LAS VEGAS -- Vizio is demonstrating a 70-inch 4K 3D LCD TV at CES, but won’t decide until spring whether to sell the set as it weighs technology and yield issues, John Schindler, vice president of product management, told Consumer Electronics Daily. In addition to demonstrating the 70-inch 4K with a 240 Hz panel, Vizio also may field 55-inch and 65-inch Internet-capable versions, the company said.
The Port of San Diego swore in new board officers for 2013. The chairman is land-use attorney Ann Moore, who represents Chula Vista on the Board of Port Commissioners. In addition to Moore, Commissioner Bob Nelson, one of three San Diego representatives on the seven-member board, was sworn in as vice chair, and Commissioner Dan Malcolm, representing Imperial Beach, was installed as secretary. Moore said her theme this year is “a Port for All,” which encompasses Integrated Planning -- an approach that considers planning in context with surrounding areas -- and including stakeholders in the port's decisionmaking process.
CBP said it opened a new land border port of entry at Boundary, Wash. It replaces the outdated facility, strengthens security and facilitates the flow of legal travel and international trade across the border, CBP said. It includes cutting-edge inspection technologies that CBP said strengthen security and expedite inspections. It also has new inspection booths, offices, a new secondary inspection area and two inbound and two outbound lanes into Canada, covered by canopies and/or garages with overhead doors.
ProSource will form a new joint buying committee for headphones and wireless/network products in February to add focus to the audio category, ProSource President David Workman said. The six- to seven-member group will operate separately from ProSource’s core audio buying committee. “With the amount of time spent on core audio we couldn’t focus as much on emerging technologies and this will help us do that,” Workman said. The new committee, which includes members of PRO Buying Group and Brandsource’s Home Entertainment Source (HES), will be the latest addition to the alliance the groups formed in 2009. ProSource has joint buying committees for most categories, the lone exception being custom installation, Workman said. Meanwhile, six to seven PRO Group members have eBay storefronts with additional PRO and HES dealers expected to sign on at CES, Workman said. Under an agreement reached with eBay last year, PRO retailer stores on eBay link back to their own websites and the e-commerce company gets a share of the transactions. A second batch of PRO Group members was expected to launch storefronts last summer, but the process slowed as eBay worked to make dealers and manufacturers aware of the service, Michael Jones, vice president-merchant development, told us. EBay has landed agreements with some CE manufacturers, including Monster, but needs to raise awareness of the service, Jones said. EBay’s efforts also ran into new unilateral pricing policies (UPP) Samsung, Sony and others implemented last year in a bid to stabilize TV pricing. The UPP requirements barred authorized retailers from selling goods via Amazon Marketplace and other third-party sites. The requirement eased as eBay made manufacturers aware of its storefront policies, Jones said. CE manufacturers, including Samsung and Bose, also moved to make UPPs work better with the third-party storefronts, Workman said. EBay is “signing up some new partners and it always intended as a phased rollout” with ProSource, Workman said. “It’s a legitimate, viable alternative platform for retailers. Some manufacturers mistakenly believed that the implementation of UPPs and the third-party sellers were incompatible. But in general the UPPs and the access to markets has shown to standardize the marketplace.”
Walmart landed Digital Entertainment Group honors as retailer of the year in hardware, software and digital delivery, DEG said Sunday. It’s the first time that one retailer has swept all three categories, DEG said. DEG will give Walmart the awards at its annual CES reception Tuesday at the Encore hotel. Walmart “continues to successfully support Blu-ray hardware and software, and UltraViolet through its Disc to Digital program,” DEG said. “As new categories such as UltraViolet appear, they have taken the initiative to develop engaging interactive displays to expose the consumer to emerging technologies."
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) said it supports the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) enactment of new regulations that will “significantly lower cable landing station access facilitation charges in India.” TRAI’s new regulations took effect Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bn9ejq). The regulations will reduce costs for broadband access and international long-distance telephony for Indian businesses and consumers, TIA said Friday.
The federal government appears “stuck” in its move to get more federal spectrum in play for wireless broadband, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said Thursday in a blog post on the conservative website Redstate.com. “I believe that a substantial amount of spectrum needs to be transferred from the federal government to the private sector,” Pai wrote (http://xrl.us/bn83sp). “The federal government needs to let some spectrum go.” Pai noted that six years ago “federal agencies cleared a big chunk of federal spectrum -- 90 MHz -- for commercial use,” prior to the AWS-1 auction. “There’s no doubt that American consumers are benefitting from this cleared spectrum,” he said. “That 90 MHz today is being used by wireless carriers to provide 4G broadband service across the country. But now we're stuck. In the last four years, the federal government has not relinquished any spectrum for commercial use. Even worse, some in Washington, D.C., have all but given up on putting more federal spectrum in private hands.” Spectrum sharing isn’t a good substitute for spectrum clearing, Pai said. “To illustrate why, think about buying some government land to build a house,” he said. “Under option A, the government gives up property and sells it to you outright. Under option B, the government allows you to share its property and reserves the right to occupy your house whenever it decides it needs to use it. Under which scenario would you be more likely to buy the land, build the house, and use it productively?"
Oklatel Communications seeks a waiver of FCC rules requiring eligible telecom carriers to demonstrate annually that they have engaged tribal governments in their universal service supported areas. Oklatel is unable, “as a practical and logical matter,” to meet the tribal engagement obligations, it said, because “the Tribal population served by Oklatel is different than that of typical Tribal lands” (http://xrl.us/bn83tm). The obligations are “inappropriate” as applied to Oklatel because, although the telco serves consumers that are members of federally recognized tribes, it “serves no Tribal ’sovereign institutions,’ ‘Tribal governments,’ or ‘Tribal Councils,'” Oklatel said, quoting the rules. “With zero formal Tribal communities and Tribal governments in its service area, it will be exceedingly difficult for Oklatel to comply with the Commission’s Tribal engagement obligations in any meaningful fashion."
The TETRA + Critical Communications Association (TCCA) said the FCC should reject a Motorola Solutions petition for reconsideration of an FCC order on certification and use of Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) technology on certain Part 90 land mobile radio frequencies. “The Motorola Petition raises no new issues, unnecessarily delays the implementation of rules allowing access to TETRA in this country, and should be dismissed immediately,” TCCA said (http://xrl.us/bn822b). But the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials said the Motorola petition raises questions that need to be answered by the FCC. “In particular, Motorola notes an inconsistency between the text of the Report and Order and the text of the adopted rules as to whether TETRA may be deployed on non-NPSPAC [National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee] 800 MHz band channels,” APCO said (http://xrl.us/bn822d). “Public safety frequency coordinators have recently received applications indicating proposed TETRA use on such channels. Therefore, immediate and formal clarification is required to determine if such applications are compliant with the Commission’s rules."
The FCC received a continuing trickle of applications right up to its Tuesday deadline seeking more time to comply with rules requiring private land mobile radio licensees in the 150-174 MHz and 421-512 MHz bands to operate using channel bandwidth of no more than 12.5 kHz (CD Dec 28 p1). Among the late filers was the Prince George’s County Board of Education in Maryland, which on Monday asked for 90 additional days. “The County anticipated compliance with the Commission’s Order in the 2012 calendar year; however, the conversion from VHF to 700 and 800 MHz has been delayed as result of the weather and other events beyond the control of the County’s BOE,” the filing said (http://xrl.us/bn8w3k). “The County started the installation of equipment during the summer (2012) recess. As of this date we have installed approximately 70 percent of new 700 MHz mobile devices in vehicles. In addition, we have prepared for issuance 250 of the 750 portable radios to be used in the schools for staff security and related communications.” New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Saturday asked for an extra six months (http://xrl.us/bn8w3z). “The Hospital regrets that it is unable to achieve full compliance with the narrowbanding mandate by the deadline of January 1, 2013, and that it did not seek a waiver further in advance of that deadline,” it said. “However, in order to avoid a violation of the narrowbanding rule, the Hospital has no choice but to now seek a limited waiver of that requirement in order to allow it additional time in which to continue upgrading or replacing its equipment and seeking corresponding modifications of its licenses.” Hunt Oil Co. on Friday sought a three-month extension (http://xrl.us/bn8w37).