BERLIN -- Samsung became the first CE company Thursday to formally introduce an Ultra HD Blu-ray player, but it said at IFA the hardware won’t bow in time for the 2015 holiday selling season.
Most state commissions and organizations representing state interests believe it's a bad idea to streamline the eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) designation process for the Lifeline program. The filings in docket 11-42, among others, were in response to the FCC’s NPRM, for which comments were due Monday. Many of the state commissions believe the best way to curb waste, fraud and abuse within the program is to let the states continue to use their own designation process. Others believe this process will have to be revisited once the program is updated, because the FCC will need to see if things are working and be open to changing the things that aren’t. None of the states said it was a bad choice to include broadband in the coverage, but some of the state organizations recognized the need for a cap of some sort to keep the program from swelling too much.
Most state commissions and organizations representing state interests believe it's a bad idea to streamline the eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) designation process for the Lifeline program. The filings in docket 11-42, among others, were in response to the FCC’s NPRM, for which comments were due Monday. Many of the state commissions believe the best way to curb waste, fraud and abuse within the program is to let the states continue to use their own designation process. Others believe this process will have to be revisited once the program is updated, because the FCC will need to see if things are working and be open to changing the things that aren’t. None of the states said it was a bad choice to include broadband in the coverage, but some of the state organizations recognized the need for a cap of some sort to keep the program from swelling too much.
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) recently enacted a new law loosening the state’s tough requirements for labeling products sold in the state as “Made in the U.S.A,” said his office in a list of recently signed legislation (here). S.B. 633 (here) amends Section 17533.7 of the California Business and Professions Code to allow for “Made in the U.S.A.” labeling if less than 5 percent of an article’s value is from foreign components, or if less than 10 percent of the value is foreign and the components are not available in the U.S.
An FCC order dismissing a Voice on the Net Coalition petition for reconsideration of an order imposing reporting duties on international VoIP providers was published in the Federal Register Tuesday. The order also required "submarine cable landing licensees to file reports identifying capacity they own or lease on each submarine cable," the FR said.
An FCC order dismissing a Voice on the Net Coalition petition for reconsideration of an order imposing reporting duties on international VoIP providers was published in the Federal Register Tuesday. The order also required "submarine cable landing licensees to file reports identifying capacity they own or lease on each submarine cable," the FR said.
RadioShack creditors that collectively are still owed more than half a billion dollars from the chain’s bankruptcy liquidation (see 1502060023) aren’t walking away quietly without their money, they said in a breach of fiduciary duty complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas. The complaint “arises out of a scheme” in which Standard General, the New York hedge fund that bought RadioShack, “delayed actions that could have preserved significant value in the company,” the filing said. Standard General deliberately did so “in order to orchestrate a change of control transaction” to acquire “an insolvent RadioShack at the lowest possible cost,” and acted with “the complicity of RadioShack’s conflicted CEO,” Joseph Magnacca, and the chain’s “faithless board of directors,” all of whom are named as defendants, the complaint said. “A mere four months” after Standard General bought RadioShack, the chain “met its inevitable fate of chapter 11 in the Delaware bankruptcy court,” it said. “The company’s crash-landing into bankruptcy involved immediate closure of half of RadioShack’s operations and handed over the company’s most valuable assets to Standard General less than 60 days later.” The creditors -- none is named individually in the complaint -- brought the case to expose how Standard General “came to control the senior-most debt of the company” and how it even got RadioShack, through Magnacca, to pay for Standard General’s planned acquisition, the filing said. While Standard General and its key investment officer, Soohyung Kim, “masterminded the scheme,” it couldn't have been “executed without the participation of a banking institution with the financial prowess to fund the various moving pieces," the complaint said. Wells Fargo, also named as a defendant, “willingly fulfilled” that role, it said. Representatives of Kim, Magnacca, Standard General, Wells Fargo and the various other firms and individuals named as defendants didn’t comment on the complaint. The case number is 4:15-cv-00652.
A recent order by the FCC on a vanity call sign for an amateur radio operator shows the agency is paying attention on even small issues, Fletcher Heald lawyer Mitchell Lazarus said in a blog post. Joshua Babb, “seeking both brevity and his initials,” applied for four vanity call signs ending in JB, Lazarus wrote. The FCC turned him down on each. But then the licensee for W3JB, John Birch, died. Babb applied, claiming to be a nephew of the deceased licensee. He got the call sign. The FCC took a second look, asking Babb for documentation showing he was Birch’s nephew. “The FCC deduced that Mr. Babb was claiming Mr. Birch to be his great-great-uncle -- a relationship missing from the list of exceptions,” Lazarus wrote. “Documentation or not, this would not have made Mr. Babb eligible for W3JB until after the two-year waiting period, when he would probably have to had to take his chances in a lottery.” The FCC last week proposed to take away W3JB and restore Babb’s original call sign, KD7HLX, giving him 30 days to object. The order is intriguing on several levels, Lazarus said. “It shows that even the simplest-seeming FCC functions are subject to unexpected complications,” he wrote. “It shows the FCC staff is more alert than Mr. Babb, at least, gave them credit for. It shows a surprising degree of tolerance toward Mr. Babb’s seemingly blatant misrepresentation (about being Mr. Birch’s nephew) that could have landed him in prison for five years. And, in the end, it shows that family connections really do matter.”
Boomerang Wireless filed an amended version of its 2010 petition at the FCC asking to be designated as an eligible telecom carrier to offer low-cost service under the Lifeline program. Boomerang wants to serve Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. “Boomerang submits this Amended Petition to expand its proposed Lifeline offering,” said the petition, filed in docket 09-197. “Boomerang proposes to provide Lifeline customers with low- cost plan options that include 250 MB of data per month, and Lifeline customers who reside on tribal lands with low-cost plan options that include 500 MB of data per month.” Boomerang asked for an expedited decision by the commission.
Boomerang Wireless filed an amended version of its 2010 petition at the FCC asking to be designated as an eligible telecom carrier to offer low-cost service under the Lifeline program. Boomerang wants to serve Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. “Boomerang submits this Amended Petition to expand its proposed Lifeline offering,” said the petition, filed in docket 09-197. “Boomerang proposes to provide Lifeline customers with low- cost plan options that include 250 MB of data per month, and Lifeline customers who reside on tribal lands with low-cost plan options that include 500 MB of data per month.” Boomerang asked for an expedited decision by the commission.