The FCC seeks comment on a notice of proposed rulemaking that considers flexible terrestrial use of spectrum currently assigned to the mobile satellite service in the 2 GHz band. The proposed rules intend to “increase the nation’s supply of spectrum for mobile broadband, provide for flexible use of this spectrum” and encourage innovation and investment in mobile broadband, the FCC said in a Federal Register notice. The commission requests comments on service, technical, assignment and licensing rules, it said. It also seeks comment on “an alternative band plan involving additional spectrum at 1695-1710 MHz that NTIA has proposed to reallocate from federal to commercial use.” Comments are due May 17, replies June 1, the notice said.
The FCC is considering more than 100 TV applications for low-power and translator station construction permits, with oppositions due in 30 days, a public notice said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm37od). Applicants whose requests don’t overlap and were accepted for filing include Entravision, Fisher Broadcasting, Gila River Telecommunications and the University of New Mexico.
There’s a clear distinction between large fixed service satellite operators’ and small- to mid-sized operators’ capital spending and cash flow, said Patrick French, an analyst at Northern Sky Research. While the industry average for this ratio indicates that on average nearly 80 percent of cash flow coming from operating activities is funneled into capital expenditures, “the standard deviation shows that this can easily vary as widely as under 10 percent on the low end and over 150 percent … on the top end,” he said on the NSR website. French said this trend occurs because small- to mid-sized FSS operators “will normally exhibit periods of very high capital spending when they need to plan for a replacement satellite in their fleet or look to expand their overall fleet size, but the small- to mid-sized FSS operators will then have very low CAPEX requirements in between these satellite programs."
A common standard is needed for the international exchange of HD 3D TV programs among broadcasters, the U.K. said in a submission to an ITU-R working party on broadcasting this week. BSkyB since 2010 has a dedicated 3D channel on its satellite platform that’s broadcasting 16 hours each day, it said. The company produces over 20 hours of live 3D sports events and 10 hours of 3D programs per month, it said. BSkyB also buys a significant amount of 3D TV programs each month from international markets, the U.K. submission said. The BBC is running a 3D trial with an occasional transmission, it said. The BBC and CBS proposed new ITU-R recommendations to spur production and international exchange of 3D TV programs for broadcasting, submissions said. The European Broadcasting Union said its 85 national media organization members in 56 countries support the production of a set of international standards for the making, exchange and archiving of 3D TV programs between themselves and the wider world market.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said he doesn’t believe Google “has the best interests of the user in mind,” following the FCC’s proposed fine for the company’s alleged Street View privacy breach, the Congressional Privacy Caucus co-chairman said Monday. “When it comes to protecting consumers’ privacy there are some real questions about Google’s policies that deserve real answers.” Over the weekend, the FCC proposed a $25,000 fine on the company for allegedly obstructing the commission’s investigation into whether Google’s Street View cars developed a database of Wi-Fi points and intercepted personal communications without permission. “In my opinion, the company should be eager to relay this information in whatever way necessary,” Barton said. “I do not currently get that impression.”
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions seeks industry assistance to identify causes of call completion problems, ATIS said. The standards group is seeking data from telecom providers regarding the originating and routing of long-distance calls. The goal is to develop guidelines and best practices leading to a voluntary, industry-based solution that improves call completion rates in rural areas, said CEO Susan Miller.
Super PACs aren’t entitled to buy TV spots at a station’s lowest unit rate, Bobby Baker, assistant chief of the FCC Media Bureau’s policy division, told broadcasters Monday at the NAB Show. Because those ads aren’t covered by the same rules as ads paid for by candidates themselves or their authorized committees, stations need to be diligent in screening them, attorney Dawn Sciarrino of Sciarrino & Schubert said during a panel on political advertising. “PACs and non-candidate groups do not have the right to access and you're not protected on the back side from anything that’s in the ads,” she said. “My recommendation is every station should have one person who intakes political ads … and understands how the sponsorship ID rules work."
The FCC got an update Monday from the developers of many federal agency websites and how they're trying to become more user friendly. The update came as the FCC hosted a .gov developer “meet-up.” The session also featured updates from such federal websites as USASearch, USA.gov and Data.gov. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski noted in recorded remarks that government use of broadband was a key focus of 2010’s National Broadband Plan. “You represent the right trend, and in many ways, the cutting edge in government data, finding new and novel ways to deliver greater transparency and greater openness,” Genachowski said. “It can change the way citizens engage with their government, increasing access to information and revolutionizing the way people interact with each other.” Federal Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel said too many government websites have followed the same pattern. “In year one, you're gung ho, you're getting stuff done, you're writing specs,” he said. “In year two, the expectation of funding maybe falls through, or Congress doesn’t allocate you funding that you thought you were going to get, or someone on the leadership team spins out.” In the end, five-year, $50 million projects become 10-year, $100 million projects, VanRoekel said. “By the end of it, we have so many examples of those solutions just being thrown out in favor of just starting from scratch because it’s cheaper to do so at the end of the day because the technology is outdated or laws have changed.” Joel Gurin, senior consumer advisor at the FCC and the chairman of the White House Task Force on Smart Disclosure, said much of the data collected by the government could be useful to consumers. “What we're really focusing on is figuring out how to select and present government data sets and other data sets that will be of particular use to consumers trying to make choices in complex markets,” Gurin said. Such data can help consumers choose everything from a cellphone plan to a mortgage, he said. “You really do have to make data available in ways that can be sorted and used by consumers either directly or, more likely, after it’s been presented to them by a third party,” he said. For example, a single wireless carrier may offer as many as a thousand different plans “by the time you look at all the different permutations of fees, rates, limits, handsets, etc.,” he said. Of the thousands of data sets available on Data.gov, “probably a few hundred” are “relevant to this kind of use,” Gurin said. “We're now working to see if there are ways that we can bring those together and highlight them,” he said.
IBiquity Digital and Emmis Broadcasting are in talks with the major wireless carriers trying to convince them to build HD Radio functionality into their smartphones, iBiquity and Emmis executives told an NAB news conference Monday. The capability of building HD Radio into smartphones has been in development for about a year and has been funded by NAB, with Emmis taking the lead among other radio group owners to make the technology happen, iBiquity CEO Bob Struble said. “We have been talking for some time about the tremendous potential of including radio in smartphones, and the vision is pairing the very, very efficient distribution capability of greater broadcasting with a connected backchannel,” Struble said. Doing so will create “new revenue streams for broadcasters, new opportunities for advertisers,” he said. HD Radio functionality can be had through a new series of low-power “state-of-the-art” chipsets developed by Intel for smartphones, but also for tablets and other mobile devices, said iBiquity Chief Operating Officer Jeff Jury. “We have a number of other partners developing similar chipsets that were designed for exactly the same market segment,” Jury said. Emmis regards the HD Radio smartphone opportunity as “a landmark” because it’s “truly revolutionary for our industry,” CEO Jeff Smulyan said. Following Emmis’s lead, other broadcasters “have come forward to work on this project,” including CBS, Clear Channel, Cox, Cumulus, Hubbard and Radio One, he said. All think “this is a significant part of our future,” he said. “We think this gives us the opportunity to compete in every appliance out there.” Struble thinks building HD Radio into smartphones gives wireless carriers a huge opportunity in terms of “network utilization, user experience and incremental revenue,” he said. “There’s a very acute spectrum shortage,” he said. “IPad 3 comes out, people get throttled, data plans go up. There’s not enough spectrum out there for everybody to be listening to their favorite radio stations over streaming. It just will not work. So part of the pitch to carriers is to say, ‘Look, if a guy is streaming, you put this nice HD chip in your phone, they can listen to their local markets and we're not chewing up your valuable spectrum.'"
The Senate Commerce Committee plans a hearing on the “future of video,” April 24 at 10 a.m., a Senate aide told us Monday. The staffer did not confirm the location or witnesses for the hearing but said the full details would be disclosed Tuesday.