The International Trade Commission has issued a report, "Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2008 Annual Report," which finds, among other things, that infrastructure services, including logistics, grew faster in 2006 in cross-border exports than the average annual basis in the preceding five-year period.
TPV Technology started assembling 42W-and-up LCD TVs in Mexico, laying the groundwork for building its AOC brand in the U.S., Marketing Manager Robert Velez told us at the DigitalLife conference in New York last week.
The FCC should overhaul its collection method for fees charged submarine cable systems this year, said nine submarine cable operators. Global Crossing and Tata Communications have endorsed a proposal to create a new regulatory category for submarine cable systems carved from the existing international bearer circuit category. Friday, the nine operators submitted a revised plan addressing “concerns raised on the record that smaller-capacity systems using older technologies could be disadvantaged by a per- system fee that does not account for the particular circumstances of such systems,” they said. Under the revised plan, small-capacity systems would pay half what new, higher- capacity systems pay, they said. The revisions clarify that a consortium-owned cable system should be treated as a single system when paying the new SCS fee, even if the FCC has issued multiple cable landing licenses for it. Payment responsibility would be divided among consortium members according to commercial agreements, they said. FCC commissioners are to vote on an item about regulatory fee assessment at the Aug. 1 meeting (CD June 14 p2). The submarine cable group believes the FCC has enough information to adopt the group’s proposal Aug. 1, said an industry official close to the proceeding. The submarine cable group recently met with legal aides to Commissioners Kevin Martin, Robert McDowell and Deborah Tate, and has meetings scheduled this week with Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, the official said. More carriers have said they soon will embrace the proposal, which may undergo further revision to broaden its scope, the official said. AT&T, Verizon and Qwest oppose the proposal, which they say would give submarine cable operators an unfair regulatory advantage (CD June 10 p11).
The Government Accountability Office has issued a report entitled "Border Security: Summary of Covert Tests and Security Assessments for the Senate Committee on Finance, 2003-2007."
On June 23, 2008, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported S. 3181, the fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, affecting U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Three TV stations running at reduced power told the FCC last week that they'd make special temporary authority or other requests if operations aren’t restored within 30 days of the reductions. Oklahoma Land Co.’s KTUZ-TV Shawnee, Okla., and West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority’s WPBY-TV Huntington are operating at half power. Fisher’s low-power station KUNB Boise is at 22 percent.
China’s telecom regulator imposed a phone and Internet moratorium order in cities hosting Olympic events, plus some non-Olympic cities, to ensure stable communications during the games, officials said. Chinese carriers are telling customers about the order, and affected businesses are activating backup plans. An analyst report said the order should have no major impact on Chinese telecom firms.
The FCC wants to change the DTV channel of WYDO Greenville, N.C., to 47 from 14, the Media Bureau said in a rulemaking notice released Thursday. The station told the FCC that the switch would avoid “costly and time-intensive custom filtering” to guard against interference by land- mobile operators. The move also would allow the station to reach almost 89,000 more people than now, it told the FCC. Comments on the plan are due 30 days after the notice appears in the Federal Register, replies 15 days later.
Six weeks after low-power TV’s Community Broadcasters Association trumpeted sales of an uncertified Microprose analog-passthrough DTV converter box (CED May 22 p1), that device -- the MPI-500PT -- finally is certified, NTIA confirmed Thursday. Microprose’s online store had yanked the MPI-500PT, blaming a certification “discrepancy” that kept the site from selling the box (CED May 23 p1). We checked the site Thursday and found it inactive, as when the MPI- 500PT was pulled in late May. The site says Microprose is NTIA-certified, but that applies to the previously certified MPI-500 box without passthrough, not to the online site, which is run by Legacy Engineering under license from Microprose. NTIA had described Legacy as certified for the program but without “participating” status, which requires a site or retailer prove the ability to redeem coupons and have boxes in stock and a trained staff. We were awaiting details at our deadline from NTIA about the status of the Microprose store, which still isn’t listed as a participating retailer. Meanwhile, the number of households approved for DTV converter box coupons passed the 10-million mark the week ended June 30, NTIA data show. The almost 18.9 million coupons ordered made an average of 1.9 requested per home -- far higher than the 1.25 that IBM had estimated last summer when it vied for the contract it landed to run the program. Of 17.5 million coupons mailed, about 28 percent have been redeemed, 60 percent are active, and 13 percent have expired, the data show. About 75 percent of the program’s initial $890 million has been “committed,” the agency said. But the value of any expired coupons will go back into the pool, it said. If the initial money is all used, a “contingent” phase will kick in, providing coupons only to homes whose residents affirm that they get TV reception through an antenna alone. - - PG
The FCC found “acceptable for filing” a Time Warner request to transfer its control of Time Warner Cable to a separate publicly traded company through a spinoff or split- off (CD May 22 p3). Comments on Time Warner’s request for the FCC to approve the transfer of control of licenses held by Time Warner to the cable operator are due July 31 in docket 08-120, replies Aug. 15, a public notice said Wednesday. Applications include cable TV relay service and licenses for Ku-band earth stations, land mobile radio and point-to-point microwaves and include HBO, Warner Bros. and other properties.