TORONTO -- Multiple video screens offer multiple opportunities and challenges for established video service providers, programmers, advertisers and equipment vendors, executives said. They told the Canadian Telecom Summit last week that multi-screen video has quickly become a fact of life for all media players, whether they like it or not. With consumer adoption rates for smartphones, tablets, game consoles and other Web-enabled devices soaring, speakers said there’s no turning back to the old one-screen, linear TV world. They predicted consumers will increasingly use three, four, five or more Internet Protocol-enabled screens to view video content whenever and wherever they want.
Two congressional opponents of anti-piracy bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), urged Congress to adopt a new digital bill of rights to protect the Internet from future attempts to regulate it. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said at the Personal Democracy Forum Monday that Internet guidelines would help lawmakers gauge the impact of future legislative proposals. Wyden also warned that greater threats to Internet freedom are looming in global treaties like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The satellite industry, government and military entities are working toward mitigating and managing space debris from satellites. While satellite operators have obligations for operating satellites and deorbiting satellites at the end of their lives, industry and U.S. and foreign governments are still addressing the need for a solution to prevent debris from accumulating, and for increased collaboration among nations operating in space, government agencies and satellite operators said.
Pending personnel changes at the FCC will come at what is likely to be a critical time for FCC consideration of Verizon Wireless’s proposed buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox. General Counsel Austin Schlick is scheduled to leave in mid-June and Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan’s departure will follow soon after. Approval of the deals, though likely with substantial conditions, is expected this summer. Current and former FCC officials said it remains unclear whether the departures will slow a final decision, and if so, for how long.
Lawmakers hammered the FCC over the costs and burdens that telecom carriers for tribal communities face when seeking waivers to the commission’s USF reforms. The barrage came at a hearing held Friday by the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs. Subcommittee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, was particularly critical of the commission’s high-cost order, which he said will lead to the eventual demise of the carriers that serve rural and tribal America. The FCC said that they did not agree with Young’s “characterization."
The cities of Philadelphia and Boston and groups representing city governments pushed back against a petition from the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, DirecTV and Dish Network that urges the FCC to amend its Over-The-Air-Reception Devices (OTARD) rule and prohibit state and local governments from restricting reception devices located on rental properties. Comments were due Thursday in docket 12-121.
The FCC could face challenges to its DTV viewability proceeding no matter how it resolves the issue. The rules, which require cable operators to deliver the DTV signals of must-carry stations to analog cable subscribers, are set to expire Tuesday. That sunset date itself was the result of a compromise with the cable industry in which cable operators agreed not to sue (CD Sept 13/07 p2). The rules are now set to largely expire after a six-month phase-out period (CD June 4 p4).
Advocates for the deaf and hard of hearing pushed back against a CEA petition for reconsideration that sought to change some IP-video closed captioning rules that the FCC adopted to comply with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). At the same time, media industry groups and a CE manufacturer opposed a petition for reconsideration the same advocates had lodged that would expand the types of video covered by the rules. And media groups also opposed a petition for reconsideration filed by TVGuardian, which makes a “foul language filter” for TV programming. Other parties lodged oppositions to various petitions for reconsideration earlier last week (CD June 8 p17).
NARUC supported the FCC’s enhanced probe of special access prices in a statement released Thursday. Meanwhile, the debate continues about special access reform, with opponents and supporters continuing to weigh in. Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated an order this week suspending the grant of any new “price flexibility” petitions while the special access probe moves forward and denying three petitions seeking pricing flexibility (CD June 5 p3). The order is the most contentious item imminently before the agency, with both Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai expected to raise objections (CD June 7 p1).
Major websites are interested in getting emergency alert system feeds becoming available over the Internet now that the government and EAS participants are implementing a new format, federal officials and broadcasters said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s integrated public alert and warning system makes it possible for websites to get real-time access to EAS messages, noted FEMA IPAWS Director Antwane Johnson on an agency webinar late Wednesday. Traditional EAS participants in the broadcasting and pay-TV industries are getting ready for the Common Alerting Protocol message format that distributes the alerts online, which the FCC has required be able to be received and passed on starting at month’s end, FEMA and FCC officials noted.