All three of this summer’s NARUC telecom resolutions passed the association’s telecom committee unanimously Tuesday. The resolutions will preserve state authority to tax and charge VoIP providers for state USF funds, relay service and E-911; urge the FCC to continue pursuing rural call termination issues and enforcing penalties against violators; and question the agency’s use of what the resolution says is an “arbitrary and capricious” methodology of determining USF funds. The resolution on the FCC’s methodology proved the most controversial, and faced much debate and revision in both the telecom subcommittee and committee. USTelecom voiced multiple objections based on feared delays. Objectors feared delays would result from a resolution provision demanding the FCC refer to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service for many of its decisions (CD July 25 p8). “The FCC needs to get this [USF fund] model right,” said California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval. Resolution sponsor Commissioner Larry Landis of Indiana discussed USTelecom’s concerns at the Tuesday vote and said last-minute revisions had led the organization to be “satisfied” with the changes, which “may assuage the concerns of USTelecom if not all of their members.” The telecom committee clapped upon passing this third controversial resolution. Telecom Committee Chairman and Vermont Public Service Board Commissioner John Burke said voting was “smoother than usual” given the unanimity of all three votes.
House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., proposed an exemption Wednesday for the government’s development of FirstNet and voluntary spectrum incentive auctions from a House bill aimed at reducing regulatory spending (http://xrl.us/bnh64e). Eshoo said the passage of the Regulatory Freeze for Jobs Act (HR-4078) would delay the government’s work to implement the spectrum provisions of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, and urged colleagues to vote no on HR-4078. “With the auction of this prime spectrum expected to raise over $25 billion, passage of HR-4078 will not only delay access to this critical revenue, it’s simply bad policy,” she said in a speech on the House floor. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said he too was concerned. “The key to the development of America’s broadband mobile devices is more spectrum,” he told us. “I called for an inventory of all spectrum including military, and I'd like to see the military get incentives in the sequestration on the horizon to get money from the [broadcast incentive] auctions to give up some of this spectrum,” he said. “Anything I can do to help spectrum, I will.”
Arris Q2 revenue rose 31 percent to $349.3 million from the year-ago quarter. Profit of 13 cents a share was unchanged, the cable equipment maker said in a preliminary earnings release Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnh7jd). “I remain very encouraged as I look to the balance of 2012,” Chairman Bob Stanzione said.
Global tablet shipments soared 67 percent in Q2, year-over-year, to 24.9 million units, Strategy Analytics said Wednesday. Apple’s market share grew from 62 percent in Q2 last year to 68.3 percent, its highest level for nearly two years, the research company said. Microsoft tablets “remain niche,” with only a 1.2 percent share, but Strategy Analytics said “attention is turning to” the coming Windows 8 tablet launches. “Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains relatively healthy,” said Peter King, director at Strategy Analytics. He said Apple shipped 17 million iPads globally and “maintained its strong market leadership.” Apple also “continued to shrug off the much-hyped threat from Android and the iPad’s global tablet share is at its highest level since Q3 2010,” he said. Android captured a 29.3 percent share of global tablet shipments in Q2, “static” from Q2 last year, said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics. Global Android tablet shipments grew by more than half to 7.3 million units, he said. “Despite high expectations for companies like Amazon, Samsung, Acer and Asus, the Android community has yet to make a serious dent in Apple’s dominance of the tablet market,” he said. “Unspectacular hardware designs, limited uptake of cellular models and a modest number of tablet-optimized services have been among some of the main reasons for Android’s mixed performance so far,” he said.
More than 47 percent of feature phone users who bought a mobile device switched to smartphones in April, said a study by comScore, a digital business analytics company (http://xrl.us/bnh7gc). Almost 62 percent of the consumers purchased Google Android smartphones, about 25 percent bought Apple devices and about 7 percent bought Microsoft smartphones, the study said. Almost 110 million Americans owned a smartphone in April, a 44 percent increase from last year, it said.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation attacked a second Washington state law it claims is unconstitutionally vague, following EFF’s argument last week in federal court against a law targeting Backpage.com’s adult classifieds section (WID July 24 p1). The new case concerns a “cyberstalking” law that the group told a Clark County district judge (http://bit.ly/Oj5CzS) could endanger critical comments posted in other contexts, such as a negative review on Yelp. “The idea that courts must police every inflammatory word spoken online not only chills freedom of speech, but is inconsistent with decades of First Amendment jurisprudence,” its friend-of-the-court brief said. The case concerns “two former friends having a very public brawl,” one the ex-wife of the other’s friend, EFF said. Brandy Edwards created a dating profile under a male pseudonym on Okcupid.com and started a “consensual series of communications” with Amanda Westmont, the ex-wife, who in turn sent nude photos of herself to Edwards. Months later when their online relationship ended, the pseudonymous Edwards left comments on Westmont’s blog calling her a “liar,” “nutcase” and “whack-job” and offered to send Westmont’s nude photos to other people. Then Westmont reported the posts to police. Edwards was charged a year later under Washington’s cyberstalking law for “harassing and embarrassing” Westmont and for using “obscene” language, which included vulgarities, to do so, EFF said. The law punishes anonymous speech and certain “prohibited words,” and “therefore fails to criminalize any conduct distinct and separate from the act of speaking,” the brief said. The blanket prohibition on “lewd, lascivious, indecent or obscene” words also captures protected speech, as does the criminalization of speech intended to “harass, intimidate, torment or embarrass,” EFF said. By failing to “inform a person what acts are criminal,” the law fails as well: It doesn’t define “repeatedly,” doesn’t differentiate between “separate independent events over time or a single event with multiple acts,” and doesn’t define the “harass” series of prohibited actions. “The statute must rely on the sensibilities of each individual victim,” and such subjectivity in a stalking law has been found unconstitutionally vague “routinely” in court, the brief said. “The way this law is written, it could end up criminalizing things like posting a negative review on a website like Yelp,” EFF staff attorney Hanni Fakhoury said separately.
Raycom Media ordered Harris Corp. equipment to upgrade its DTV signal encoding at 43 stations, the broadcaster said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnh7bq). “The transition will deliver new efficiencies for Raycom including improved High Definition/Standard Definition signal quality, higher channel capacity and stronger signal redundancy to maximize on-air reliability.” The broadcaster is using Harris’s Selenio products for video/audio frame synchronization and audio processing for digital surround sound.
States and territories need to seek recertification for the provision of telecom relay services, the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday in docket 03-123 (http://xrl.us/bnh69b). The current certifications will expire July 26, 2013. “Although there is no prescribed deadline for filing, we request that renewal applications be filed no later than October 1, 2012, to give the Commission sufficient time to review and rule on the applications prior to the expiration of the existing certifications,” the bureau said.
The FCC dismissed an appeal by South Country Central School District seeking review of a decision made by the Universal Service Administrative Co. to deny the Suffolk County, N.Y., district E-rate funds for wide area network services that USAC found to be ineligible for funding. The Wireline Bureau said the appeal was moot “based on our finding that South Country submitted a different application the same funding year using the same contract for services and received E-rate funding for those services” (http://xrl.us/bnh68n).
A group of advocates for the deaf opposed the NCTA’s petition for a waiver of advanced communication services accessibility requirements for set-top boxes leased to cable subscribers (http://xrl.us/bnh67o). The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telecommunications Access, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., the National Association of the Deaf, and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network filed the opposition. They asked the commission to deny the NCTA request or shorten the waiver period, limit the amount of equipment it could cover and set up a way for the public to file complaints. The CEA filed comments supporting the NCTA petition (http://xrl.us/bnh67u). Granting the NCTA waiver would “further the public interest by promoting continued technological innovation, as well as greater predictability and certainty for cable operators and set-top box manufacturers,” the CEA said.