While much of focus in advance of this week’s E3 Expo in L.A. has been on whether console makers Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would cut price of hardware, publishers, retailers and industry observers also were keeping close eye on console software pricing for rest of 2003. Heading into E3, they offered mixed opinions on what to expect.
Almost 68% of all Native American households living on reservations and off-reservation trust lands had telephone service in 2000, compared with 46.6% in 1990, a new study by the FCC said.
The potential market opportunity for the telecom industry in Iraq is $900 million, Wall St. analysts estimated Fri. “Opportunities in Iraq for telecom firms are probably rosier than would be evident in a traditional risk assessment,” said Judy Smith, CEO of Atlantic-ACM Dataline Analysis, telecom consultancy firm. She said companies investigating in such opportunities should base their market entry decisions and risk analyses “on comparables as opposed to Iraq itself.”
Italy notified Brazil that the BeppoSax astronomy satellite would reenter the earth’s atmosphere in the next 2 weeks, the Brazilian Space Agency (BSA) said. The satellite was launched in 1996 to study sources of energy in space. The Italian Space Agency (ISA) said the mission ended a year ago “due to poor and degrading spacecraft conditions.” The spacecraft is likely to reenter the atmosphere May 1, but could do so anytime between April 29 and May 4, the BSA said. It said that as BeppoSax fell, it was likely to break into 42 pieces but exactly how much damage those fragments would do couldn’t be determined until 2 days before the fall. ISA said it wasn’t known exactly where the pieces would land, but it identified the countries it expected would be affected -- near the equator in S. America, Africa and several islands near Australia.
Australian Federal Police busted Internet music file-sharing site based in Sydney Thurs., authorities and music industry officials said. Raid on 4 suburban homes followed 7-month investigation of Web site MP3 WMA land, alleged hub for infringing music files that attracted more than 7 million visitors worldwide and cost music industry estimated $37 million in lost sales, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said. Authorities seized thousands of music files, including catalog and prerelease material by world’s most popular artists, IFPI said. Hundreds of complete copies of commercially released albums were available for direct download, as well as unauthorized copies of album covers, group said. Police seized computers and other records and arrested 3 students -- 2 Australians aged 19 and 20 and 20-year-old Malaysian -- yet to be identified otherwise. Police said defendants were released on bail and would appear in court in mid-May. Penalty for copyright infringement in Australia includes $37,500 fine or jail term up to 5 years. Authorities said MP3 WMA land consisted of series of mirror sites -- replicas of original sites. One mirror site alone held 7 million hit songs in last 12 months, they said. University computers were used to host many of infringing music files and video clips. Australian Senate recently passed amendments to existing copyright law to facilitate action against music piracy. Music industry there had lobbied for changes.
The FCC unanimously adopted amendments to its space station licensing rules Wed. at its monthly agenda meeting. Under the new rules, systems designated for nongeostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) and geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) will be treated separately. Steven Spaeth, an attorney in the International Bureau’s Satellite Div., said the agency hoped that method would “achieve a faster and more efficient licensing process.”
The American Public Transportation Assn. (APTA) opposed a petition by the Industrial Telecom Assn. to coordinate power, railroad and auto emergency frequencies in the VHF and UHF land mobile bands. APTA told the FCC that under the existing system, railroad frequency coordination was conducted only by the Assn. of American Railroads. APTA said it would be against the interest of rail transit companies if the FCC certified more than one entity to perform that frequency coordination service. It said its members operated their rail transit systems on rights-of-way that freight railroads owned, which meant their communications systems must be interoperable with the freight systems. “This system has served the industry well, and we see no reason to change it,” APTA said. Wisconsin Electric Power/Wisconsin Gas (WE) also opposed the ITA petition. WE supported United Telecom Council (UTC) retaining “its limited ability” to protect the utility’s mission-critical communications systems from congestion and interference. WE said ITA “lacks the general knowledge of critical utility business functions to effectively represent its utility member interests.” It said adoption of ITA’s frequency coordination proposal would reduce protection for the power radio channels in which the utility operated. “This has been clearly demonstrated by ITA’s openly adverse position to utilities in the 800 MHz public safety interference docket,” WE said. The Railway Assn. of Canada (RAC) also weighed in against the ITA proposal, saying: “It would unnecessarily complicate and impede the consultative process for near-border and through- service applications.” It said U.S. and Canadian railroads shared a common frequency plan for land mobile radio channels at 160 MHz, 450 MHz and 900 MHz. In the past, RAC said it and the American Assn. of Railroads routinely had consulted with each other on “applications of common concern… These benefits would be lost if the RAC were required to deal with a multiplicity of frequency coordinators in the U.S., especially if eligibility were opened up to U.S. frequency coordinators with no knowledge, expertise or experience in railroad operations.” It said opening up frequency coordination to more than one group in that area would hamper the ability of Canadian and U.S. railroads to migrate to narrowband channel use.
Developers of wireless local area networks (LANs), including Wi-Fi systems, urged the FCC to follow through on a recent notice of inquiry and make additional spectrum available for unlicensed devices, including TV broadcast bands. But several commenters, including some local govts. and private wireless groups, cautioned that technology to avoid interference to incumbents wasn’t far enough along to warrant the FCC’s taking the “risk” of opening that spectrum now. Broadcasters raised particular concerns about the potential impact on the DTV transition.
Developers of wireless local area networks (LANs), including Wi-Fi systems, urged FCC to follow through on recent notice of inquiry and make additional spectrum available for unlicensed devices, including TV broadcast bands. But several commenters, including some local govts. and private wireless groups, cautioned that technology to avoid interference to incumbents wasn’t far enough along to warrant FCC’s taking “risk” of opening that spectrum now. Meanwhile CE makers, said they're excited by possibilities of new devices in unlicensed spectrum, so long as they don’t interfere with TV reception, and broadcasters raised particular concerns about potential impact on DTV transition.
Two long-time Circuit City executives have left company amid small number of layoffs and reduction in number of vp-gen. mdse. mgr. positions to 2 from 3, sources familiar with restructuring told Consumer Electronics Daily.