The hiring of Ray Baum to the House Commerce Committee could signal heightened Capitol Hill interest in pursuing Universal Service Fund reform this year, state and industry officials said. Baum was chairman of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission and the state chairman of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service. Some wireline industry lobbyists said they believe Baum may try to revamp the bill worked out last year by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., and former Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.
Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., took himself out of the running for ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee, clearing the way for Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., to take the job. Towns will join the Commerce Committee, according to a list we obtained of Democratic committee assignments. Also, House Judiciary Committee Republicans announced chairmen and vice chairmen for its subcommittees. Late Friday, Commerce Committee Republicans announced their subcommittee assignments.
Motorola Solutions, NCTA, Cellular South and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association all filed petitions for reconsideration at the FCC last week, asking it to make changes to white spaces rules. The commission approved an order on use of the TV white spaces at its Sept. 23 meeting. The agency said the band can be used for “super Wi-Fi."
LAS VEGAS - Tablet devices are poised to become “our most personal computers” in a transition that will be akin to the switch from mainframe to personal computers, said Mike Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia’s mobile business unit. During each such transition over computing’s history, the amount of people using the devices has increased by an order of magnitude or more, he told a Consumer Electronics Show panel on disruptive technologies. “We're going to look back in a few years and find that a large part of the world’s population did their first computing on a smartphone or a tablet device.” New high-powered smartphones have the same specifications a top-of-the-line notebook PC had a few years ago, he said. “It’s beyond disruptive,” he said. “It’s one of those half-dozen events in the computing industry that we'll all look back and are excited to be a part of."
Usage-based pricing may increase consumer costs and thereby limit the reach of online video, but it won’t diminish Internet streaming’s threat to traditional pay TV, Credit Suisse analysts concluded in a report to investors Friday. Analysts used Canada -- which has allowed usage-based pricing since 2008 -- to set up a case study. Credit Suisse’s Canadian cable analyst, Colin Moore, volunteered as the guinea pig. He found that using Netflix streaming services to watch 32 episodes of “Mad Men” in a month raised the family’s bill by $12.
More state and local governments likely will have their own Facebook pages, after the social networking site modified portions of its terms of agreement this week, state officials told us. Groups like the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) are negotiating similar agreements with other social media companies including YouTube.
LAS VEGAS -- Mobile video products won’t attract viewers without some form of free content, panelists at the Consumer Electronics Show said late Thursday. Viewers want to have the same experience on their handsets as they have in the living room, and that includes free access to some of their favorite programming, said Diane Jovin, vice president of corporate marketing and business development for Telegent Systems, a mobile TV chipmaker. “Subscription fees can work for premium content, but it needs to be bundled with other types of content,” she said. The lack of free content is part of what doomed Qualcomm’s MediaFLO service, panelists said.
FCC action in developing rules for efficient use of V-band spectrum will help allay the shortage of feeder link spectrum for broadband use but it should move forward with a “light hand,” the Satellite Industry Association said in comments on the FCC’s proposed rulemaking for the band. The FCC is working toward making rules meant to increase the sharing of 37.5-42.5 GHz spectrum by terrestrial and satellite services. The agency should “embrace a flexible regulatory approach that does not impinge unnecessarily on satellite operators” that are designing systems to work with international and FCC spectrum frameworks, said SIA.
LAS VEGAS -- There is “strong support” from other federal agencies for efforts to free up spectrum for wireless broadband, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at the Consumer Electronics Show. He told reporters he remains confident that 115 MHz can “readily” be freed up within five years, with more to come after that.
LAS VEGAS -- Incentive auctions to free up spectrum for wireless broadband “are a test of whether the U.S. can make the right strategic choices in a complex and fast-moving digital economy,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in the text of speech to have been delivered after our deadline Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show. He said freeing up spectrum “is not just a real issue for the future of gadgets; it’s a vital strategic issue for the future of our economy and job creation."