The Telecom Committee passed five resolutions during its business meeting Tuesday during the NARUC summer committee meetings here in New York. The resolutions will be reviewed by the NARUC board Wednesday afternoon before being voted on by the organization officially. Three of the resolutions covered risk management and best practices for cybersecurity for communications providers, congressional action on the open Internet and eligible telecommunications carrier designations for Lifeline broadband services, as expected (see 1507020054). The resolutions passed with little discussion and had been edited lightly from their original versions.
CLEVELAND -- ATSC President Mark Richer thinks commercial launches of ATSC 3.0 TVs and broadcast services (see 1504130028) are possible by the end of the decade, perhaps sooner, he said Thursday at field trials to showcase the LG-Zenith-GatesAir Futurecast technology proposal for ATSC 3.0. Richer was among a group of several dozen broadcast industry dignitaries, including Lynn Claudy, NAB senior vice president-technology, and ATSC Chairman Glenn Reitmeier of NBCUniversal invited to Cleveland to witness the Futurecast field trials in action.
The CBP User Fee Advisory Committee (UFAC) made a wide range of recommendations at its most recent meeting, including the elimination of cash fee collections at the border. CBP posted a list of the recommendations from Process Improvements Subcommittee (here) and Financial Assessment and Options Subcommittee (here). The committee also recommended requiring all trucks to use eManifest, because the use of paper manifest means "requiring extensive extra time of Officers in primary inspection to process them while causing delay time of trucks behind them in line," it said.
CLEVELAND -- ATSC President Mark Richer thinks commercial launches of ATSC 3.0 TVs and broadcast services (see 1504130028) are possible by the end of the decade, perhaps sooner, he said Thursday at field trials to showcase the LG-Zenith-GatesAir Futurecast technology proposal for ATSC 3.0. Richer was among a group of several dozen broadcast industry dignitaries, including Lynn Claudy, NAB senior vice president-technology, and ATSC Chairman Glenn Reitmeier of NBCUniversal invited to Cleveland to witness the Futurecast field trials in action.
Klipsch is on track to deliver its long-awaited WiSA (Wireless Speaker and Audio) 5.1- and 7.2-channel home theater systems in Q3, said Pat Lavelle, CEO of parent Voxx, on the company’s Q1 FY 2016 earnings call Friday. Tony Ostrom, Klipsch Group vice president-product development, told us at CES (see 1501160040) that the time was right for Klipsch to launch WiSA due to consumers’ desire for a simpler home theater system setup. Ostrom said in January the suggested retail price of the 5.1-channel system would be $5,000-$6,000. Klipsch will also launch a Bluetooth soundbar this quarter, Lavelle said Friday
Mobile Relay Associates faces a proposed $25,000 penalty for violation of FCC rules in its operation of private land mobile radio (PLMR) station WPPF234 in Malibu, California. MRA failed to “monitor and take other precautions to avoid causing harmful interference to another licensed station operating on a shared frequency in the Los Angeles area,” said a notice released by the FCC Enforcement Bureau Tuesday. The FCC warned MRA its operations violated the commission’s sharing and monitoring requirements for PLMR stations, “however, MRA failed to modify its operations of the station to remedy the interference it was causing,” the bureau said. MRA released a statement saying it respects the Enforcement Bureau but disagrees strongly with the notice of apparent liability for forfeiture (NALF). “MRA intends to file a statement in opposition thereto,” the company said. “MRA has not and does not intentionally cause harmful interference to co-channel licensees, and did not intentionally cause harmful interference here.” The proposed fine “represents disparate and haphazard enforcement of the rules,” MRA said, citing a case where a $17,000 fine was proposed against another company for causing harmful interference to the Coast Guard. “MRA’s heavy use of the shared channels in this matter was a direct result of unlicensed operations by San Gabriel Transit on another … exclusive channel licensed to MRA, which knocked MRA’s customers off the exclusive channel and onto the shared channels,” the company said. “Although MRA had complained to the FCC staff, and although unlicensed operations interfering with exclusive licensees is a worse offense than what MRA is accused of, the FCC staff has not issued any NALF against San Gabriel Transit.”
The Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC) for CBP will next meet July 29 in Rosemont, Illinois, CBP said in a notice (here).
The New York Times in a July 3 editorial headlined "Saving the Palisades" hailed a compromise between LG and environmentalists, politicians and civic groups on a redesign of the company’s Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, headquarters site along the Palisades across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure and T-Mobile CEO John Legere are duking it out on Twitter. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T both attacked T-Mobile Thursday in blog posts, both on the TV incentive auction. Claure tweeted Tuesday about Sprint’s new unlimited data plan (see 1507010011). “We heard you loud and clear and we are removing the 600 kbps on streaming video,” Claure said, under the hashtag “Allin.”
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure and T-Mobile CEO John Legere are duking it out on Twitter. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T both attacked T-Mobile Thursday in blog posts, both on the TV incentive auction. Claure tweeted Tuesday about Sprint’s new unlimited data plan (see 1507010011). “We heard you loud and clear and we are removing the 600 kbps on streaming video,” Claure said, under the hashtag “Allin.”