The Arkansas Public Service Commission has attempted to set up an October tax assessment hearing with Halo Wireless -- but the company no longer exists, liquidated in late July after a contentious, countrywide battle over unpaid access charges (CD Aug 2 p8). “A hearing is hereby scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m., on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 in the Hearing Room of the Arkansas Public Service Commission building” in Little Rock, the commission said, saying all testimony is due Oct. 2. The Arkansas hearing is to deal with a dispute over the assessed value of Halo’s Arkansas equipment. The state charged $300,000 but former Halo Chief Operating Officer Russell Wiseman, before he was removed during liquidation, told us it cost well under $50,000 (CD July 19 p18). The liquidation status is likely to “come to bear” in the proceedings, an Arkansas PSC spokesman told us. The commission was aware of Halo’s bankruptcy, the spokesman said, but he appeared unfamiliar with its liquidation. Halo’s tax assessment challenge in Arkansas had preceded its liquidation.
A filing freeze is in effect for applications to modify any of the vacant non-reserved band FM allotments scheduled for Auction 94, said an FCC public notice released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnpceb). The freeze also covers petitions and counterproposals that seek a change in channel, class, community or reference coordinates for those allotments as well as any applications that fail to fully protect those allotments, the notice said. Separately, the Media and Wireless bureaus invited comments on proposed auction procedures for Auction 94, an auction of FM broadcast construction permits (http://xrl.us/bnpcew). Comments are due Oct. 10, replies Oct. 24.
GOP members of the House Communications Subcommittee said the sharing proposal in the spectrum report approved by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was “too speculative to be the focus of the Committee’s spectrum strategy.” The comments were in a majority memo circulated Tuesday. The committee leadership did not rule out sharing scenarios in the future. The memo said the federal government needs to “play its part” in freeing up more spectrum for mobile broadband services. The committee plans a hearing on federal spectrum use on Thursday with witnesses from the GAO, NTIA, PCAST, and the Department of Defense, among others (CD Sept. 10 p8). The memo said Republican members plan to engage federal witnesses to determine how to clear spectrum in ways that not only works for governmental users but helps improve their capabilities. The Republican memo said sharing is “less useful than clearing spectrum and too untested to be the focus of the subcommittee’s spectrum strategy. Such sharing should be reserved for cases in which federal clearing is impossible.” The PCAST report was based in part on NTIA’s finding that it will take ten years and $18 billion to clear and reallocate spectrum in the 1755-1850 MHz band. But the analysis was based on aggregated estimates provided by the federal agencies using the spectrum and did not include an independent analysis, the memo said. The memo also chided PCAST for failing to address the economic and technological feasibility of its proposal. The proposal is “unlikely to raise as much money as clearing would, and might not even raise enough money to offset the costs that Federal users would incur to enable the sharing,” majority members said.
Digital distribution methods and mobile content will be the biggest revenue growth drivers in the media and telecommunications industry over the next one to three years, KPMG found in the results of a survey of industry executives released Tuesday. That represents a change from last year, when the KPMG survey found executives thought social media, online advertising and increased Internet access speeds and availability would drive industry growth. “Industry executives are dealing with dramatic transformational changes and, consequently, we may see shifts in emphasis and focus as they move quickly to capture resulting new opportunities,” said Paul Wissmann, KPMG national sector leader-media and telecommunications, in a news release. “The findings show that media and telecommunications executives believe in significant digital and mobile opportunity, and expect their companies to aggressively pursue these markets.” KPMG’s results are based on the survey responses of 101 executives from telecom and media companies, all of which were completed this summer, KPMG said (http://xrl.us/bnpcbv).
The EU made it’s Computer Emergency Response Team a permanent institution. The EU CERT is to prevent, detect and mitigate cyberattacks against the computer systems of all EU institutions. After a one year pilot phase, the Commissioners voted Sept. 11 to finalize it. A spokesman said politically motivated hackers are a threat, but the more difficult threat is posed by economically motivated hackers “who break into systems in order to steal information or establish a competitive advantage by accessing information.” The EU CERT is rather small, with only eight full-time staff.
Clarification: Public Knowledge’s Rashmi Rangnath said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative needs to provide more guidance on limitations and exceptions in countries’ copyright laws in its negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CD Sept 11 p8). Her group supports countries having freedom to design their own copyright laws, but without better guidance from the U.S., requirements to protect exclusive rights can diminish Internet freedoms, she said.
Philips Healthcare Systems and GE Healthcare urged the FCC to appoint a single entity as “spectrum coordinator” for the 2360-2390 MHz band, to be shared between aeronautical mobile telemetry and medical body area networks on a secondary basis and to take that step by June at the latest. The companies responded to a June further notice of proposed rulemaking. “Having a single coordinator will simplify the coordination process, accelerate initial implementations, reduce the costs of coordination in the longer term, and generally expedite overall deployment of MBAN networks,” they said (http://xrl.us/bnpb8q). The healthcare technology companies also said the coordinator should be appointed for at least 10 years “with an expectation of renewal” and should have extensive experience with the healthcare industry. The American Society for Healthcare Engineering of the American Hospital Association (http://xrl.us/bnpb9c) and Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council largely agreed with the comments filed by Philips and GE. “AFTRCC has no issue with the minimum qualifications” that have been proposed by the FCC, AFTRCC said (http://xrl.us/bnpb9k). “With respect to the number of MBANs coordinators, AFTRCC concurs with the notion that there be a single coordinator.” The commission approved an allocation of 40 MHz of spectrum, to be used on a secondary basis, for a new MBAN at its May meeting (CD May 25 p1).
The FTC voted 4-0-1 Tuesday to finalize a settlement between the agency and social networking site Myspace, which had been charged with misrepresenting its protection of users’ information by sharing identifiers linked to personal information with advertisers, according to a release (http://xrl.us/bnpb9a). Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen did not participate in the vote. According to the settlement, which the public could comment on earlier this year, Myspace is disallowed from misprepresenting its privacy practices moving forward and will be subject to independent assessments of its privacy policies regularly over the next 20 years.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider updates to the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) this month, the committee said. The committee agenda for Thursday’s business meeting includes consideration of HR-2471, a House-passed bill which aims to clarify U.S. law to permit “video tape service providers” to obtain a consumer’s informed written consent on an ongoing basis via the Internet. The bill would amend the 24-year-old VPPA, which forbids such providers from disclosing what movies people are watching unless a customer gives them permission to do so. A committee spokeswoman told us that language to update ECPA will be included in the VPPA legislation. HR-2471, which passed the House in December 303-116, could have tremendous implications for video streaming sites such as Netflix that seek greater integration with social networks (CD Feb 1 p4). Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., said he understands the need to “update these digital privacy laws to keep pace with the rapid advances in technology and the many new threats to privacy that American consumers and businesses face today,” in a news release. The committee will begin its markup at 10 a.m. in Room 226 Dirksen, but a committee spokeswoman could not say exactly when lawmakers would consider the bill. “Since this is the first time this legislation is being listed on our committee’s agenda, it can be held over another week per our committee rules,” the spokeswoman told us. “I'd also expect there would be amendments and such, so timing is a bit unclear but we are clearly trying to get the ball rolling,” she said.
There were few news releases or public statements circulated by telecommunications organizations or officials Tuesday marking the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. A year ago, public safety groups used the 10th anniversary to rally support for legislation funding a wireless broadband network for public safety. Those efforts met with success in February, when President Barack Obama signed into law spectrum legislation that will partially fund the new FirstNet. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai did commemorate the anniversary, saying more needs to be done. “Here at the Commission, this anniversary serves as a reminder that we must do all that we can to improve the communications capabilities of first responders,” Pai said (http://xrl.us/bnpb7v). “Whether emergency personnel are dispatched to respond to a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake, or tornado, effective communications can be the difference between life and death. Although the Commission has made significant headway over the last decade, there is much more for us to do. In particular, I look forward to working with my colleagues as we continue to implement the public safety provisions of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012."