DirecTV reported making “ongoing efforts in cooperation with third-party hardware and software companies to develop the capabilities necessary to comply with the ‘rendering’ requirements for closed captioning of video delivered via Internet protocol” under the FCC IP captioning order. “Challenges” remain in “achieving compliance” for some platforms by the Sept. 30 deadline, an executive told front-office Media Bureau officials, “especially given that not all platforms will accept captioning information delivered using the safe-harbor SMPTE-TT protocol,” the company said in a filing posted Thursday to docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/bne62b). DirecTV and other pay-TV and consumer electronics interests have supported a petition by the Digital Media Association to delay the IP captioning rendering deadline until Jan. 1, 2014 (CD June 7 p18).
A Hawaii telco that sells video isn’t following FCC must-carry rules, Mauna Kea Broadcasting said in a complaint. The broadcaster asked the agency to make Hawaiian Telcom TV distribute in the Honolulu designated market area (DMA) KLEI Kailua-Kona for the rest of the must-carry cycle that runs through 2014. The telco told the station it need not carry it because HTTV’s cable systems are outside KLEI’s broadcast coverage area, the complaint said. What matters is that the station and system are in the same market, Mauna Kea said. “HTTV does not dispute that KLEI(DT) and the Cable Systems are both assigned to the Honolulu, Hawaii DMA, nor does it provide any relevant evidence to suggest that the station’s market, for purposes of mandatory carriage, is anything other than the entire DMA, including those communities served by HTTV.” A Hawaiian Telcom spokesman declined to comment on the complaint posted Thursday in docket 12-1 (http://xrl.us/bne6cg).
The NTCA told FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s new wireline aide, Nicholas Degani, about “the serious problems created by the lack of transparency and predictability in the new regression analysis-based caps” on USF support, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bne4mo). NTCA told Degani that “even the vast majority” of companies unaffected, or affected slightly, “have been expressing overwhelming concern regarding their inability to plan for network investment and operations beyond the next twelve to eighteen months because of the potential volatility and indecipherable nature of the caps.” The association asked for clearer rules to help with business planning, last Thursday’s filing said. That day, NTCA filed suit in the 10th U.S. Appeals Court to block the new rules (CD July 2 p12).
The FCC got three requests for emergency alert system waivers of a requirement that all EAS participants be able to get and pass onto viewers and listeners warnings in the newer common alerting protocol (CAP) format by June 30 a few days afterward. Docket 04-296 shows (http://xrl.us/bne4ow) that low-power FM station WLCJ Marinette, Wis. (http://xrl.us/bne4nz), WEVL(FM) Memphis, Tenn. (http://xrl.us/bne4u6), and Townsquare Media for New York stations WDLA(AM/FM) Walton, WIYN(FM) Deposit and Delhi FM outlets WTBD and WDHI (http://xrl.us/bne4vx) sought delays Monday or Tuesday. The first two waiver seekers are nonprofits that cited delays in getting necessary equipment, which requests that were made before the deadline also pointed to (CD July 2 p9). The low-power FM station said it waited until the date approached before placing an order. Industry officials have told us commission staff have warned that waiting too long isn’t a good excuse. A Public Safety Bureau spokeswoman declined to comment. Townsquare met the deadline to install CAP equipment, but the main studio in Walton for the stations it seeks a waiver for has no commercial broadband service available and so the outlets can’t get all messages, the company said. “To remedy this problem, Townsquare is in the process of installing a private microwave system to connect the Stations’ Walton main studio location to a nearby Townsquare main studio location, which would give the Stations access to broadband.” It ought to take three to six months to install that microwave system, the company said. Others seeking waivers recently but before June 30 include Pene Broadcasting for Leesville, La., stations KLLA(AM) and KJAE(FM) (http://xrl.us/bne48d) and Americus Communications for Wisconsin outlets WPCN(AM) and WSPT(FM), both in Stevens Point, and WKQH(FM) Marathon (http://xrl.us/bne5e2). Those companies said they waited to see if the deadline would be again extended by the commission. Other broadcasters and cable operators had also sought delays in recent days (CD July 3 p13).
Two forfeiture orders each for $15,000 went to Bailey Cable TV in Port Gibson, Miss., for retransmitting WGMB-TV and WVLA-TV both from Baton Rouge, La., without authorization from the stations (http://xrl.us/bne2x5, http://xrl.us/bne2y4). The retransmission violated Section 325 of the Communications Act and Section 76.64 of the FCC’s rules, the Media Bureau orders said.
The FCC shouldn’t “once again succumb to the lure of moving forward in haste” by granting several pending waiver petitions including from Bandwidth.com that would give companies direct access to phone numbers, the Rural Broadband Alliance told the agency Monday (http://xrl.us/bnevd3). Such a move, “without regard for unintended consequences,” would “de facto revise the established regulatory policy and rules without following the established rulemaking process,” RBA said. It accused the companies seeking waivers of attempting to “foster their business plans” as they “concurrently seek freedom from all regulatory responsibilities adopted to protect consumers.” Commission approval would effectively change established policy to “remove a lynchpin of the telecommunications regulatory framework adopted to protect consumers and serve the public interest,” the group said. Rules should “not be addressed on an ad hoc basis within the framework of waiver petitions, but as part of a comprehensive fact-based rulemaking process,” the alliance said.
Eighty-seven percent of U.S. households subscribe to a multichannel video service, Leichtman Research Group said (http://xrl.us/bnewa7). The percentage hasn’t seen a significant change in the past two years, and increased from 80 percent since 2004, the research firm said in a study released Thursday. Multichannel video subscribers’ mean income is 53 percent higher than the mean income of non-subscribers, it said. Six percent of households with annual incomes over $75,000 don’t subscribe to a pay-TV service, while 12 percent of those with $30,000-75,000 incomes and 27 percent of those with incomes under $30,000 don’t subscribe, it said. The study found that of the 42 percent of households it surveyed reporting they were negatively affected by the economy over the past year, 39 percent of them decreased spending on TV, Internet and phone services. Monthly spending on subscription video service increased by 7 percent to $78.63 since last year, Leichtman said. Subscribers with incomes over $75,000 also spend 14 percent more per month for the service than subscribers with incomes under $30,000, it said. A random sample of 1,369 adults in the continental U.S. was surveyed by phone in April and May, with a 2.6 percentage point margin of error.
Miami-Dade County, Fla., asked for a one-year waiver of the FCC’s Jan. 1 narrowbanding deadline for Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue (MDFR) services. “To date the County has migrated the majority of its UHF operations to the 12.5 kHz technology” but not its Fire Department “because of the complex nature of the County’s system and the technical challenges presented by narrowbanding,” the county said in seeking a waiver (http://xrl.us/bneuf6). The department is the largest in the Southeast, responsible for more than 2,000 square miles and 2.5 million residents. “All of the County’s police and aviation operations subject to the narrowbanding order have either already been transitioned from wideband to narrowband operations or have been acquired to operate in narrowband mode only. Moreover, the County managed operations for the Miami-Dade School Board has been similarly narrowbanded,” the county said. “The County has also already made significant progress on the narrowbanding of its MDFR facilities. All equipment purchased for the MDFR since 2004 is narrowband capable, including infrastructure, mobile and handheld radios. All 14 non-infrastructure frequencies have been narrowbanded with only those used for dispatch and tactical operations remaining at 25 kHz bandwidth."
Banks should presume that customers’ computers are infected rather than relying on them being secure, the European Network and Information Security Agency said Thursday. It responded to a report by McAfee and Guardian Analytics on recent “high roller” cyberattacks on wealthy corporate bank accounts (http://xrl.us/bne4bs). While it should come as no surprise that large organized crime groups are focusing on online banking sites, the attacks sparked a lot of attention for several reasons, ENISA said: (1) The attackers reduced manual intervention to a minimum, relying heavily on automation, and the assaults were fast and easily missed by users. (2) Banks’ protective measures, such as two-factor authentication and fraud detection, were circumvented. Users didn’t notice this immediately because the bogus transactions were hidden by malware that inserted JavaScript into pages. (3) Only PCs from users with high bank balances were targeted. The cyberattacks came in three phases, it said. Criminals targeted accounts using online reconnaissance and phishing, and singled out victims with high balances, it said. They then loaded malware onto victims’ PCs that was customized for victims’ online banking sites. The malware was triggered when a victim started an online session, it said. Later, automated fraudulent transactions were carried out in the name of the users and hidden from them behind warning and waiting messages, it said. The malware transferred money from savings to checking accounts, and then to mules abroad who took the cash and sent it onward using person-to-person money transfer such as Western Union, it said. ENISA recommended that banks: (1) Assume all PCs are infected and use protection measures to deal with that. (2) Secure online banking devices and help protect customers from fraudulent transactions by, for example, cross-checking with them about the value and destination of certain transactions via a trusted channel or device. (3) Aim for strong global collaboration in terms of prevention and response.
SES signed a new transponder capacity agreement with M77. Located at 23.5 degrees east, the capacity will be used for the direct-to-home distribution of M77 channels in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, SES said. M77 and sister company M7 Group use 13 transponders on the SES ASTRA satellite system, it said.