The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology denied communications consultant Jansky Barmat Telecommunications’ petition asking the FCC to modify rules allowing smaller antennas for fixed satellite service use in the 13.75-14 GHz band. Jansky said the proposed rule changes “would allow the FSS to more fully utilize existing in-orbit capacity to provide service” and increase the amount of Ku-band FSS uplink spectrum “to more closely balance the amount of Ku-band FSS downlink spectrum,” the office said in an order (http://xrl.us/bniqo8). Reducing the minimum earth station antenna size to 1.2 meters “would increase the potential for interference to military operations,” the order said.
Android remained the top operating system in the U.S. smartphone market in Q2, but its numbers were on the decline, Strategy Analytics said in a report released Monday. The number of shipped Android-powered phones dropped to 13.4 million, from 15.3 million in the same period last year. The company’s market share stood at 56.3 percent -- a drop of more than four percentage points from its 60.6 percent last year, the report said. Apple’s shipping numbers rose to 7.9 million smartphones, up two million from last year. Its market share rose to 33.2 percent -- 10 percentage points up from last year, the report said. “Apple is rumored to be launching a new iPhone in the coming weeks, and that event, if it takes place, is going to heap even more pressure on Android in its home market,” said Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston. BlackBerry’s market share dropped to 6.5 percent, with its smartphone shipping numbers dropping by more than a million units to 1.6 million. “Consumers, businesses and operators continue to be frustrated by BlackBerry’s limited touchscreen smartphone portfolio and repeated delays to its new BB10 operating system,” said Scott Bicheno of Strategy Analytics. Overall smartphone shipments in the U.S. fell 5 percent year-over-year, to 23.8 million units, the report said. Alex Spektor of Strategy Analytics called the quarter “one of the slowest growth rates ever experienced” by the U.S. smartphone market (http://xrl.us/bniqa5).
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved the indirect transfer of control of Network Billing Systems to Fusion Telecommunications International, in a Monday order (http://bit.ly/N7nbzV). Within 20 days of the transaction, the two parties must file a notice of consummation and identify any necessary address changes the commission should note, the order says. Network Billing Systems “will continue to provide services under its current authority,” the PUC said. “The proposed Transaction is said to be in the public interest because the combined companies will offer customers an alternative to legacy carriers through their array of IP-based and circuit switched communications services,” said a Minnesota Department of Commerce analyst in a July 10 report included with the order that recommended approval of the transaction. “The Transaction is also expected to provide Fusion and NBS with access to greater financial resources that will allow them to eventually combine their operations and become more effective competitors to legacy carriers."
Cable & Wireless Worldwide CEO Gavin Darby will leave the company in late October, when Vodafone Group is set to complete its $1.6 billion purchase of CWW, Vodafone said Monday. Nick Jeffery, Vodafone Global Enterprise’s current chief executive, took over as head of CWW effective immediately, Vodafone said in a written statement. The European Commission approved the purchase earlier this month, concluding that the mostly wireless Vodafone’s acquisition of the mostly wireline CWW would not have enough market power to shut out other operators (CD July 5 p14). Darby will stay on until late October to “ensure a smooth transition,” Vodafone said. Three other top CWW officials will leave at the same time (http://xrl.us/bniqmf).
The Federal Aviation Administration must update its assessment of federal liability risk from commercial space launches, the Government Accountability Office said in a report. The U.S. provides less commercial space launch indemnification for third-party losses than China, France and Russia, the report said (http://xrl.us/bniqmo). Indemnification coverage is limited in the U.S. by the Commercial Space Launch Act Amendments (CSLAA), it said. Estimating probable losses from a rare catastrophic event is difficult, “and insurance industry officials and risk modeling experts said that FAA’s method is outdated,” it said. The agency hasn’t had outside experts or risk modelers review the appropriateness of its method, the report said. The planned increase in manned commercial launches and re-entries raises some issues “that have implications for the federal government’s indemnification policy for third party liability,” according to insurance officials and experts interviewed, GAO said. The amount and price of insurance that could be provided “could change quickly if a large loss were to occur, according to insurance industry representatives.” GAO said launch companies and customers it contacted “believe that ending federal indemnification could lead to higher launch prices for U.S.-based launch companies, making them less price competitive than foreign launch companies.” They said a gap in federal indemnification is the lack of coverage of on-orbit activities -- “that is, activities not related to launch or reentry, such as docking with the ISS [international space station] and relocating a satellite from one orbit to another.” Although the actual effects on competition of eliminating CSLAA indemnification are unknown, “several launch companies and customers with whom we spoke said that in the absence of CSLAA indemnification, increased risk and higher costs would directly affect launch companies and indirectly affect their customers and suppliers,” GAO said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., proposed updating the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) to permit consumers to voluntarily share their video-watching history. The proposal, which could have implications for online video streaming sites that seek more integration with social networks, was filed as an amendment to the Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-3414). The amendment would reform the VPPA to allow any person to permit the sharing of their video habits as long as their video provider allows the consumer to easily withdraw such disclosures. Leahy had previously advocated reforming the 24-year-old law but said during a Senate Privacy Subcommittee hearing earlier this year he had concerns that a one-time user consent checkoff could become an “all-time surrender of privacy” (CD Feb 1 p10). “Privacy is first and foremost about control and choice, and if that is the purpose and effect of Senator Leahy’s amendment it is a wise idea,” Christopher Wolf, director of Hogan Lovells’ privacy and information management practice group and co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, told us. If Leahy’s amendment to S-3414 becomes law it would provide an opportunity for people to share their video preference with their friends and “create their online brand,” said Wolf, who testified at the subcommittee hearing: “People want to share what they are doing in many respects, and online video is one of those respects.” Users on Facebook already use social sharing applications to notify their followers when they read certain news articles or listen to Spotify songs, he said. Wolf said the proposal wouldn’t be limited to Netflix users and could present new opportunities for traditional video content providers. The House passed a separate VPPA reform bill, HR-2471, in December by a vote of 303-116. Neither Netflix nor Facebook responded to our request for comment.
The State E-rate Coordinators’ Alliance asked the FCC for clarification on which E-rate rules permit service providers to bundle ineligible end-user devices with E-rate eligible services and still have the underlying Priority 1 service be 100 percent E-rate eligible (http://xrl.us/bniqg3). The petition points out areas where the eligible services lists seem to contradict each other, and asks for clarification (http://xrl.us/bniqg3). “If the FCC does agree that such VoIP and other end-user equipment bundles (e.g., tablets) are E-rate eligible, is there a line where the Commission would deem such bundles as too extreme?” the petition asks.
The commission should deny petitions by independent payphone providers challenging state commission decisions denying refunds of amounts paid under valid state tariffs, AT&T and Verizon executives told an adviser to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Thursday. In several states, payphone providers have challenged LECs’ existing payphone line rates as inconsistent with pricing rules adopted in the federal commission’s 1996 payphone orders, and subsequently clarified in the FCC’s 2000 Wisconsin Order, they said in an ex parte filing(http://xrl.us/bniqgg). Some state commissions have ordered refunds, and some have denied refunds. “The Commission has determined that states are responsible for regulating basic payphone line rates in accordance with federal pricing standards, indicating that the availability of refunds depends on state law, including state procedural rules,” the filing said. “Whether a particular state determination is correct under the particular facts of the case is not an appropriate topic for a declaratory ruling.” Courts, not the commission, are responsible for determining whether a state commission applied the law correctly, they said.
The U.S. District Court in Chicago, in response to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) request, stopped what the FTC called a telemarketing scam operated in the U.S. from the Dominican Republic that claimed to provide mortgage assistance relief to Spanish-speaking homeowners, the FTC said (http://xrl.us/bniqbq). The four companies named as defendants (http://xrl.us/bniqbo) staged a Chicago location and accrued more than $2 million without providing promised services, the commission said. Separately, the FTC staff said in a statement released to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that they supported protections for consumers using general purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid cards (http://xrl.us/bniqcn). The FTC Act protects GPR card users from some fraud, but they don’t receive the same protection the federal government provides to credit and debit cards, the FTC said (http://xrl.us/bniqc3). Some users may not know that a difference exists, it said.
Sponsors of the Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-3414) said they were “baffled” by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to the revised bill and sought to correct some of what they called its recent “unfounded” mischaracterizations. The statement came in a letter sent Friday to Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Maine, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that was released Monday (http://xrl.us/bnip7y). The senators said they could not understand why the Chamber opposed their decision to embrace voluntary cybersecurity standards in the revised bill. The sponsors abandoned their proposal for mandatory minimum cybersecurity standards in a prior draft of the bill (S-2105) following “extensive discussion” with the Chamber and other stakeholders, the letter said. The Chamber said in a letter sent last week the voluntary critical infrastructure cybersecurity standards in S-3414 could be used to impose new obligations on U.S. businesses (CD July 27 p12). The senators also sought to correct the Chamber’s argument that S-3414 would eliminate the ability of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) to receive cybersecurity information directly from the private sector. The Chamber said in its letter a cybersecurity approach that excludes NSA and DOD creates silos that would “diminish the timeliness and quality of the threat data exchanged.” But S-3414’s sponsors pointed to Section 707(a)(4) of the bill, which they said “makes clear that such existing and future information sharing can continue if members of the Chamber want to continue to send information directly to the NSA.” The Chamber did not comment. The Senate was scheduled to begin debate on S-3414 Monday after our deadline. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor Monday the Chamber should join the effort to pass S-3414. “The Chamber of Commerce said government and the private sector should work together to develop incentives for businesses to voluntarily act to protect our nation’s critical infrastructure,” Reid said. “This legislation will do exactly that -- establish a public-private partnership to make our nation safer and protect American jobs.”