The FCC should make all providers of high capacity services provide competitive data to allow commission staff to conduct a complete assessment of the competitive landscape, Verizon executives told Wireline Bureau officials and aides to each commissioner in meetings Monday and Tuesday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bm543j). “Misplaced regulation in a healthy marketplace will harm investment and deter entry,” the telco said in an attached slide presentation also filed Wednesday in docket 05-25. “The FCC should not impose any additional regulation without a specific finding that the marketplace is broken."
Boeing proposed the FCC allow “safe harbors” for experimental uses of spectrum conducted at carefully controlled test facilities. “Major manufacturing and research and development companies such as Boeing depend on experimental licenses to develop new products, and depend on a rapid and responsive experimental licensing process to permit continued innovation,” the company said in a filing Wednesday in docket 10-236 (http://xrl.us/bm54yt). “Despite the fact that Boeing’s experimental operations are generally at very low power levels, for short durations, and in remote locations, Boeing has experienced growing difficulties securing coordination from wireless licensees. Often, coordination requirements are significantly out of proportion with any interference risks, and coordination demands have complicated Boeing’s testing programs, delaying and sometimes preventing tests from occurring.” The FCC should allow safe harbors with rules similar to those for experimental licenses approved for universities and innovation zones, “including the establishment of specified geographic locations with pre-authorized boundary conditions beyond which emissions may not exceed non-interfering levels,” Boeing said. “Experimental licensees (both public and private) operating under a coordination safe harbor would still apply for individual experimental licenses, but, upon meeting the safe harbor conditions, would be exempt from coordination requirements.” In 2010, the Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment on a proposal to allow greater flexibility in the agency’s experimental licensing rules (http://xrl.us/bm54yx).
New reports of numbering misuse and Internet filtering have been made to the ITU, we've learned. Numbering misuse is one of the subjects in talks to revise the International Telecommunication Regulations later this year (CD April 20 p9). Numbering misuse is affecting the Norfolk Islands, we've learned. The codes are being routed away from the island, ZeaTel said. The company, which specializes in the provision and management of international premium rate numbers for value-added services, asked carriers to send all traffic to two approved gateways that use correct pricing data: Telecom New Zealand or Tata Communications. Separately, telecom operator Tele2 asked regulators to block certain number ranges from Somalia if they appear to have fraudulently high levels of traffic. And Sudan complained to ITU about blocked access to certain features of the Oracle website and use of Windows Live Messenger from that country. The U.S. and other countries have imposed a variety of embargoes, trade sanctions and other measures against Sudan.
The Heisenberg principle could affect the FCC’s attempt to measure broadband performance across the country, an AT&T engineer said at a recent meeting of the Next-Generation Measurement Architecture Standardization and Outreach Group, according to an ex parte notice (http://xrl.us/bm52jn). “Extensive performance measurements could, themselves, impact performance,” the notice said. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle implies that attempts to take very fine measurements could themselves affect what is being measured. The notice relayed the concerns of engineer Tom Anschutz, who proposed a passive server-based metric collection approach focused on end-to-end quality of experience to “both complement and independently validate a sampling based approach using active measurement.” A CenturyLink representative expressed concern that customer access to active measurement approaches could impact network performance, the filing said.
One of Sandvine’s best customers just put in another order for its network policy control systems, Sandvine said. The same tier-1 North American cable operator that last month ordered more than $7 million in network policy control services (CD April 6 p12) added a $1.5 million expansion order, Sandvine said without disclosing the name of the customer.
Tower company SBAC had a solid Q1, Credit Suisse analysts said. They noted company executives had indicated that leasing activity for the quarter was strong, partly helped by Sprint Nextel’s network upgrade. SBAC executives expect customer activity in Q2 to remain strong. Site leasing revenue of $172.9 million in Q1 was up 18 percent year-over-year. The company narrowed its loss in the quarter to $22.6 million from $34.3 million in the year-ago period.
Q1 sales at CGS Systems gained 1 percent from a year earlier to $185 million, the company said. Its net income increased 2.7 percent to $11.8 million on lower total operating expenses. The company said it expects full year 2012 revenue of $715-$740 million, with adjusted earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization of $164-171 million. Its shares gained 9 percent Wednesday.
Saga Broadcasting urged the FCC to rule that DirecTV forfeited its rights to retransmit significantly viewed CBS affiliates into the Joplin, Mo./Pittsburg, Kan., designated market area. DirecTV sent Saga a deficient notice, but “contends it can retransmit the signal of CBS affiliated station KOTV-TV, Tulsa, Okla.,” which is part of the Joplin-Pittsburg DMA, Saga said in a filing in docket 11-187 (http://xrl.us/bm52mg). It said DirecTV didn’t comply with the FCC’s rules when it sent Saga a notice of its intent “to import same network significantly viewed signals into Saga’s broadcast markets by overnight delivery rather than certified mail.”
Eighth-floor visits picked up again in the FCC’s basic tier encryption proceeding after about a month-long lull, ex parte notices show. Lawyers for Comcast and Boxee each met with aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake this week. Boxee presented a way for cable operators to deliver a comparable alternative to Clear QAM, should cable operators be allowed to encrypt basic tier programming, the notice said (http://xrl.us/bm52gw). Comcast attorneys discussed “various ways in which consumers with QAM devices can access basic tier channels and responded” to some arguments raised by Boxee and others in the proceeding, an ex parte notice said (http://xrl.us/bm52hp).
Despite remaining obstacles for UltraViolet that include limited retail support and major studio holdout Disney, Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes said on a Wednesday earnings call that he was “happy with the launch” of the cloud-based digital locker platform. He called the launch “a big accomplishment for the industry,” saying UltraViolet “offers a compelling, easy-to-use way to access your movies from the cloud and on whatever device you want to use.” Although it’s “still early,” Bewkes said consumers were “downloading and streaming in very large numbers” and “more than 2 million accounts have been created” so far. “It took five months for the first million registrations and then we added a million more in the last four weeks,” he said. The company’s HBO Go app was recently added to the Xbox 360 and Samsung connected TVs, Bewkes said. “We'll be announcing additional platform launches in the next few months,” he said. So far, “the vast majority of users have accessed Go online, or on tablets” or other mobile devices, he said. “We expect to see even higher usage as it becomes widely accessible on connected TVs.” Although it was “still early days” for the app, the CEO said Time Warner was seeing “encouraging signs that HBO Go will have a significant positive impact on our business over time.” Consumers using the app were “watching HBO more than they used to and 93 percent say Go makes them more loyal to HBO,” he said. The company was also “seeing a bigger marketing push from many of our affiliates,” and HBO is “now better positioned and promoted than it has been in years.” Time Warner revenue for Q1 inched up 4 percent year-over-year to $7 billion. Profit slipped to $583 million, from $653 million. Giving the results a lift was the company’s Film and TV Entertainment division, where revenue grew to $2.8 billion from $2.6 billion. The growth was largely driven by a “stronger theatrical slate” and higher TV licensing revenue, the company said. The dropoff in consumer spending on DVDs was also being “partially offset by the licensing of theatrical” and TV content to subscription video-on-demand providers, it said. Networks revenue inched up to $3.6 billion from $3.5 billion.