The scope of a potential World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) broadcasting treaty was still an issue at Wednesday’s session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in Geneva. South Africa and Mexico presented a draft proposal for the treaty that includes transmission of broadcasting over the Internet. The exclusion of “non-traditional” platforms in the attempt to protect broadcasters against “signal-piracy” would mean ignoring the real problem, the South African Delegation said. “A treaty that does not provide protection against signal theft using new forms of technology would not be worth concluding in the 21st century,” the U.S. delegate said during the debate. Delegations that were not ready to go beyond protection for traditional broadcasters, she said, perhaps would find it important to protect their traditional broadcasters against “unscrupulous actors who stream their signal over the Internet.” But several countries are opposed to including Internet distribution of broadcasts in the treaty. Japan presented an alternative proposal that explicitly excludes webcasting, including simulcasting by the broadcasting organizations. India’s representative announced fundamental opposition to what the delegate said would be an extension of the original mandate for the broadcasting treaty, as defined by the WIPO General Assembly in 2007. Several nations, including Brazil and Venezuela, also were against expanding the broadcasting treaty, while not advancing faster on the treaty for copyright exceptions for the blind and visually impaired.
NAB criticized DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Dish Network for objecting to the current retransmission and program carriage consent process. There are more than 5,800 pay-TV providers in the U.S., NAB said in a written statement Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnhchd). It said that since 2000, “just .3 percent of pay TV companies have ever been involved in a program dispute resulting in a disruption of local television service.” The three companies are responsible for three out of every four retrans blackouts in 2012, the association said: Rather than negotiate in the free market, “this cozy pay TV cabal is manufacturing a phony crisis in hopes that Congress will fix a ‘problem’ that these companies are creating.” The most recent blackouts involve 26 cable channels that were dropped from DirecTV in a carriage dispute with Viacom (CD July 12 p10) and a broadcast retrans dispute between Hearst Television and Time Warner Cable (CD July 11 p18). Nexstar filed an FCC complaint against Time Warner Cable for importing the broadcaster’s signals from other markets with the same affiliation as the Hearst stations that were dropped from the cable operator’s lineups (CD July 16 p5). The operator is disappointed Nexstar “is working to assist and expand Hearst’s leverage against us and our customers,” a spokeswoman said. “We are confident that we are operating within our rights and the law and will continue to fight for our customers against this aggressive and coercive broadcaster behavior.” Broadcast-TV networks “can’t continue to demand huge price increases and expect us to silently pass those cost increases on to our customers,” Time Warner Cable said in a news release Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnhchq). Hearst said it presented the operator with a proposal Tuesday “that was within 5 percent of its offer to Hearst on July 9.” The cable company has failed to respond, Hearst President David Barrett said: The operator “is acting as the conductor of the public relations bandwagon ridden by other multi-channel video distributors in various unrelated negotiations with program providers.” Talks for a new retrans deal between the cable operator and broadcaster are “ongoing,” a Time Warner Cable spokeswoman said Wednesday afternoon. “In fact, our lead negotiator had lunch with Hearst officials yesterday, and we received a written proposal from them last night.” The operator agrees with Hearst that the stations should be restored to the cable subscribers, the spokeswoman said. “Only Hearst has the power to restore the programming. We agree with our customers that they shouldn’t lose their favorite network shows -- that’s why we've made great efforts to bring it to them where legally possible while Hearst is blacking out our customers.” TV stations are “manufacturing a retransmission consent crisis for consumers,” said American Cable Association CEO Matt Polka. “Broadcasters support the status quo because it allows them to leverage monopoly market power and friendly federal regulations to slam viewers with sudden signal blackouts that don’t end until targeted pay-TV providers surrender outrageous amounts of cash, driving up monthly bills."
ST-Ericsson projected Q3 sales will be “flat” with sales in Q2 due to the economic crisis and the “industry environment.” Q2 sales for the joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson grew 19 percent from Q1 to $344 million, but were down from $385 million in Q2 last year. Last quarter’s loss widened to $318 million from $221 million in Q2 last year. The revenue growth over Q1 reflected a “significant ramp of volumes” of the company’s NovaThor platforms shipping to “major customers,” ST-Ericsson said. CEO Didier Lamouche said the company ramped up the NovaThor ModAp platform with Samsung and Sony Mobile Communications and also “added several new Chinese key players.” The Xperia go smartphone became the fourth phone this year from Sony Mobile Communications to use the NovaThor platform, ST-Ericsson said. The company is “advancing” toward breakeven and “sustainable profitability,” Lamouche said. Q2 inventory declined by $38 million to $171 million, the company said. Two new Panasonic Eluga smartphones for the Japanese market use ST-Ericsson’s “power efficient” Thor M5780 thin modem, while a new Sharp Aquos smartphone is based on the power-efficient Thor M5730 and is shipping now in Japan, ST-Ericsson said.
Halo Wireless should pay the full value of the taxes assessed on its equipment in Arkansas despite the company’s petition in protest of the assessment, the Arkansas Public Service Commission tax division recommended to the Arkansas PSC in a Wednesday filing. “The Tax Division denies all allegations in the [Halo] petition not specifically admitted in this response and denies that Halo is entitled to any relief,” the tax division said (http://xrl.us/bnhbeb). Halo filed a petition to review the tax assessment July 11. In the petition, Halo says it only has telecom and routing equipment in Arkansas and says it’s worth far less than the assessed value of $300,000. “The assessed value of the Equipment according to the Ad Valorem Assessment received was $300,000, but the original equipment cost was only $42,785,” Halo wrote in its petition. “The Equipment is no longer new and could not be replaced for the same cost.” Halo estimated the equipment is now worth only $5,000 to $10,000, the petition said. In its recommendation, the PSC tax division notes “Halo failed to submit an annual report to the Tax Division as required by Ark. Code Ann. § 26-26-1602 and Ark. Code Ann. § 26-26-1603” and that “when no report is filed, the Tax Division shall inform itself as best it can.” “Halo has the burden of proving any flaws in its assessment,” said the PSC tax division, which “requests that the Commission deny the petition for review.” In response to the tax division filing, Halo Wireless Chief Operations Officer Russell Wiseman told us all the Arkansas equipment as well as labor in the state cost well under $50,000, that it doesn’t rise in value, and that he has no idea how the $300,000 figure was obtained, saying it has no basis in any economic reality.
Google still wants the FCC to define interoperability for videoconferencing in ways to promote non-proprietary application programming interfaces, executives told Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau disabilities officials about APIs they said should be “open” and “publicly available.” The company has released such an API for Web-based multi-user video chat application Hangouts that works on its Google+ social media service. Hangouts has a captions app, an ex parte filing said. The CSDVRS video relay service company “developed an application based on Google’s open API that enables integration of VRS and video remote interpreting on top of Google Plus Hangouts,” said the filing posted Tuesday to docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/bnhbpd). “Open, published APIs thus promote accessibility by allowing innovators to build on shared ... common infrastructure and establish bridges between technologies."
Britons are increasingly turning to connected devices, the Office of Communications said in its annual market report (http://xrl.us/bnhbg4) Wednesday. Smartphones and social networking are becoming more popular, although adults of all ages overwhelmingly say they prefer to communicate face-to-face with friends and family, it said. Text messages are the most-used method for daily communications among adults and 16-24-year-olds, in contrast to people over 65, for whom landline calls are the most popular form of daily outreach, it said. Face-to-face is still the most-used and preferred form of communication with businesses, it said. Tablet ownership jumped dramatically in 2011, from 2 percent of U.K. homes in Q1 2011 to 11 percent in Q1 this year, it said. The most common reason for buying a tablet is entertainment, it said. And although one key reason for purchasing a tablet is its portability, 87 percent of owners said they use the device mostly at home, it said. More adults now own e-readers, Ofcom said. Again, portability is given as the main reason for buying one, but 67 percent say they use their devices at home, it said. Britons are also starting to buy smart TVs, it said. Five percent of households now have one, and most use it to catch up on programs they've missed, it said. The survey also found that while telecom industry revenue continues its slow decline, the TV and radio sectors saw marked increases, it said. Around 60 percent of homes now have access to super-fast broadband services, and broadband take-up continued to rise steadily to 76 percent of households in Q1 2012, it said. Total home Internet access edged up to 80 percent of households in that quarter, it said. Despite the rapid advances in the media communications market in the past decade, there are still marked differences between older and younger people in terms of take-up and use of various services, it said. Adults spent 4.3 hours per day watching TV last year, with those 55 and over watching more, and 25-34s tuning in a little bit less often, it said. Average radio listening time each week has dropped slightly over the past 10 years, it said. Internet advertising spend is larger than for any other category of advertising, it said. The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games “are likely to be a significant event in the U.K. media and communications landscape” this year, Ofcom said. Seventy-seven percent of adults said they're likely to follow the games on any medium, with about three quarters saying they'll watch on TV, Ofcom said. One in five adults said they'll watch online via computer, tablet or mobile phone, it said.
The FCC’s analytical framework to evaluate competing alternatives to ILEC special access must be “forward-looking in order to capture current competitive activity and to address the dynamic nature of the high-capacity services marketplace,” Verizon executives told advisers to commissioners Ajit Pai and Mignon Clyburn, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnhbfr). Verizon stressed that the commission should evaluate the “contestability of the marketplace” by looking at where competitors currently provide service, and where they can provide service. Regarding the impending data request, a “simple market share analysis” would be “inappropriate because it is inherently backward looking”; the commission should obtain data on where competitors are offering service, where they can offer service, and where they plan to offer service, Verizon said. The telco added: “The mandatory data request should make clear that providers that do not respond will face consequences."
Given the complex industry-wide issues implicated by the waiver petitions by Vonage and others to obtain direct access to number resources, granting a waiver would not provide due process to Level 3, Bandwidth.com and CompTel, their attorney told an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (http://xrl.us/bnhbde). Number resources shouldn’t be assigned directly to non-carriers, and if the FCC wants to change the rules to that end, it should do so in a rulemaking, they said. Granting the waiver petitions on delegated authority would be “beyond the bounds of the [Wireline] Bureau’s legal authority,” they said.
The U.S. continues to lead the world in total number of wired broadband subscriptions but remains 15th in subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Wednesday. Its broadband statistics as of December 2011 (http://xrl.us/bnhbfp) showed Switzerland in top place in fixed broadband subscription penetration for the first time, closely followed by the Netherlands and Denmark. Japan is No. 2 in total number of fixed subscribers, after the U.S., the OECD said. Fixed wired subscriptions reached 314 million in the OECD area at year’s end, although growth slowed to 1.8 percent in the second half of 2011, it said. Greece, Poland and Chile showed the highest growth, it said. DSL is still the predominant platform, but it’s losing ground to cable and fiber-to-the-home subscriptions, it said. Wireless broadband subscriptions grew by 13 percent in the last six months, with Korea and Sweden still in the lead, it said. The global number of wireless broadband subscriptions in OECD countries is 667 million, up from 590 million in June 2011, it said.
The U.K. Office of Communications unveiled plans (http://xrl.us/bnhbcq) to promote more-efficient use of increasingly scarce geographic fixed-line phone numbers and ensure there are enough for the future. In the U.K., such numbers begin with 01 and 02. While the total quantity of geographic numbers held by communications providers (CPs) exceeds likely demand from end users, individual providers occasionally need new allocations, it said. Ofcom’s demand forecast shows that unless it acts now, there could be shortages of geographic numbers in some area codes, it said. That’s no direct risk to availability of numbers for consumers, but could deny local consumers the full benefits of competition because new CPs wouldn’t be able to enter the market, and some established providers might not be able to expand their services in the affected area codes, it said. Last September the regulator decided that where four-digit area codes need more local numbers, it will increase the supply of numbers by closing local dialing, it said. That means that fixed-line phone users in those areas must dial the area code when making local calls, it said. The change allows Ofcom to release new numbers without requiring changes to existing numbers, it said. But actions to increase the supply of numbers in an area code inevitably leads to some costs and disruption to consumers, CPs and Ofcom, it said. Its latest statement considers how to encourage CPs to make more-efficient use of the existing supply of numbers to reduce or avoid the need for changes, it said. It has now decided to introduce number charging in a pilot test covering 30 area codes with the fewest number blocks remaining for allocation; and to make 100 blocks of 100 numbers available to allocate to providers in each of the 11 areas with five-digit area codes, it said. The pilot will launch April 1, it said. Separately, Ofcom is also reviewing its administrative processes for allocating geographic numbers and will publish a consultation on several proposals later this year, it said.