Robert L. Johnson’s The RLJ Companies said it agreed to acquire Image Entertainment Inc., and Acorn Media Group and change their name to RLJ Entertainment. Image Entertainment’s common stock holders will get 2.139 million shares of common stock of the new company; its preferred stock holders will get $22.6 million in cash and promissory notes. Acorn Media shareholders will get $105 million in cash, one million shares of stock in RLJ Entertainment and warrants to buy another million shares. Johnson will be executive chairman of the company.
Adding unpredictability to the USF support system through opaque quantile regression caps “gravely threatens continued investment in and the sustainability of rural broadband,” the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association told FCC Wireline Bureau officials Friday (http://xrl.us/bmz7wu). Rural LEC members have expressed a “consistent fear” that they might be “the next one” to trigger the caps, and lenders and investors have expressed “deep confusion” at trying to forecast the effects of the caps because of their dynamic nature, NTCA said. NTCA also discussed the substantive underlying problems it saw with the proposed regression analysis approach. “Based upon the discussion in this meeting, however, NTCA understands that the Bureau does intend to receive input from companies and then promptly remedy underlying data shortcomings in the regression analysis models without the need for the filing of individual company waivers,” the ex parte filing said.
Public Knowledge laid out its view on how the FCC could promote online video distribution: restrict existing MVPDs from engaging in unfair practices with emerging online video distributors (OVDs), determine which rules should apply to OVDs that operate as MVPDs and open up device competition. Furthermore, Congress should give MVPDs more flexibility when it comes to carrying TV station signals, it said in a paper dubbed Tomorrowvision (http://xrl.us/bmz7wy). “The effects of removing barriers to online video are unpredictable,” it said. “The entire purpose of these policies is not to structure the market in a way that regulators, analysts or futurists think is best. ... By following the recommendations in this report, policymakers can ensure that incumbents do not stand in the way of the evolution of the TV industry."
Satellite technology is a growing component of utility telecommunications, said a study by the Utilities Telecom Council. About 60 percent of utilities use some form of satellite communications, UTC said. The study provides an in-depth analysis of how utilities use a wide range of public and private communications technologies and “how satellite fits into the complex array of communications solutions utilities use to run the energy grid and other critical infrastructure industries.” Satellite technology enables ubiquitous network connectivity across the utility’s service areas, UTC said. The study was done through focus group research with top technologists and industry-wide survey research, UTC said. The full report is at www.utc.org/research/bookstore.
A federal appeals court granted Verizon’s motion to stay part of a lower court’s injunction that would have required it to pay certain VOD patent royalties to ActiveVideo Networks upon posting of a supersede as bond. The move will let Verizon post a bond and avoid the royalties while Verizon appeals the decision. Beyond damages, the lower court had required Verizon to pay ActiveVideo royalties for the technology through May 23, a so-called sunset period set up to allow Verizon to implement a non-infringing system, the order from a panel judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit said.
FairPoint claimed its recent move to offer voluntary retirement to its union workers and other labor reductions have enabled it to save $6.6 million. Earlier this month, FairPoint offered its Communications Workers of America employees an early retirement package. Forty-six union workers accepted the program, which took effect March 30. The move would result in annualized operating expense savings of around $3.8 million, the company said. Under the program, FairPoint will provide severance payments of about $2.3 million. Additionally, the company is laying off 32 non-union employees in an effort to “consolidate operating functions.” This would enable savings of about $2.8 million.
MetroPCS appears close to abandoning its unlimited data offering on all but one of its rate plans “likely because of its constrained spectrum position,” BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said in a report. “Since the FCC blocked the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, wireless data prices have been rising in the form of higher prices and new caps,” Piecyk wrote. “The reason is simple. Operators are running out of capacity and have little faith that the FCC can source new usable spectrum.” Under a likely scenario, MetroPCS would continue to offer unlimited data only as part of a new, more expensive plan, at $70 per month. MetroPCS did not comment by our deadline.
Deceptive robocallers must pay $30 million in civil penalties and return more than $1.1 million in ill-gotten gains for violations of the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule, a federal judge ruled in response to charges filed by the FTC. The civil order included a $20 million judgment against Paul Navestad and a $10 million judgment against Christian Maspakorn who, operating together as the “Cash Grant Institute,” made more than eight million robocalls to consumers, including more than 2.7 million calls to numbers on the federal Do Not Call Registry. The calls fraudulently promised consumers they were qualified for governmental “cash grants” of up to $25,000, and invited them to pay a fee to learn how to collect the mythical grants. The FTC, which filed the case in July 2009, said this was “by far the largest penalty ever imposed” for calls to consumers on the Do Not Call list. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who drafted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that established the Registry, said he was “pleased” the FTC brought charges. “With Americans struggling through some of the toughest economic times in generations, it is the height of unscrupulousness to deceive consumers with the false promise of imminent financial relief,” Markey said Monday. “The Commission has been a tough cop on the beat for consumers, and I commend the court for agreeing with the FTC."
The White House must address the “timely and urgent” issue of mobile application privacy, the Future of Privacy forum said in its comments to the NTIA. “The continued proliferation and use of mobile devices by consumers for a multitude of communication and computing purposes, with a corresponding increase in downloads and use of mobile apps, makes app privacy a priority,” the group said.
ICANN said it will publish a list of applicants for new generic top-level domains on April 30. The organization began approving established trademark holders for domain names in proposed gTLDs like .hotels, .banks and others in January, and estimated it could receive up to 4,000 new gTLD applications before the application period ends April 12.