K.’s not-for-profit industry organization, the Digital Television Group, at the official launch event Monday in London of the DTG’s Future of Innovation in Television Technology Task Force. The DTG sets and tests standards on DTV and connected IPTV services in the U.K. Its new task force pledges to showcase U.K. leadership in defining “the measures that should be implemented to leverage the U.K.’s track record of innovating in television technology,” the DTG said. Its key findings and recommendations will be presented at the DTG Summit next year. The launch event featured working demonstrations of all the major set-top box solutions now available in the U.K. for seamlessly blending off-air TV with broadband IPTV for “catchup” and VOD viewing. Also on display was a 55-inch 4K display from Toshiba labeled for “Ultra High Definition TV” and screening demonstration footage. Notably, there was no demonstration of 3D and no mention of 3D in any of the presentation speeches. Lindsay-Davies urged everyone present to look at the 4K demonstration, expressing regret that there was no 8K screen available, nor any of the 8K footage shot by the NHK and BBC during the London Olympics. We were told all available 8K equipment and content was being used for showcasing at the IBC show in Amsterdam. “We need to identify what’s needed and coming next after HD because HD is not the end of the game,” Lindsay-Davies said. “But we do not want to be busy fools.” Bandwidth and processing speed limitations will be the two big issues surrounding 4K or 8K video delivery, he said. More efficient codecs will be ready by 2014 and should ease bandwidth constraints, and the costs of high-speed processing are falling all the time, he said. As for World Cup as the appropriate launch platform for 4K, “historically, big sporting events are milestones for technical change,” he said. “Everything is heading our way for 4K to reach the market by 2013 and 2014, although probably first for large screens in clubs and pubs.” Although tactful and circumspect, Lindsay-Davies expressed more confidence in 4K and 8K than in 3D. “I always feel the increased resolution brings its own feeling of depth,” he said of 4K and 8K. “Also with 4K or 8K resolution, a frame rate of 60 Hz may not be enough. It can make the pictures look more like film. So I suspect we may need to adopt a higher rate. But that is the kind of thing the task force will be looking at.”