Hhgregg will expand into New Jersey next spring with the opening of stores in May’s Landing and Lawrenceville, Jeff Pearson, vice president of marketing, told us. The 30,000- square-foot stores will be in former Circuit City locations, he said. The new outlets are part of hhgregg’s plans to open stores in the Philadelphia area next year, Pearson said. Meanwhile, hhgregg is grand-opening six locations Thursday in the Tampa area, increasing the number of stores it operates in Florida to 20, the company said. The new stores are in Bradenton, Brandon, Brooksville, Clearwater, Hillsborough and Sarasota, Fla.
On September 22, 2009, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1080, a bill to strengthen enforcement mechanisms to stop illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU).
First responders don’t consider a wireless broadband network as a substitute for conventional voice radios, Public Safety Spectrum Trust Chairman Harlin McEwen said in a letter and a white paper sent Monday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Public safety needs the 12 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum that has been set aside for its narrowband voice systems, McEwen said. “There is a misconception by some that in 2-3 years wireless broadband will be an alternative to Land Mobile Radio mission critical public safety voice systems,” the white paper said. “The fact is there are currently no broadband standards being developed or even planned that will allow such an alternative.” McEwen, also chairman of the Communications & Technology Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said he wanted to set the record straight. “Current and planned broadband standards and technologies depend on a network approach while public safety must also have a non-network capability to communicate in emergencies when a network cannot be reached or is out of service,” the paper said. McEwen noted that millions of dollars have already been spent on conventional land-mobile public-safety voice systems in this spectrum. “To stop that progress would be disastrous to the public safety community and the communities they serve,” the paper said. “Secondly, and equally as important, is that the claims that in 2-3 years broadband will begin replacing land mobile mission critical voice radio services are based on lack of knowledge of the possibilities to accomplish this.” McEwen also commented on the cost of a national wireless broadband network. “Estimates of $10 billion to $40 billion have been floated without any real supporting documentation,” the paper said. “There is general agreement that if public safety and the private sector can leverage existing private and public infrastructure the cost can be significantly reduced. One commercial company has said that if existing commercial infrastructure was used their cost estimate would be about $13 billion. Eventual total cost of the network will also be influenced by local build-out decisions. Where local entities or regions want to build out a portion of the national network in their jurisdiction they may each have a different view as to how robust that network should be in their area.”
Norsat International recently landed $3.9 million in new orders around the globe serving several industries, including maritime communications, broadcasting, and homeland security, the company said on Tuesday. U.S. contracts accounted for half of the awards while a fifth came from the Asia-Pacific region and the rest were European countries, Norsat said.
“Immediate mission critical voice capabilities” will remain the highest priority for public safety even after a wireless broadband network or networks is launched, the Public Safety Spectrum Trust said Thursday. It was responding to questions raised last month in a Public Safety Bureau letter. It followed up on questions raised at an Aug. 25 broadband workshop (CD Aug 26 p1). The letter was signed by trust Chairman Harlin McEwen.
Meteorology interests are pressing European administrations to reduce the number of channels available for future wireless local area networks on aircraft because of interference with radars, sources said. Wireless and airline industry executives are concerned that military and other radar users will try to further limit use of the 5 GHz band in Europe and on aircraft. Onboard wireless systems are proposed to use various 5 GHz band frequencies for wireless in-flight entertainment distribution systems, crew information services, passenger Internet access, emergency lighting, attendant headphones, and radio frequency identification.
Online retailer Newegg is seeking to raise up to $175 million in an initial public offering partly to finance expansion in China and Canada, the company said in SEC documents. Newegg said it will spend $25 million over the next 12 months to increase its operations in the countries. Fred Chang, who owns 77 percent of the company, was named president of the China business. The company’s revenue from China increased to $54.4 million in the first half of 2009 from $12.7 million a year earlier, Newegg said. IPO proceeds also will be used to repay a $7.5 million bank loan due in October 2010 and guaranteed by Chang.
Online retailer Newegg is seeking to raise up to $175 million in an initial public offering partly to finance expansion in China and Canada, the company said in SEC documents. Newegg said it will spend $25 million over the next 12 months to increase its operations in the countries. Fred Chang, who owns 77 percent of the company, was named president of the China business. The company’s revenue from China increased to $54.4 million in the first half of 2009 from $12.7 million a year earlier, Newegg said. IPO proceeds also will be used to repay a $7.5 million bank loan due in October 2010 and guaranteed by Chang. Newegg, which expects to open an Asian headquarters in China in Q1 2010, has 1,096 employees there, including 388 working on its e-commerce site, the company said. It bought land rights in Jiading, near Shanghai, for $3.2 million and expects to spend $10 million on the new office and related buildings, the company said. The Chinese Web site carries 12,600 PC- and CE-related products and processed 3,600 orders a day the three months through June, the company said. In Canada, Newegg will open a 55,000-square-foot office in October in Mississauga, it said. The new locations in Canada and China will double as fulfillment centers, supplementing ones in California and New Jersey, Newegg said. Newegg carries about 33,000 SKUs on its U.S. Web site, it said. Newegg, which had 12 million registered users June 30, launched in 2001 as a retailer of PC-related products. But it has broadened its assortment of CE devices, sales of which rose to $117.8 million in first half 2009 from $96.1 million a year ago. The company’s net income improved $15.7 million in the first half of 2009 from $13 million a year earlier as revenue rose to $1.1 billion from $1.02 billion. Newegg’s North American sales increased to $1.05 billion from $1.02 billion. In 2008, Newegg’s net income grew $28.8 million from $18.6 million as sales increased to $2.1 billion from $1.8 billion the previous year.
Competition among online pharmacies appears to be shrinking slightly while those remaining become more popular, said brand-monitoring company MarkMonitor’s Brandjacking Index, which tracked six different drug brands in July. The study didn’t point fingers at search engines and their pharmacy-verification service of choice, PharmacyChecker.com, as did recent reports by LegitScript that claimed to find widespread violations of U.S. law on supposedly vetted sites (WID Aug 20 p1). MarkMonitor instead pointed to the role of online business-to-business exchanges in supplying bulk quantities of branded pills and “active pharmaceutical ingredients” (APIs).
AT&T asked the FCC to investigate “call blocking” by Google Voice and to treat that company and other new phone service providers the same as traditional telcos. AT&T said Google Voice and others also should be covered by a June 2007 Wireline Bureau order prohibiting “self help actions such as call blocking.” Google replied that Google Voice is fundamentally different from AT&T voice service.