Spirit DSP has upgraded its TeamSpirit Voice and Video Engine, the company’s cross-platform mobile voice and video over IP software development kit. The new 3.5 version supports Android, iOS and other popular mobile operating systems, as well as a variety of PC browsers, Spirit said Tuesday. The new version also includes next-generation Automatic Rate Selection technology and support for multicore CPUs, the company said. “The world of communications is rapidly changing due to convergence of IT and telecom,” Alexander Kravchenko, Spirit vice president-sales, said in a news release. “The all-IP approach is becoming mainstream in the enterprise and consumer spaces, while the rapid deployment of LTE networks brings rich communications (RCS), HD voice, video calls, SaaS [software as a service] videoconferencing and other amazing services to dozens of millions of users. With TeamSpirit 3.5, we are expanding our partnerships with leading operators and solution providers developing top quality voice and video communication software products for 3G/4G networks, mobile devices and personal computers” (http://xrl.us/bnpbx3).
The Justice Department and FTC won’t try to block Suddenlink’s purchase by leveraged buyout and pension-management firms. The cable operator’s takeover by BC Partners and CCP Investment Board is slated to be included in a list of transactions that won’t be challenged, the commission will say in the Wednesday Federal Register. The agencies gave the deal involving Nespresso Acquisition Corp., being formed to buy the operator that’s formally named Cequel, early termination from the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period, the notice said. The FCC is reviewing the $6.6 billion deal (CD Aug 17 p15).
Clearlake Capital Group bought NetMotion Wireless, a provider of mobile virtual private network and network performance management software. NetMotion’s Mobility XE suite is the leading mobile VPN, while its new Locality software is the first mobile network performance management software, Clearlake said (http://xrl.us/bnpbud).
Portland, Ore.-based electric utility PacifiCorp asked for a 10-month extension of the FCC’s Jan. 1 narrowbanding deadline for its Part 90 radio channels. The utility said it made the request “out of an abundance of caution due to certain contingencies that are outside its control,” which could cause delays. “PacifiCorp has been working diligently and in good faith since 2003 to complete all of the steps that will be necessary for it to reconfigure the private mobile radio service (PMRS) facilities that PacifiCorp uses to support its provision of electric utility service to the public,” the company said (http://xrl.us/bno7uh). “In addition to complying with the FCC’s narrowbanding mandate, PacifiCorp is using this opportunity to consolidate PacifiCorp’s existing PMRS systems that operate in the VHF and UHF bands and to upgrade the entire system to a trunked, narrowband system on a common frequency band and technology platform with improved spectrum efficiency and service features.” The Wireless Bureau sought comment on the request (http://xrl.us/bnpcd3) in a public notice released Tuesday. Comments are due Sept. 21, replies Sept. 28.
SES signed an agreement with SatADSL to distribute SES Broadband in sub-Saharan Africa. The service will be provided by the Astra 4A satellite at 5 degrees east, SES said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bnpbva). SatADSL will begin marketing SES Broadband Saturday “to provide Internet access to businesses, banks, non-governmental organizations and governmental institutions in remote areas throughout Sub-Saharan Africa for critical applications such as financial transactions or reliable data transfers,” SES said. The broadband Internet package includes VoIP and will offer download speeds of up to 4 Mbps, it said.
Verizon Wireless’s “Share Everything” shared mobile data plans have been more successful than originally predicted, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said Tuesday in an investor report on a meeting with John Doherty, Verizon Wireless’s vice president-investor relations. “In our view, these plans have exceeded the company’s internal projections on almost every level (solid porting trends, new gross adds within a family account and from competitors, etc.),” Fritzsche said in the report. Last month, Fritzsche said in a report that a check-in with Verizon Wireless dealers revealed acceptance of the new shared-data plans was “greater than expected” (CD Aug 23 p5). Wells Fargo now estimates Verizon Wireless will add a net 1 million subscriptions in Q3, she said Tuesday.
Plainview, Texas, received its first access to fiber, broadband provider NTS said Tuesday. “NTS’ ongoing fiber build out, when completed, is expected to reach 19 new communities bringing the Company’s total FTTP [fiber-to-the-premise] passings to approximately 50,000,” the company said. The recent expansion comes following receipt of $100 million of federal stimulus money, it said. In Texas, NTS has provided fiber networkers in Lubbock, Levelland, Smyer, Wolfforth, Littlefield, Burkburnett, Brownfield, Whitharral, Slaton, Meadow, Wilson, Lamesa and Ropesville as well as in Hammond, La., according to the announcement.
Wireless is not a substitute for wireline, argued a commenter before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. Multiple people responded to an Aug. 27 PRC request for thoughts on an August Pew study on the topic. “The Pew Study findings re-enforce the NMAGO [New Mexico attorney general’s office] view that mobile wireless telephony is not a functionally equivalent or substitute service to wireline services in the context of evaluating CenturyLink QC’s claims that there is effective competition for local exchange services in its serving area in New Mexico,” QSI Consulting Chief Financial Officer Warren Fischer told the PRC in a filing released Monday (http://xrl.us/bnpbax). “Dropped calls are typical in mobile wireless communications,” Fischer said. Wireless phones may be better seen as “complements” rather than “substitutes,” he said. CenturyLink Regulatory Operations Director Robert Brigham disagreed. The Pew study “provides little if any insight into the functions of wireless service and how those relate to the functions of wireline voice service,” he said (http://xrl.us/bnpbbs). Wireless, cable telephony, CLEC and interconnected VolP “indisputably” provide equivalent service, he maintained in what has become a cornerstone of CenturyLink’s argument for a ruling of effective competition and subsequent deregulation (CD Aug 30 p5). Telemarketers now contact wireless and wireline, the Pew study said, which Brigham sees as evidence of their equivalence. Cellphones do suffer from dropped calls but it’s one attribute among many, he said. “Certainly, wireline and wireless phones are not identical,” Brigham said. “However, they do not need to be in order to provide functional equivalence and serve as substitutes."
The FCC late Monday filed its defense against the Verizon-led challenge of its net neutrality rules with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “Openness has been essential to the Internet’s extraordinary success,” the FCC asserts in the pleading (http://xrl.us/bno8qa). “By keeping barriers to entry low, openness enables anyone -- from large corporations, to start-up companies, to college students -- to create innovative applications.” Prior to the approval of net neutrality rules in December 2010, “there were significant threats to openness, and thus to the engine that has driven investment in broadband facilities,” the agency said. “The Commission responded to these threats by adopting modest, high-level rules -- in large measure continuations of longstanding, bipartisan FCC policies -- that preserve Internet openness and its concomitant incentives for innovation and investment. ... These sensible rules of the road fulfill specific statutory directives to advance broadband investment and to ensure that wireless licensees act in the public interest.” “Internet freedom is essential for U.S. innovation and economic leadership,” Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. “As we predicted, since the FCC’s adoption of Internet freedom protections ... which increased certainty and strengthened incentives to innovate and invest, we've seen significant increases in innovation and investment in Internet applications and services as well as in broadband networks."
The FCC’s regulatory fee process is “based on obsolete data” and needs to be updated, the GAO said in a study released Monday (http://xrl.us/bno8c6). On average over the past decade, the commission collected 2 percent more in regulatory fees than it was required to -- about $66 million in excess fees that “cannot be used without congressional action,” the report said. The Communications Act requires the FCC to base its fees on the number of full-time equivalents that perform regulatory tasks in certain bureaus, but the commission based its 2011 regulatory fee assessments on 1998 data, the report found. “After 13 years in a rapidly changing industry, FCC has not validated the extent to which its fees correlate to its workload,” the GAO wrote, finding the agency’s practice is “inconsistent with federal guidance on user fees.” As a result, “companies in some fee categories may be subsidizing companies in others,” the report said. Due to lack of transparency -- specifically, “the limited nature of the information FCC has published on it” -- it’s difficult for the telecom industry and other stakeholders to understand and provide input on fee assessments, GAO said. It recommended the FCC look at the examples of other fee-funded regulatory agencies for guidance, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.