The launch of the SES-2 satellite with an experimental Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP) sensor could lead to more timely and affordable access to space through hosted payloads, satellite professionals said Wednesday during an SES webcast. CHIRP, led by the Air Force, is performing “exceptionally well,” said Doug Loverro, executive director of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Going forward, he said, “we don’t want this to be serendipitous … We want this to be planned.” The government must put together a payload development activity “and match it up with the predictable timelines that the commercial world has” in order to produce payload on a more predictable pattern, he said. Effective and simple interfaces are needed “to accommodate these payloads as they come along,” said Mike Hamel, Orbital Sciences Corp. senior vice president. “It’s important to sync up the path of payload in its development with commercial communications satellites,” he said: “You need to have readily available payloads if you're going to take advantage of commercial satellites as host vehicles.” The jury’s still out on how the effort should be funded, Loverro said: “As we look toward the future, we're looking for a greater variety to meet our mission needs.” The Department of Defense would establish a program to be funded over a long period of time, he added. Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) is analyzing the data that comes from the payload, said Tom Taverney, SAIC senior vice president. It’s simple to build, “it doesn’t weigh much and it allows you the advantage of steering,” he said. The military satellite community needs payloads, Loverro said: “We don’t know which satellites the payloads are going to be on, but through innovation and willingness to move down this path, we can make the match work.”
A fake debt collection scheme was halted by a U.S. District Court in response to allegations by the FTC, the agency said Wednesday. The northern California court placed a temporary restraining order (http://xrl.us/bm3fvd) on an operation that allegedly collected loan debts that consumers didn’t actually owe. According to the FTC’s complaint, defendants made more than 2.7 million calls to at least 600,000 phone numbers nationwide, fraudulently collecting more than $5.2 million from consumers. Defendants allegedly worked with callers in India to pretend to be American law enforcement agents and harass consumers with back-to-back calls threatening arrest if they didn’t pay up. The complaint alleges several violations of the FTC Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The court case is ongoing, and the commission is seeking refunds for consumers, the agency said.
California state Sen. Mark Leno introduced legislation that would require police to obtain a warrant before acquiring a person’s location information from an electronic device, including a cellphone. SB-1434 also limits such warrants to 30 days. “Our modern day smartphones and gadgets make it easy to get directions to just about anywhere, but they also track our every move and the people we connect with in our daily lives,” said Leno, a Democrat. “Unfortunately, California’s privacy laws have not kept up with the electronic age, and government agencies are frequently accessing this sensitive information without adequate oversight. SB-1434 carefully balances privacy concerns to safeguard Californians against improper government intrusion while ensuring that law enforcement officials can still use this technology when it is needed to protect public safety,” he said.
A broadcast attorney questioned why a recent FCC Media Bureau filing lacked letterhead and a signature when it went into the FCC’s docket for its online public inspection file proceeding (CD April 10 p11). “In addition to being dropped into the record right before the holiday weekend, the Submission itself is an unusual document,” Scott Flick, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop, wrote on the firm’s blog (http://xrl.us/bm3fdt). “It is not on letterhead, it is not dated and it is not signed. If it were not for the fact that the FCC’s filing system indicates that it was submitted by the Media Bureau, you might well wonder where it came from.” In short, it resembles the type of one-page submissions most docket-watchers don’t see when taking advantage of the FCC’s “brief comments excluded” option for searching its comment database, he said. “Those using the search filter would not see it,” he said. But he was wrong. The bureau’s submission appeared Friday on an RSS feed of all comments filed with the FCC’s electronic comments filing system that excludes such brief comments. The bureau’s filing disclosed that it requested copies of the public inspection files at each broadcast station in the Baltimore designated market area and that it counted the number of pages in each. Still, the timing of the vote on the order bodes poorly as well, Flick said. “It is a long-standing FCC tradition to schedule votes on orders that are favorable to broadcasters so they can be released just before the NAB Show, ensuring that FCC commissioners speaking at the NAB Show will receive a warm reception,” he said. “Conversely, FCC orders that broadcasters are not going to be happy about tend to be delayed until after the NAB Show concludes,” he said. The item is set for a vote at the FCC’s April 27 meeting, about a week after the NAB show concludes.
Sponsorship identification requirements for TV and radio stations and cable and satellite providers is the subject of an upcoming report to Congress by the Government Accountability Office, a GAO spokesman said Wednesday. He didn’t provide more details.
Comcast clarified it owns a minority stake in TV One, a network it included in a list of independent programmers that have found expanded distribution on its system since the cable operator bought control of NBCUniversal (CD April 11 p9). TV One is “an independently programmed diverse network in which Comcast has a minority ownership interest,” Comcast said.
Verizon Wireless will charge subscribers a $30 upgrade fee when they buy a new phone at a discounted price with a two-year contract, the carrier said Wednesday. The fee kicks in April 22. The other major carriers already charge an upgrade fee. AT&T recently raised its fee from $18 to $36. Charging the fee could add as much as $1 billion to Verizon’s annual earnings and 150 basis points to its wireless margin, BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said. “The incremental fee by itself is hardly going to be enough to materially curtail upgrade activity but it is yet another step by a major operator to recoup the margin reducing impacts of phone upgrades."
Adoption of mobile TV and multiscreen video services is increasing, a survey by QuickPlay Media found. Among respondents, 57 percent said they're interested in multiscreen video services, up from 48 percent a year earlier. And 35 percent said they had tried a mobile TV or video service; 27 percent said they use one. Among current mobile video users, 72 percent said they had only been using the service for a year or less. “As the market matures, consumers are increasing both their consumption of mobile video and the number of devices on which they access entertainment,” said Wayne Purboo, QuickPlay’s CEO.
Charter said it refinanced its $1.3 billion extended revolving credit facility due 2015 with a new $1.15 billion revolving credit facility due 2017 and closed on $750 million in term loans due 2019.
Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) urged the U.S. District Court in San Diego to dismiss ViaSat claims of patent infringement and breach of contract. ViaSat sued SS/L in February over proprietary technology designs (CD Feb 6 p4). In a memorandum, SS/L called the plaintiff’s direct infringement allegations “nonsensical” and said the contract breach claims are “particularly implausible in light of plaintiffs’ allegations that the purported ‘proprietary information’ was disclosed by ViaSat in patent applications.” Defendants “should not have to guess at what confidential information they are alleged to have misappropriated or when they purportedly misappropriated it” and they shouldn’t have to defend themselves against “frivolous claims of misappropriating non-confidential information that was never designated as ‘proprietary information’ and was published in patent applications years ago,” the memorandum said. SS/L said the plaintiffs haven’t pleaded sufficient facts “to state a claim against Loral under either a direct infringement or an alter ego liability theory.” ViaSat also should be denied leave to replead their claims against Loral, SS/L said: ViaSat’s contracts reveal that it “plainly knew that it was transacting with SS/L and not Loral.” SS/L took ViaSat’s ideas as its own “by not only attempting to patent those ideas but by also incorporating them into its satellite designs, including a satellite currently being built for one of ViaSat’s key competitors,” ViaSat’s complaint said. The satellite provider’s pattern of using the proprietary information of other companies for its own benefit extended to ViaSat’s subsidiary WildBlue, the complaint said: The exploitation of ViaSat’s and WildBlue’s technologies by SS/L “was in disregard of the strict confidentiality agreements signed by SS/L."