After more than a year of delays, the U.K.’s long-awaited YouView IPTV service and its hybrid set-top box are now ready for launch, executives said at a London briefing Wednesday. YouView’s chairman, Lord Alan Sugar, and CEO Richard Halton said the service’s technical specification is now finalized, 2,500 home trial participants have enthused about it on Twitter, and YouView twin-tuner DVRs are in production at Humax. The first batches of boxes will go on wide retail sale at the end of July at just under $500. “It is a great moment in British television,” said Lord Sugar, the former Amstrad founder. “This is British technology. It was invented and designed here in the U.K., not California. YouView is not Internet on TV, it’s a whole new way of experiencing TV.” The core of YouView is an electronic program guide that seamlessly combines live over-the-air “Freeview” DTV content with live IPTV. The EPG scrolls forward though 100 Freeview channels and radio programming for the next seven days, or backwards over the last seven days using online “catch up” TV services, such as the BBC’s iPlayer. “YouView seamlessly combines the worlds of catch up and live TV on the living room TV,” said Halton. “There will 15,000 programs on back offer at any time, with 3,000 new per week.” A search option finds on-demand content by keying in a program or even an actor’s name. YouView is backed by the BBC, commercial channels ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, transmitter network operator Arqiva and telcos BT and TalkTalk. Combined, the seven partners have invested nearly $110 million in YouView, the venture said. YouView will be available either from retailers, with no TV subscription needed, or from an ISP as part of a phone and broadband package. Retail partners already signed up include John Lewis, Currys, Comet, Argos, Amazon, Richer Sounds and the Euronics group. BT and TalkTalk will offer additional content and services to customers. But a YouView box can be used with any ISP’s broadband connection. YouView will control the EPG and let any reputable content provider appear on it -- for a fee set by an as-yet unpublished menu of prices. More than 300 content partners have already expressed interest, said Halton. Sky’s Now TV and Scottish STV will be first to go live, he said. Of the expensive set-top box, Lord Sugar said “it’s normal to start with a top-end model. But I see this as a template, or carcass, of what’s to come. But it will take a little time.” YouView estimates there are already about 20 million Freeview set-tops installed in U.K. homes, but only a relatively few Freeview DVRs. “YouView becomes a replacement for a Freeview box,” Lord Sugar said. “Our target market for YouView is the 15 million people who are not subscribing to satellite or cable.”
Verizon Wireless is laying off 943 workers in Houston, according to the Texas Workforce Commission (http://xrl.us/bndson). The closing call center’s workers’ formal layoff date will be Aug. 25.
NAB “stands ready to work” with the FCC “to encourage the voluntary inclusion of radio chips in all mobile devices, NAB CEO Gordon Smith wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski this week. He cited the role radio stations played in distributing weather information during the recent storm that struck the East Coast and Midwest. “NAB believes the time is right for a serious discussion about the voluntary activation of radio chips in cell mobile phones,” Smith said. The CTIA called the plug for FM chips in phones a “shameless attempt to use natural disasters and the misfortune of others” to push a public policy agenda.
Consolidated Communications Holdings (CNSL) completed the acquisition of SureWest Communications for $324 million, CNSL said (http://xrl.us/bndskq). Wells Fargo said it favors the consolidation that makes CNSL more fiber-centric than its RLEC model. SureWest brings a 343-mile fiber ring in Sacramento, Calif., and a 60-mile ring in Kansas City, Mo., to CNSL, Wells Fargo said.
The FCC asked Cablevision for a list of the regional sports networks (RSNs) it owns, operates or manages and a list of each designated marketing area served by its cable systems, a letter released this week shows (http://xrl.us/bndsmi). The information will help the commission determine whether it should extend, relax or allow to expire the exclusive contract prohibition of its program access rules, the letter said. “We are also analyzing a cable operator’s marginal profit when a cable operator acquires an additional customer from a competing MVPD,” it said. The letter asked for information about the number of subscribers who buy only video service and who buy a bundle of services, as well as the revenue “derived from all services.” It also asked about the costs of providing those services. It requested responses by July 11.
The U.S. is proposing at the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement talks in San Diego a new provision that will “obligate parties to achieve an appropriate balance” in their copyright systems in providing “exceptions and limitations for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said (http://xrl.us/bndsmn). “These principles are critical aspects of the U.S. copyright system, and appear in both our law and jurisprudence,” it said. The “balance” sought by the U.S. proposal “recognizes and promotes respect for the important interest of individuals, businesses, and institutions” that rely on “appropriate exceptions and limitations in the TPP region,” USTR said. It’s the first time that the U.S. is making such a proposal in any U.S. trade agreement, it said.
Acacia Research said HSN will license its Site Update Solutions subsidiary’s intellectual property as part of an agreement to settle pending litigation. Site Update Solutions sued nearly three dozen companies in 2010, including Amazon, Disney, Facebook, Nissan, Salesforce.com and Walmart, alleging infringement of its patent for a “Process for Maintaining Ongoing Registration for Pages on a Given Search Engine,” court filings show.
The FCC has undertaken proceedings required by the Open Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications (ORBIT) Act, including actions to implement certain deregulatory measures. While U.S. policy goals regarding the promotion of a fully competitive global market for satellite communications services are being met in accordance with the ORBIT Act, “there have been some allegations of anticompetitive conduct that the Commission will investigate further,” the FCC said in its report to Congress released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bndsij). The FCC is required by the ORBIT Act to provide annual reports on the impact of the privatization of Inmarsat and Intelsat. The privatization of the companies had a positive impact on the domestic market and competition, the report said. Intelsat’s privatization allowed it to compete freely, “led to more competitive choices in the U.S. market than existed before privatization and continues to encourage the development of service offerings to U.S. customers,” it said. Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network service is being utilized in innovative ways by its customers, including in response to recent natural disasters, the report said.
Five rural carriers applied for $413,039.62 in funding from the FCC’s broadband adoption pilot (http://xrl.us/bndrwh) and suggested two forms of pricing for Lifeline-eligible customers: “One, a flat discount equal to $25 per month over the 12 months of the program; the other, a sliding discount that begins at $40 during the first three months of the program, moves to $30 during months 4 through 6, $20 during months 7 though 9, and $10 in months 10, 11 and 12. The total of each subsidy will equal $300 per customer over 12 months.” After a year, the carriers would evaluate to determine the effectiveness of each subsidy. The five joint applicants, all members of the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, are Adams Telephone Co-Operative (Golden, Ill.), Alpine Communications (Elkader, Iowa), Leaco Rural Telephone (Hobbs, N.M.), Madison Telephone Co. (Staunton, Ill.) and Mid Century Telephone Cooperative (Fairview, Ill.). The carriers estimate “1,078 low income, rural customers will benefit from their proposed program” and they based their request for funds on “the individual ETCs’ best estimate of the number of Lifeline eligible customers who will participate,” the application said. They propose subsidizing the non-recurring installation fee and have partnered with Connected Nation to “provide free online digital literacy training” to customers and thus remove “two additional significant barriers to adoption,” the application said. The FCC announced the pilot in April with $25 million in overall funding.
CenturyLink subsidiary Actel filed at the FCC to sell about half of its 700 MHz A-block licenses to U.S. Cellular, said Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche in a research note. “These complement [U.S. Cellular’s] current coverage footprint. While there is likely some Channel 51 interference in some of these areas, we note that [U.S. Cellular] has successfully cleared some A block markets in the past.” Fritzsche predicted that CenturyLink, which has an MVNO arrangement with Verizon, will also sell its 700 MHz B-block licenses, with AT&T the most likely buyer.