The FCC Public Safety Bureau rejected requests by Bedford County, Pa., and Sandwich, Mass., to make more use of the 470-512 MHz band, spectrum which public safety agencies will eventually have to leave as a result of the February spectrum law. The bureau used similar language in both orders on the T band. “In light of the Spectrum Act and in accordance with the [FCC’s T-Band] Suspension Notice, we find that Sandwich’s application would, if granted, increase the degree to which the T-Band is currently licensed because the application is for a new repeater that would expand Sandwich’s authorized interference contour,” said the order on Sandwich (http://xrl.us/bnjxyy).
Wi-Fi service provider Boingo Wireless said it acquired Cloud Nine Media, a company that sells Wi-Fi sponsorship (http://xrl.us/bnjxxt). Boingo allows users to connect their smartphones and laptops to Wi-Fi hotspots located in 500,000 airports, hotels, coffee shops, restaurants and convention centers around the world. Cloud Nine Media sells Wi-Fi sponsorship, which allows advertisers to sponsor free Wi-Fi access in exchange for advertisements being placed in front of the Wi-Fi users. “As we've expanded our Wi-Fi services into new venue categories, the demand for sponsored access and location based advertising services has grown in parallel,” Boingo Wireless CEO David Hagan said in a written statement.
Comcast is offering a service designed to make moving homes easier on its customers, it said. The “Movers Edge” program will allow customers in certain markets to take their cable equipment with them, and provide a “concierge-like” hotline for customers with questions about moving or transferring services, the company said. “With 68 percent of households having broadband access, today’s connected consumer views having Internet, cable and phone service in a new home just as much a priority as things like electricity and water,” said Tom Karinshak, senior vice president of customer experience.
Charter said it will offer $1 billion in senior unsecured notes due 2022. It plans to use the proceeds to repay other debt, it said.
Disney is “very encouraged” with how well the Disney Channel TV Everywhere app, launched through Comcast in May, has performed, CEO Robert Iger said late Tuesday on an earnings call. “The take-up rate in terms of downloading the app and ultimately authenticating has been impressive,” he said. “And what is really impressive, particularly from the Disney Channel side, is the number of shows that have been viewed on that app.” Its initial success “proves a number of things to us,” Iger said. “One, the power of mobile media. Clearly the [mobile] device, mostly the tablet, to some extent the smartphone, is a device that people are willing to watch a longform video on, particularly kids, and that is very encouraging. What we have got here is a model that benefits the consumer, because it gives the consumer more ways to access the programs conveniently. It benefits the distributor, because we're protecting the business model, because of the need to be a multichannel subscriber, and it certainly benefits us.” As a result, Iger thinks Disney “will do more deals like the one that we did with Comcast,” he said. “There is a variable, too, of distributors that would like to launch these apps,” he said. “But we are willing to launch them as part of overall extensions of the omnibus deals that we have done with them, or the deals that we have done for the channels, and not just allow to distributors to launch them basically outside of the format of an extension of our deal.” Disney also is developing technology it expects to deploy in the fall for ESPN- and Disney-branded apps “to embed advertising that is discrete to these apps,” both for VOD and for streaming, Iger said. “And so we have an opportunity, we believe, not just to use these apps to increase the value of the multichannel ecosystem, but ultimately to drive greater revenue through advertising.” Asked in Q-and-A whether Disney sees social gaming as a lower-priority business opportunity, given that Wall Street has soured on it, Iger said: “Our strategy on the games front is to diversify a modest investment in console, investment in mobile and investment in social. We have actually grown share a bit on the social front lately.” Disney also has seen “some interesting growth thanks to the new Facebook app center that was launched recently, where we are gaining access to customers -- the users of Facebook for marketing purposes that we didn’t have before,” Iger said. “If you check the app center out, if you play social games, you will note that you will be marketed to by friends or through friends who are playing social games, and you will be marketed to from companies that create games because of the games you may have already played.” And so Disney thinks it’s “gaining access to a marketing platform that we actually believe is encouraging,” Iger said. “The other things to notice there is still growth in Facebook in terms of number of users. And the numbers in terms of how much time Facebook users spend playing games are staggering. And so we still believe in that business. But, look, our investment is relatively modest in the space. I think we launched about 10 games this year. A lot of them are based on Disney-owned IP, which we believe gives us not necessarily a great advantage, but an interesting way into that space. So we feel relatively good about it. It is not a huge business for us, but it is one that we are going to continue to be in.” Disney revenue for the three months ended June 30 increased 4 percent from a year earlier to $11.1 billion and profit rose 24 percent to $1.8 billion (CD Aug 8 p19).
Sales at News Corp. for the three months ended June 30, its fiscal Q4, fell 6.7 percent from a year earlier to $8.4 billion. Sales declines at its TV division, DBS division, publishing unit and studio more than offset a 15 percent gain in revenue at its cable networks business, it said. The company reported a quarterly net loss of $1.6 billion, a swing from a $683 million profit a year earlier, a result of a $2.9 billion writedown on its publishing businesses.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center released a report detailing recent online scams (http://xrl.us/bnjxv7). The report “is based upon information from law enforcement and complaints submitted to the IC3, details recent cyber crime trends, new twists to previously-existing cyber scams,” according to the site. Some of the scams in the report include a fake political survey that requests an individual’s email address and credit card information, a credit score monitoring site that advertised its services as free but charged users a monthly rate without users’ knowledge after the free trial concluded and a malware that attempts to extort users by telling them they have violated federal law and asking them to pay a $100 fine to the Justice Department.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought industry comment on updating the question pools in the Commercial Operator License Examination for Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) and restricted GMDSS operations. “The Commission’s goal is to ensure that the questions reflect the current duties and responsibilities of commercial radio operator licensees and state-of-the-art technologies,” the bureau said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bnjxi7). Comments are due Sept. 7, replies Sept. 24.
Google’s fiber deployment in the Kansas City, Mo., area shows that deregulation works and raises intriguing questions about the future structure of the broadband industry, Director Fred Campbell of the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project wrote on the group’s blog. “Google is building fiber in Kansas City because its officials were willing to waive regulatory barriers to entry that have discouraged broadband deployments in other cities,” he said (http://xrl.us/bnjxtg). “Google Fiber demonstrates that the problem isn’t deregulation, a lack of competition, or an unwillingness to invest in American infrastructure. It’s the imposition of burdensome bureaucracy, unnecessary costs, and political favoritism at all levels of government.” Campbell also suggests regulators should ponder what the success of Google Fiber could mean for the future of how the industry is structured. The money tends to be on the edge of the Internet, he said. “What if large Internet ‘edge’ companies -- Google, Apple, and Microsoft -- were vertically integrated with the large infrastructure providers -- Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T?” he said. “If the government allowed that to happen, it’s possible that the enormous profits generated by the edge companies ... would be used to rapidly drive ultra high-speed network deployment rather than fill cash coffers in offshore banks. Google is sitting on $43 billion overseas. Apple has more than $81 billion and Microsoft has $54 billion. By comparison, Verizon currently has about $10 billion in cash, which is less than one quarter of Google’s overseas holdings.” Campbell was Wireless Bureau chief at the FCC under former Chairman Kevin Martin.
The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment on a June 21 petition by UTPhone seeking a waiver of FCC rules limiting Link Up support on tribal lands to eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) receiving USF high-cost support. “UTPhone argues that it is entitled to receive Tribal Link Up support because it is building telecommunications infrastructure on Tribal lands,” the bureau said (http://xrl.us/bnjxqw). Comments are due Sept. 7, replies Sept. 24. “As a small Low Income ETC serving consumers predominantly on Tribal lands in Oklahoma, UTPhone is a local company that has fulfilled the statutory and public interest objectives of the Commission’s Low Income program by filling a valuable niche in offering competitive, high-quality, locally oriented wireline telecommunications services focused specifically on the particular needs and demographics of low income Oklahomans residing on Tribal lands,” the company said in its waiver request (http://xrl.us/bnjxrc). “With its new and growing broadband network infrastructure, UTPhone is now poised to add a high speed broadband service component to its bundle of offerings to these low income consumers who are struggling to move into the Internet age."