Google will pay a $25,000 fine for allegedly (CD April 17 p7) obstructing an investigation of Google Street View as related to federal wiretap law, the company said in a letter to the FCC Thursday. But the company also disputed whether it had done anything wrong. “Google had every interest in cooperating and did so fully at all times on a timetable discussed and agreed to by the Commission,” said the 17-page letter signed by Google counsel Ashton Johnston. “Google shares the FCC’s concern about the protracted nature of the investigation, but notes that most of the delays resulted from internal FCC process.” During a 17-month investigation, the commission “did not contact Google for weeks and months at a time,” the letter read. “The Commission stands behind the work of the career staff who investigated Google’s secret collection of personal passwords, emails, and other private data through its Street View project,” spokeswoman Tammy Sun said in response. “In promising to pay the Bureau’s penalty, the company has rightly admitted wrongdoing. Going forward, important concerns about the privacy of unencrypted wi-fi communications remain."
House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., urged their panels to examine Verizon’s proposed spectrum deal and Verizon’s conditional sale of its Lower 700 MHz A- and B-block spectrum. The request was made in a letter sent Thursday to Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. Verizon Wireless said this month it will sell part of the 700 MHz spectrum it owns if the FCC approves the carrier’s buy of advanced wireless service (AWS) licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox (CD April 19 p1). FCC officials have raised concerns about whether Verizon’s purchase of the AWS licenses would give the company too dominant of a spectrum position versus its competitors (CD March 30 p1). It’s important for the committee to examine the “policy implications of these deals carefully and hear testimony from opponents and supporters of these transactions,” the letter said. The Rural Cellular Association (RCA) endorsed the letter and said “the proposed transactions will not help restore competition to the marketplace.” RCA CEO Steven Berry said Verizon’s sale of the lower 700 MHz spectrum band “is not sufficient to resolve the competitive concerns raised in the transactions with the cable companies. Further, interoperability in the Lower 700 MHz spectrum band must be addressed to sufficiently restore competition to the marketplace and benefit consumers, and I cannot stress enough the importance of an interoperability requirement and conditions on this transaction for competitive carriers and consumers.”
The FCC got process and substance right in finding against WealthTV’s program carriage complaint that four cable operators favored their own affiliated channel over the independent network, the government responded to the indie’s lawsuit (CD March 13 p5). “The programming was different,” despite what the complainant said about its content being similar to that on Mojo, affiliated with Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable and carried by them unlike WealthTV, the U.S. said in a brief to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. An FCC administrative law judge who recommended the commission rule in the cable operators’ favor didn’t err by placing the burden of proof on the plaintiff and not defendants, the brief said. “WealthTV concedes that the ALJ’s approach did not violate any statute or rule: neither section 536(a)(3) nor the FCC’s program carriage rules ... assign the burden of proof to either party,” the agency and Justice Department said (http://xrl.us/bm49m7). “In fact, how to allocate the burdens of production and persuasion after a claimant has established a prima facie case is the subject of a pending FCC rulemaking."
CTIA Vice President Jot Carpenter questioned the premise behind an April 17 story in The New York Times, questioning whether carriers face an actual spectrum crisis (http://xrl.us/bm49zd). The article has gotten considerable buzz since it came out last week. “If the spectrum crisis is fabricated, then is there a worldwide conspiracy to perpetuate it?” Carpenter wrote on CTIA’s blog (http://xrl.us/bm49zh). “Because around the globe, other countries have moved or are moving to make additional spectrum available for commercial use. So either everyone’s in on it, or -- and this is much, much more likely -- the whole world is going mobile and other countries are seeing the same demands as the U.S. ... When you compare U.S. users and usage, we lead the pack in a variety of meaningful metrics. Yet when you look at how much spectrum we have available and what’s in the pipeline, we are behind. And that’s the point.”
Cablevision no longer faces rate regulation in a suburb of New York, the FCC said Thursday. A Media Bureau order granted the company’s unopposed request for a finding of effective competition in North Castle because Verizon sells video service there (http://xrl.us/bm49ks).
Two Texas low-power TV stations lost interference protection. That brings to four the number losing Class A status, letting the FCC move them without compensation when it changes TV channel locations to hold a voluntary broadcaster incentive auction (CD April 26 p14). Media Bureau orders Thursday reclassified the status of KVHM Victoria (http://xrl.us/bm49jv) and KINE Robstown (http://xrl.us/bm49jz), both licensed to Humberto Lopez until he died in May. Lopez and Carlos Lopez, executor of the estate, didn’t respond to requests to provide missing paperwork from the stations, nor to show-cause orders saying they'd lose Class A status, which now is revoked.
Intelsat urged the FCC to promptly approve its transfer application. The company’s licensees completed all of the steps necessary to consummate the Intelsat pro forma transfer, Intelsat said in a letter (http://xrl.us/bm485e) in docket 11-205 which pertains to its transfer application. Intelsat also clarified that its licensees “do not request approval for a governance agreement as part of the transfer of control for which FCC approval is sought.” The application seeks the transfer of de jure and de facto control of the Intelsat licenses from BC Partners “to public ownership pursuant to a public offering of newly issued voting shares, private placements of newly issued voting shares and subsequent voting shares sales by current shareholders,” it said: Grant of the application “would approve only this transfer of control to the public.”
Shipments of radios that can get digital broadcasts are growing, with about 3 million HD Radio units annually, FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake told communications executives and lobbyists in Washington. Stations are rolling out HD Radio “with growing momentum,” with shipments “climbing,” he told a Media Institute lunch. More than 6 million HD Radio devices have shipped in total, according to iBiquity Digital, which licenses the technology for consumer electronics and radio stations (CD Jan 10 p5).
Q1 sales at Arris Group gained 13 percent from a year earlier to $302.9 million, according to preliminary and unaudited results published by the company Wednesday. “The investment strategy of the past few years is now paying off,” said CEO Bob Stanzione. The company expects sales between $330 and $350 million during Q2 and higher adjusted net income per share, chief financial officer David Potts said.
HSN Inc. said it entered into a new $600 million, five-year credit facility. The revolver replaces a $150 million facility that was set to expire in July 2013. The new facility includes a $350 million revolving facility and a $250 million delayed draw term. The rate on the term loan is pegged to HSN’s leverage ratio and will fluctuate from LIBOR plus 1.5 percent to 2.25 percent, it said.