Despite the European Commission’s insistence that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement won’t harm Internet users or ISPs, European lawmakers remain skeptical, some said Tuesday. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht updated the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee on the latest round of ACTA talks, held June 28-July 1 in Lucerne, Switzerland. The negotiations produced another draft document, which De Gucht said will be given to the Parliament on the condition that it not be leaked.
FairPoint Communications’ proposed Chapter 11 reorganization and a regulatory settlement with the state of New Hampshire got approval last week from New Hampshire’s Public Utilities Commission. The approval, while good news for FairPoint, couldn’t prevent postponement of a bankruptcy court hearing which the company hoped would result in the setting of a date for it to emerge from Chapter 11, a company spokesman said. For that to occur, all three of the affected New England states must approve the company’s reorganization plan and regulatory settlements tailored to each. Maine had previously accepted the company’s proposal. Last month the Vermont Public Service Board rejected FairPoint’s proposed settlement (CD June 30 p5).
So-called “traffic pumping” costs U.S. wireless carriers $190 million annually, consulting firm Connectiv Solutions said in a report to be released Tuesday. Carriers pay in other ways as well, the report noted, saying increased traffic as a result of traffic pumping also means more network congestion and a decline in network quality. The president of a leading conferencing company disputed the findings.
SAN FRANCISCO -- By 2014, about 90 percent of consumer mobile IP traffic will be video, AT&T Chief Technology Officer John Donavan told the MobileBeat 2010 conference here. He was citing a recent Cisco forecast but said it wasn’t “very far off” of AT&T’s internal projections. A variety of video applications will drive that growth, from video telepresence to streaming video, he said. By 2014 it will be a “point-to-point video world,” he said. “Video calling, video streaming, video links -- it’s going to become part of every process and enterprise use, and part basic communication that’s person to person,” he said.
Google is looking at enterprise opportunities in its voice and other unified communications services, Rajen Sheth, group product manager for Google Apps, a service offering Web-based productivity tools, said in an interview. Communications service will play a bigger role in the company’s overall strategy in the next few years, he said.
CTIA questioned whether the FCC can get complete, accurate data if it moves forward on a proposal to test mobile broadband speeds. AT&T called measuring the speeds a “daunting task” more difficult than testing fixed connections, as the commission plans to do in a study to be run by SamKnows. Verizon Wireless questioned what would be gained if the FCC “involves itself” in performance testing. But Google encouraged the FCC to push forward, saying accurate information is critical to consumers.
The Department of Justice has sent numerous demands for information about Comcast’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal to companies in various sectors, asking many questions about programming seen on TV and over the Internet and set-top boxes and for several years’ worth of data, industry executives and lawyers said. They said the civil investigative demands (CIDs) appear to have been sent out in several batches, and some responses have recently been submitted to DOJ’s Antitrust Division. That office, with the FCC, is reviewing the multibillion dollar deal (CD July 9 p1) OR (CED June 17 p5) OR (WID May 6 p6). Some recipients said they regard the information demands as excessive because of the detail sought, sometimes down to the ZIP-code level, and the various years covered.
Cybersecurity is a legislative priority for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., his spokeswoman said. He and Senate committee chairmen hope to introduce and vote on a comprehensive bill this September, Senate staffers said. Challenges remain, including working out differences between two major bills by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and getting approval from Republicans and the House, said Senate and industry officials. Negotiations over the next three to four weeks will be critical, said an aide.
Borrowing money to finance purchases of broadcast assets remains difficult, but some in the industry see a wave of transactions coming. Meanwhile, broadcasters’ secured bank debt has proven popular with investors of all sorts, some of whom may view it as a path to owning broadcast properties, said brokers and others who work on and advise on deals. “There are a lot of people that are trying to buy debt,” said President Frank Kalil of broker Kalil & Co. “If you see a station that’s worth $30 million and it’s got $15 million worth of debt and you can buy that debt for, say, $10 million, that’s a pretty good deal,” he said. “You can do very well on an interest rate of return and perhaps end up with the asset."
U.S. telecom companies’ internal disaster and emergency response operations, preparedness and timely response are critical in recovery efforts in Haiti, companies said on a roundtable at the Department of State Friday. The Haiti earthquake, a major test for emergency response capabilities, underlined the need for better coordination, they said.