Despite a decrease in voice service revenue in Inmarsat Global’s maritime and land mobile business, parent Inmarsat reported total revenue of $281.5 million in Q1 2010, up 11.8 percent from a year earlier. Inmarsat Global’s revenue grew 22.8 percent to $200.7 million. The growth resulted partly from stronger sales of data services, the company said. It reported revenue increases of 3.5 percent to $62 million for maritime data and 34 percent to $43 million for land data. The company expects the trend to continue, saying “although we see continued weakness in our maritime voice revenue, we believe demand for data services remains solid and can deliver further growth during the rest of the year.” The company’s land mobile business was helped by demand for Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network after the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Revenue from the network increased 62 percent. Another Inmarsat subsidiary, Stratos, reported 2.1 percent revenue growth to $159.9 in the quarter despite a 21.9 percent decrease in mobile satellite broadband service revenue that Inmarsat blamed on “current economic conditions.”
Speakers expressed general support for an FCC proposal to move to a Consolidated Licensing System (CLS), during a workshop Thursday. Mary Beth Richards, special counsel to the chairman for FCC Reform, said the commission will release a rulemaking notice on the CLS and plans additional workshops. “The CLS system is really an ambitious project,” Richards said. “It’s part of our overall reform efforts to make the agency more efficient and effective, easier to use our systems.”
Subscription contributions for telecom companies that sell DirecTV services are slowing as TV competition intensifies and reliance on land lines declines, the company said in its Q1 earnings call. Generally sold as part of a bundle with telephone services and/or Internet, contributions have fallen to under 20 percent from about 25 percent, said DirecTV Chief Financial Officer Patrick Doyle. The continued roll out of Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s U-verse have contributed to the slide, he said.
Canada's Border Service Agency has announced that the NEXUS program has reached the 400,000th member mark. NEXUS is available at all major Canadian airports, at 17 land border crossings and at over 430 marine ports of entry. It is a joint program of CBSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and is designed to simplify border crossings for pre-approved travelers while enhancing security. (News release, dated 04/30/10, available at http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/media/release-communique/2010/2010-04-30-eng.html)
A paucity of comments on an FCC radio rulemaking asking whether it should extend preferences for assigning stations to tribes without lands (CD Feb 4 p12) seems to underline the relative lack of controversy, several broadcast lawyers said. Three groups and a non-profit representing Native Americans and Alaska natives filed comments that were released Tuesday afternoon in docket 09-52. Other groups said they sat out the filing round. Commission action on tribal issues seems like it won’t take long, but acting on a more controversial matter raised by a 2009 rulemaking notice of whether to make it harder for stations to move into larger towns may take a while if it occurs at all, said three industry lawyers.
Best Buy will launch a new video download service by early summer, with plans to add it to private label Insignia flat-panel TVs and Blu-ray players, senior executives with the chain told us Thursday at the Barclays investor conference in New York.
The Department of Homeland Security has published its spring 2010 semi-annual regulatory agenda for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn hasn’t decided whether broadband should be reclassified under Title II, she said in an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. She said she’s passionate about open networks, making sure consumers know what they are getting and other goals listed in the National Broadband Plan, but how the commission will accomplish them hasn’t been decided. “We are still in negotiations with the American public and companies we regulate” on how to move forward, Clyburn said. Public-safety network interoperability and a Universal Service Fund overhaul are among her major goals as the commission tries to carry out the plan, she said. On USF, the commission will work within the “existing financial framework” and won’t “cause the contribution factor to go up,” Clyburn said. “There is a probability of shifting in terms of the factors, especially as it relates to rural carriers, and those are the types of conversations we must have. Rural carriers, in particular, are concerned about the migration from land line support to this new kind of infrastructure or this new system we're putting forth. Those are the types of details we are going to have to work out.” Moving from the Public Service Commission of South Carolina was a culture shock because at the FCC there’s less interaction with the people involved, she said. The FCC filing process is exact and it’s a little “cold” compared to the evidentiary hearings at the state commission, Clyburn said. At first, she said, she sometimes felt like she was on a “big eighth floor island.”
Florida’s oversight of telcos and other utilities would undergo significant change if legislators pass either of two rival bills, officials said. S-1034, by Sen. Mike Fasano, a Republican, would impose tighter controls on ex parte communications. A competing House measure, HB-7209 by GOP Rep. Steve Precourt, would address ex parte communications but also put the regulatory agency through a drastic reorganization that would include putting its staff under the control of the governor’s office. Fasano’s bill was passed March 3 by the Senate 39-1. Precourt’s bill got its final committee approval Wednesday.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a proposed rule that would change the disease status of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina to allow importation into the U.S. of certain animals and animal products by adding Santa Catarina to the list of regions recognized by USDA as being free of various animal diseases. Because Santa Catarina borders a region where animal diseases exist, however, APHIS is proposing that imports of meat and other animal products from Santa Catarina be subject to certain restrictions.