The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) submitted reply comments backing petitions from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the CEA to be let out of certain accessibility rules with respect to TV sets and video game consoles that can also be used for advanced communications services (ACS) such as VoIP and videoconferencing. CEA and ESA also submitted reply comments in support of their own petitions. How the FCC rules on these waivers “will indicate how this new regulatory regime will be applied and enforced more generally moving forward,” TIA said (http://xrl.us/bncyex). “We urge the Commission to avoid an overly-rigid interpretation of the ACS rules to technologies that are used for non-ACS purposes,” it said. “TIA urges the Commission to take this opportunity to set a precedent of regulatory flexibility that will encourage innovation in ACS, and to provide the designers and manufacturers much-needed regulatory certainty in the application and enforcement of ACS rules.” The ESA said its waiver request should be granted, contrary to arguments of some consumer advocates (http://xrl.us/bncyfh). “ESA is cognizant of the concerns of disabled gamers and ESA members are taking steps to make games more accessible independent of any legal requirement to do so,” it said. Granting the waivers will promote “predictability and certainty among game makers, who otherwise may decline to experiment with ACS features for fear that such experimentation may trigger unclear regulatory obligations disproportionate to the feature’s value to the overall product or service,” it said. Similarly, the CEA again asked the commission to waive the ACS accessibility rules temporarily and with respect to certain TV sets and video players (http://xrl.us/bncygn).
KJAY asked the FCC for a waiver from new emergency alert system rules set to take effect at month’s end that require the ability to receive common alert protocol-formatted alerts. There is “not any physical broadband Internet connection existing or available at the transmitter site” in West Sacramento, Calif., because no “regular” ISP is able to serve that region, the company said (http://xrl.us/bncygz). It’s “investigated satellite internet delivery, and learned that this is infeasible because of obtruction [sic] to the view of the geostationary arc.” It will “continue to determine whether broadband Internet access has become physically available at the transmitter site,” and if access remains “physically unavailable, Company will request a six-month extension of the waiver,” KJAY said. When access becomes available the company will alert the FCC that it plans to come into “full compliance” with the new rules, it said. KJAY(AM) Sacramento, Calif., is the only broadcaster with those call letters in the FCC’s licensee database. The KJAY filing, made by a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., didn’t say what broadcasters were involved. We couldn’t reach the lawyer for clarification.
Actors’ unions praised a new World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaty reached in Beijing this week. “The conclusion of this Treaty marks the end of 15 years of hard work for the International Federation of Actors (FIA) and our member unions,” FIA President Agnete Haaland said in a news release. The group encouraged WIPO member states to ratify the treaty quickly. “This treaty will give performers critical rights that will let them control the legitimate exploitation of their work and benefit financially from the new digital reality,” Haaland said. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists also hailed the treaty: “With new rights to proper compensation for the use of our work and control over the use of our images and likenesses, actors will have important tools to protect themselves around the world,” the union’s co-presidents Ken Howard and Roberta Reardon said. MPAA CEO Chris Dodd called the treaty a step in the right direction. “We commend all parties for making the necessary compromises and reaffirming the current international copyright framework so crucial to worldwide economic and social development, Dodd said.
Thirty-seven percent of children ages 8-17 in 25 countries say they had been subjected to a “range of online activities that some may consider to be online bullying,” according to a study commissioned by Microsoft (http://xrl.us/bncyct). More than half surveyed expressed concern that they will be bullied online, while nearly 25 percent admitted to “having bullied someone else online at one time or another,” the study found.
Sencore will provide an advanced message data encapsulator for the PBS Warning Alert and Response Network Act compliance project. The technology is part of an effort to help allow the Public Broadcasting Service, its member stations and noncommercial educational stations “to provide next-generation emergency alert services,” Sencore said. It will perform message processing and handling, Web server hosting, message formatting and encapsulation and other functions, the company said.
"In our 20+ years of doing telecom audits, we've found that over 35% of invoices have some type of error,” said the telecom expense management team of Valicom in a report released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bncya7). Firms typically “pay too much for voice, wireless, and data,” Valicom said, which advocates companies develop clear plans on their telecom services and said the top way to save money is in telecom contract negotiation. The company emphasized the ways people can save money and touted its own telecom expense management programs. “Telecom, IT or finance pros can quickly understand where they should focus their energy to gain control over their management challenges and costs,” Valicom President Jeff Poirior said in prepared remarks.
Intelsat 19 was successfully transferred to geostationary orbit, Intelsat said. Its communications antennas are in their orbital positions “and the communications payload is being tested.” Data received from the satellite “indicate that the south solar array is damaged, and that the power available to the satellite will be reduced,” it said. The company expects to complete in-orbit testing by mid-July.
ICO Global withdrew its petition for review from the California Superior Court for Los Angeles County concerning its litigation against Boeing Satellite Systems International. The action follows a settlement agreement the companies reached “to which Boeing waived its right to appellate court costs and agreed to pay $10 million to ICO,” said Pendrell, ICO’s parent company. The California court overturned a 2008 ruling that held Boeing liable for concealment and misrepresentation around development of the Delta III satellite and awarded ICO $603 million (CD May 7 p13). ICO requested further review of the case last month. Pendrell “anticipated several years of additional litigation with Boeing relating to its attempt to recover costs from ICO,” Pendrell said: The settlement is in ICO’s best interests.
The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau adopted per-minute compensation rates to be paid from the interstate telecom relay services fund (http://xrl.us/bncx9d). Beginning July 1, the per-minute rates will be $2.03 for interstate traditional TRS; $3.16 for interstate speech-to-speech relay service; $1.77 for interstate captioned telephone service and IP captioned telephone service, and $1.29 for IP relay. The fund carrier contribution factor will be 0.01053.
4G Americas released HSPA+LTE Carrier Aggregation, a paper exploring an area under consideration for 3GPP standards development. “A number of possible network architectures can be foreseen for HSPA+LTE aggregation,” the paper said (http://xrl.us/bncx7o). “Most promising architecture options are seen with co-located multiradio base stations with the base station (NodeB + eNodeB) acting as the data aggregation point, and simultaneously maintaining the existing network architecture for the devices connecting to the network with one radio system at a time only.” “HSPA is the foundation of mobile broadband today and LTE is the next-generation high speed wireless technology of choice, so the time is now for 3GPP to consider even closer radio integration of these two great mobile broadband technologies,” said 4G Americas President Chris Pearson.