The FCC would scale back viewability rules so most cable systems can distribute TV stations guaranteed carriage in HD format only, and not also in standard definition if cheap set-top boxes are offered, agency and industry officials said. A draft Media Bureau order circulated this week and awaiting votes from commissioners allows hybrid digital/analog systems to stop carrying must-carry stations in both formats in about six months, commission officials said Thursday. The order circulated Tuesday, exactly three weeks before the June 12 expiration of the last three-year extension of viewability rules..
GENEVA -- Time is limited and study schedules tight to prepare for additional mobile service allocations at the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) that would spur broadband applications, speakers said at an ITU-R workshop Wednesday. Meeting participants were from several of the ITU-R working parties that deal with terrestrial services. Conference preparatory schedules are “tighter” than in the past, said Akira Hashimoto, chairman of the ITU-R study group on terrestrial services. A webcast of the workshop was available without the usual need for ITU credentials; but no archive has been posted on the organization’s website.
The upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications “is not about Internet governance,” an ITU official said at a Google event in Washington late Wednesday. Scheduled for Dec. 3-14 in Dubai, the conference will consider a review of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), which define the general principles for the provision and operation of international telecommunications.
Former NTIA Administrator Larry Irving, a Democrat, said Wednesday the Obama White House needs to provide a bigger push to get various government agencies, from the Department of Defense down, to come to the table to discuss clearing government spectrum for wireless broadband. Irving, the longest-serving NTIA administrator, who worked for President Bill Clinton, said just talking about spectrum isn’t enough. Irving was the lead speaker at an event sponsored by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, and the Rutgers School of Law/Camden: Institute for Information Policy & Law.
BOSTON -- State telecom regulators took a largely dim view of the FCC’s ability to regulate state and local policy matters, as they grappled with the potential components of a prospective 2013 Telecom Act. Speaking on a Cable Show panel on public utility commissions late Tuesday, state regulators generally agreed that any proposed broad new telecom law should have the FCC set fewer specific rules while allowing them more leeway to regulate local issues as they see fit. Speaking earlier at the conference, aides to legislators had said the 1996 Telecom Act may be updated, though it could take years (CD May 22 p5).
Verizon Wireless defended its track record on the 700 MHz A and B block licenses it bought in a 2008 auction, but has yet to build out, responding to a series of questions posed by Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan in a May 15 letter (CD May 16 p1). Verizon has said it will sell the licenses, but only if it’s permitted to acquire AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox (CD April 19 p1). Kaplan noted that the build out deadline for the licenses is June 2013 and asked what steps Verizon has taken and about the company’s timetable.
The White House pushed a new federal initiative Wednesday to make government information more accessible through open source mobile applications that deliver federal data to citizens’ mobile devices. Led by federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel, the administration’s digital government strategy (http://xrl.us/bm865p) will require each federal agency to make at least two of its services available to citizens on mobile devices within 12 months.
BOSTON -- Cable technologists are pushing operators to keep accelerating the pace of change and innovation to cope with rapidly shifting consumer trends and match moves by rivals. Top technologists from Comcast, Cox Communications, Mediacom, Rogers Communications and Time Warner Cable urged cable operators to continue developing and deploying new video products and apps quicker to keep pace in the emerging multi-screen universe. Speaking at The Cable Show this week, they urged operators to build out their new video platforms quicker to attract fresh funding, partners and subscribers.
Media companies are willing to bet on the long-term value of sports programming rights, a testament to their belief that such programming will remain valuable even as TV viewing habits change, programming executives told the Cable Show in Boston Wednesday. “Anybody who thinks they understand how to figure out what the rights are going to be worth in 2026 or 2022 really has no idea,” said John Skipper, president of ESPN and co-chairman of Disney Media Networks. “But what we will make a bet on is the value of sports rights will continue to appreciate,” he said.
A VoIP provider in Florida filed the first formal complaint at the FCC over what the company claims is a violation of the commission’s 2010 net neutrality rules, which took effect late last year. The complaint was filed by L2Networks against the Albany Water Gas & Light Commission, a municipally owned utility in Georgia.