Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., introduced a bill to permit media organizations to film and broadcast federal court proceedings. The bill, HR-5163, has three co-sponsors: Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Ted Deutch, D-Fla.; and Steve Chabot, R-Ohio. Chabot introduced a similar bill last year (HR-2802) which would permit the broadcast and televising of U.S. court proceedings in U.S. district and appellate courts, including the Supreme Court. Lungren’s bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
The California Public Utilities Commission launched a visual component to its speech-to-speech service through its Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program, the agency said. With a visually assisted speech-to-speech call, in addition to a basic phone call to the relay service, the caller is also using a webcam or videophone with Skype to connect with the communications assistant at a relay call center. The communications assistant can see the speech-to-speech user as they are speaking. Users of augmentative and alternative communication devices can also share the information they are typing via Skype, using computer emulation. The service was developed through partnership with the state’s relay providers, Hamilton Relay and AT&T, CPUC said. The agency said the visual component to the speech-to-speech service is the first of its kind in the U.S.
The Interior Department awarded a nearly $35 million contract over seven years to a provider of Google Apps for Government, part of the agency’s “transformation strategic plan” for IT services launched in July, Interior said. A federal judge sided with Google last year in a lawsuit against Interior, claiming the agency improperly favored Microsoft in procurement procedure. The contract for cloud email and collaboration services was given to Google Apps for Government provider Onix Networking. Interior said the apps will have “seamless integration with mobile devices,” a boon to staff’s frequent travel and stationing in remote field locations. The contract starts with a 60-day trial for just over $17,000, requiring Onix to prove it can meet Interior objectives for an “integrated suite of tools and services, information assurance and regulatory compliance.” Should that happen, Interior will migrate more than 90,000 mailboxes from its seven on-premise email systems by the end of the calendar year, it said.
A Connecticut cable bill, SB-448, might not advance because the state’s legislative session is over in a week, bill sponsor Sen. Christopher Wright (D) said. If that’s the case, Wright plans to bring it back next year, he said. The bill would require cable providers to offer customers an option to buy any equipment for which they charge a monthly fee, and to require that each company clearly identify pricing options on its website. The bill would open the cable market up to innovation, Wright said. The bill passed out of the Energy and Technology Committee unanimously and is now being analyzed by the fiscal analysis office.
The Senate Judiciary Committee plans an IP oversight hearing at 10 a.m. May 9 in Room 226 of Dirksen, the committee said Wednesday. U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel is to testify at the hearing. The committee has not held a hearing on IP legislation since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., postponed a January cloture vote on the PROTECT IP Act, which was authored by Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Support for the antipiracy bill quickly eroded after Wikipedia, Craigslist, and thousands of other sites blacked out their home pages in a coordinated protest of PROTECT IP and its House companion bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act.
The FCC’s finding it can no longer conclude in annual wireless competition reports that the U.S. wireless industry is “effectively competitive” makes little sense, concludes a new paper by Robert Hahn of the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy and Hal Singer of Navigant Economics. In the last two reports, under Chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC has declined to draw this conclusion. “For over a decade, as wireless prices fell and industry concentration inched upward, the FCC concluded that the wireless market was competitive,” the paper said. “Under new leadership but with the same fact pattern -- prices continued to fall, concentration continued to rise -- the Commission changed its tune. For the last two years, it retracted its stamp of competitiveness in favor of a ’too-close-to-call’ decision.” There are two “plausible explanations” for this change in direction, the paper said. “Under the first explanation, the FCC previously weighted direct evidence of competition such as falling prices more heavily than indirect evidence such as concentration, but it elected to place more weight on indirect evidence in the last two competition reports,” the paper said. “Under the second explanation, the FCC did not change the weights, but it instead felt that concentration reached some critical threshold such that the societal loss associated with any more concentration was unacceptable. We don’t find either explanation persuasive.”
The FCC seeks expedited comments on USTelecom’s petition for waiver of several rules in the Lifeline order, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm5z6y). USTelecom seeks a temporary waiver from the obligation to obtain a signed customer certification and a notice of customer eligibility from certain states prior to seeking reimbursement. It also requested the waiver apply to eligible telecom carriers in those states which make initial determinations of customer eligibility and are unable to modify their procedures in time for the ETCs to comply with certain sections by June 1. USTelecom asked that the waiver last until a state is able to provide ETCs with the required notices of eligibility and customer certifications. Comments are due May 15 in docket 12-23.
The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $10,000 fine for Toccoa Falls College in Georgia (http://xrl.us/bm5z8u). The college failed to retain “all required documentation in the WTXR(FM) public inspection file,” the bureau said in a notice of apparent liability: The licensee admitted to violating the rule, but “only in the context of the question contained in its license renewal application that compelled such disclosure.” The bureau said it will grant the renewal application upon the conclusion of the forfeiture proceeding.
The FCC temporarily waived the requirement that all eligible telecom carriers seek $9.25 flat-rate support on the revised Form 497, and instead will allow this change to be phased in, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm5z5x). Tuesday was the effective date for most of the rules in the Lifeline order that were approved by the Office of Management and Budget, the bureau said.
Motorola Mobility lost $86 million in Q1 vs. $81 million in the year-ago period, the company said late Tuesday. The company expects its purchase by Google to close in the first half of the year. Regulators in the U.S., European Union and other jurisdictions have approved the transaction, but the companies continue to wait for the approval from Chinese regulators. The manufacturer shipped 8.9 million mobile devices during the quarter and 5.1 million of those were smartphones. The company had shipped 9.3 million devices in Q1 2011, including 4.1 million smartphones. The company shipped over 100,000 tablets in the quarter versus 250,000 in the year-ago period. Motorola’s home segment posted revenue of $884 million, down 2 percent year-over-year.