Information Technology job growth has been and will remain solid, despite the otherwise “feeble” labor market, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in a report Thursday. The report went public in advance of the government’s expected release Friday of July’s job growth statistics. The IT sector added more than 742,000 jobs between 2001 and 2011, with IT employment growing 125 times faster than employment as a whole, the report said. IT’s future potential as a strong job growth sector depends on lawmakers enhancing education and increasing IT’s presence in transportation, healthcare and other areas, the report said. “IT job growth continues to be a bright spot in an otherwise dark employment landscape,” ITIF President Rob Atkinson said in a news release. “IT jobs can also be thought of as the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said: “With advances in technology, a constant flow of new devices, and the untapped potential for smart grids and intelligent transportation systems, the prospects for high-quality job creation” are very encouraging (http://xrl.us/bni6p3).
Valley Telephone Cooperative said it’s “deeply concerned about a framework that caps investment in our future rural infrastructure and eliminates reimbursement for expenses already incurred or committed to in order to provide quality, state-of-art technologies to rural businesses and residential customers.” The telco wrote the FCC in support of a petition by Dell Telephone Cooperative for limited waiver of certain high-cost universal service rules, including the cap of $250 per line per month, the rule limiting reimbursable expenses related to high-cost loop support (HCLS), and the extended limits on recovery of corporate operations expenses applied to HCLS and interstate common line support (http://xrl.us/bni6oy). “The demographics of Dell, like VTCI, require large sums of USF per customer to provide and maintain the services each rural American has had a right to receive since the Communications Act of 1934,” the telco wrote. “VTCI recommends swift action by the FCC approving the limited waiver requests."
Suddenlink Q2 sales increased 6.5 percent from a year earlier to $513.3 million, it said. Profit was $26.6 million, versus a $42,000 loss a year earlier due to higher interest expense, lower sales and higher depreciation and amortization. The cable operator recently agreed to sell itself to BC Partners and the CCP Investment Board in a deal valued at $6.6 billion (CD July 20 p8).
The House passed a bill to decrease the number of executive appointments that need Senate confirmations (http://xrl.us/bni6qf). The legislation passed earlier this week, Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act (S-679), once signed by President Barack Obama, will exempt a number of positions across 27 departments and agencies from the Senate confirmation process. Among these positions is the Rural Utilities Service administrator in the Department of Agriculture. Currently, the position is held by Jonathan Adelstein, who was appointed by Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2009. The bill, which was reported out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was passed by the Senate last year. Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said in a statement (http://xrl.us/bni6mq) that the legislation “represents the Senate at its best. A problem was identified, and Democrats and Republicans worked together to craft a solution. Now, future Administrations will be able to get their teams in place more quickly, and the Senate will be able focus its time and energy on the most important Executive Branch appointments."
Sprint Nextel responded to allegations from the New York Attorney general that it failed to collect the necessary taxes from its New York customers. “Sprint recently received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its investigation of our practices in the collection and remittance of state and local taxes, including those in New York,” the carrier said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bni6oh). “Sprint is cooperating with the SEC in regards to its inquiries and we believe our practices ... are in compliance with applicable law.” The complaint is “without merit” and questions the virtue of the wireless taxes the attorney general’s office is asking consumers to pay, Sprint said in a written statement. “We intend to stand up for New York consumers’ rights and fight this lawsuit.” The New York attorney general first sued Sprint for what it called a “groundbreaking” case of tax fraud of over $300 million in April (http://xrl.us/bni6n3).
The FCC’s restarting its voluntary 180-day clock on Tribune’s applications to transfer broadcast licenses as part of exiting bankruptcy. Now that a U.S. bankruptcy court approved the company’s fourth reorganization plan, and ordered that without further court action it takes effect Monday, on that day the agency’s deal clock will resume ticking at Day 75 (http://xrl.us/bmf3e6), wrote Chief Barbara Kreisman of the Media Bureau’s Video Division in a Thursday letter to a Tribune attorney. The clock was stopped in October and set back 15 months (CD Oct 14 p13) as work by bureau staffers reviewing the deal slowed because of the delay in court approval for the emergence plan.
United Telecom changed customers’ telecom service providers without obtaining authorization and verification, in violation of FCC rules against “slamming,” the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said in an order released Thursday (http://xrl.us/bni6nx). United Telecom had argued that authorization was received and confirmed through third-party verifications. The bureau reviewed the verifications United Telecom submitted, and found that the language the verifier used was not explicit enough. The verifier had asked, “Are you at least 18 years of age and authorized by the telephone account owner to make changes to and incur charges on these telephone lines?” The bureau explained, “a switch from one carrier to another differs from merely making changes to the customer’s service.” United Telecom must remove all charges incurred for service provided for the first 30 days after the alleged unauthorized changes. The company had no comment.
CBS Q2 sales fell 3 percent from a year earlier to $3.5 billion, the company said. The drop was due to the timing of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament semifinals and an online streaming deal it reached in the year earlier period, the broadcaster said. Profit increased 8 percent from a year earlier to $427 million, it said after the markets closed Thursday. “We are containing our costs and reducing our interest expense,” CEO Leslie Moonves said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bni6rg).
The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association has concerns about the transparency, accuracy and predictability of regression analysis-based caps on USF support, association officials told FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bni6ni). NTCA asked the commission to address statistical and data-related issues on the caps, and conduct or release the results of any testing to assess their validity and volatility. “Making the effort to more properly calibrate and test the caps should have minimal, if any, impact on the Commission’s budgetary objectives, given that the Wireline Competition Bureau itself has noted that the caps are anticipated to have at most a $10 million per year net ‘budget’ savings impact” once fully implemented in 2014, NTCA said.
Broadcasters can access a new website for hosting their online public file information at https://stationaccess.fcc.gov. The public can access the site at http://stations.fcc.gov, a public notice released Thursday said (http://xrl.us/bni6mw).