Amazon is adding 100,000 new full- and part-time positions across the U.S. in fulfillment centers and its delivery network to meet the surge in demand from people relying on its deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic, it said Monday. The additional workers will boost its ability to deliver critical supplies “directly to the doorstep” of people relying on its service “during this stressful time." The e-tailer is contacting potential employees whose jobs have been affected in fields of hospitality, restaurants and travel, saying “we want those people to know we welcome them on our teams until things return to normal and their past employer is able to bring them back.” Amazon is temporarily boosting pay for existing employees, who are “playing an essential role” in the crisis, adding $2 per hour in wages in the U.S. to its current $15, through April. The company acted to promote social distancing in the workplace and is doing enhanced and frequent cleaning.
The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence is collecting comment on its draft zero trust architecture for cybersecurity through April 14. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s NCCOE is exploring a zero trust architecture concept, which treats “all users as potential threats and prevents access to data” to ensure device security.
Sonos and Google lawyers have until March 24 to submit a “joint procedural schedule” in the International Trade Commission’s Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Sonos allegations that Google smart speakers and other devices infringe five Sonos multiroom audio patents. A pretrial hearing is set for July 20 and a final evidentiary hearing for Feb. 22-24, 2021, said an order (login required) in docket 337-TA-1191 signed Friday by Chief Administrative Law Judge Charles Bullock. Sonos and Google need to agree on dates in the schedule for two settlement meetings and one mediation session, said the order. The settlement meetings must be in person unless Bullock gives permission for “good cause shown” to hold them by videoconferencing or teleconferencing, it said. Bullock’s “initial determination” order Wednesday setting May 11, 2021, as the target date for completing the investigation added three months’ cushion to the calendar to account for workload pressures from a separate investigation, plus “potential scheduling disruptions” from COVID-19 (see 2003120001). His order Friday didn’t mention possible delays from the coronavirus.
Xerox will prioritize the health and safety of its employees, customers, partners and affiliates above other considerations, “including its proposal to acquire HP,” said CEO John Visentin Friday. His company will delay releases of presentations, media interviews and meetings with HP shareholders to focus on resources to protect the company’s various stakeholders from the coronavirus pandemic. Xerox offered to buy HP for $24 a share Feb. 10, a price “not in the best interest of HP shareholders,” says HP CEO Enrique Lores (see 2002250008). Xerox “does not consider the market decline since the date of its offer” -- or the temporary suspension of trading in HP shares Tuesday and Thursday as a result of marketwide circuit breaker procedures -- to constitute a failure of any condition to its offer to acquire HP,” said the company.
The CTIA push for licensed use of the 6 GHz band continues. Doug Hyslop, vice president-technology and spectrum planning, blogged Thursday that 6 GHz proponents offer contradictory data to justify the need for sharing the entire band. “Cable, Google and Facebook are demanding all 1200 megahertz in the 6 GHz band for free,” he said: “That is twice the international consensus, and is more than four C-Band auctions worth of spectrum. It’s a lot.” With the FCC expected in April to tackle order on the 6 GHz band, a Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council teleconference Thursday heard about cable and other hopes for the spectrum (see 2003120065).
Federated Wireless extended its spectrum controller platform for use in the 6 GHz band, which the FCC is expected to open for sharing with unlicensed users (see 2003050058). Federated provides similar service for the citizens broadband radio service band. The platform is “in trials … and is expected to be available for commercial use by the end of 2020,” the company said Wednesday.
Contrary to popular belief that Netflix will be a “beneficiary” of COVID-19 because audiences will spend more time at home watching, Needham thinks the outbreak is “bad news” for the streaming service, said a Tuesday research note. Netflix charges a fixed monthly fee, “and does not benefit economically from additional viewing hours,” it said. The fixed price is $9-$16 monthly in the U.S. Netflix needs to cut its monthly fees to $5-$7 a month to compete with new streaming competitors at that price point, the analyst said. Subsidizing that with a new “ad-driven tier” means “more viewing hours for any reason would allow NFLX shareholders to participate in revenue upside,” the firm said. Needham worries overseas subscription and revenue growth “are increasingly at risk as COVID-19 spreads,” because Netflix is “a luxury at a time when paychecks from employment may have stopped.”
Amazon removed more than 530,000 “offers” from its online store for “coronavirus-based price gouging,” Vice President-Public Policy Brian Huseman wrote Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. It also “suspended” more than 2,500 third-party “seller accounts” in the U.S. “for violating our price gouging policies,” said Huseman Friday. “We have issued proactive reminders of our fair pricing policy to all of our selling partners. We are actively working with state attorneys general to prosecute bad actors.” Amazon won’t “tolerate attempts by bad actors to artificially raise prices on basic need products during a global health crisis,” said Huseman. “It is unconscionable.” Markey wrote Amazon Wednesday insisting that it thwart third-party price gouging on hand sanitizer and facial masks during the coronavirus crisis (see 2003040053).
Evolving technologies, not dedicated short-range communications, will make the roadways safer, the Free State Foundation told the FCC in docket 19-138, posted Friday. Various state groups urged the regulator to leave DSRC intact. Commissioners agreed 5-0 in December to examine revised rules for the swath, reallocating 45 MHz for Wi-Fi, with 20 MHz reserved for cellular-vehicle to everything and 10 for DSRC (see 1912180019). “The success of a network-oriented safety application like DSRC hinges upon the ubiquitous integration of that technology into all vehicles on the road,” FSF said. “That requires automobile manufacturers to build the standard into every new car -- and even then, years must pass before incompatible models exit the roadways. In the case of DSRC, unfortunately, that simply is not what we have witnessed.” The Institute of Transportation Engineers is disappointed in the FCC plan. “The proposal to reallocate more than half of the 5.9 GHz safety spectrum for unlicensed uses comes at a time when more than 36,000 people are dying on our nation’s highways each year, and more than 1.8 million were injured,” the group said. The South Dakota Department of Transportation defended DSRC: “Opportunities to radically improve the nation’s mobility, safety and economic vitality are rare, but such an opportunity is before us in preserving the 5.9 GHz spectrum for transportation.” The Center for Auto Safety said reallocating the spectrum would “inevitably further delay and imperil deployment of life-saving ... technologies.”
YouTube TV isn't paying market rates or accepting market terms and conditions that other YES Network distributors have agreed to "for its own selfish reasons," YES tweeted Thursday, announcing the vMVPD dropped it. It said Sinclair -- its partial owner (see 1908290063) -- made a deal for some but not all of its regional sports networks. YouTube tweeted that in its Sinclair deal, it won't carry Fox regional sports networks "in select areas." Sinclair said its YouTube TV deal will have 19 of the 21 Fox RSNs on the streaming service, with Prime Ticket and Fox Sports West going dark.