The roadmap for Virgin Media’s partnership with TiVo includes moving elements of the set-top box to the cloud, Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett said during the company’s Q3 earnings teleconference Tuesday. The user interface will be the first element of the box to migrate into the network, he said. Eventually, DVR storage and the “whole set-top box” will be cloud-based as the company rolls out DOCSIS 3.1 broadband technology, he said. “I'm quite comfortable that the pace we are looking at is consistent with our peers’, if not ahead,” he said. “That’s why we chose the partner we chose,” he said, meaning TiVo. Virgin Media customers account for more than half of TiVo’s new gross customer additions, he said.
Spectrum policy historically has been viewed as essentially non-political, but that’s changing rapidly. The most recent example is last week’s FCC order that should mean greater use of the wireless communications service band for wireless broadband (CD Oct 17 p1). Industry observers told us that the politicization of spectrum has been all but inevitable, as the world goes wireless.
As a date for a mandatory special access data request draws closer, the FCC Wireline Bureau has started asking telcos about the proper definition of an “indefeasible right of use” (IRU), which is a kind of long-term lease of broadband capacity. The bureau is also soliciting opinions about the potential burden of providing different types of data. That’s according to ex parte filings in docket 05-25. Telco executives told us it seems like the commission is wrapping up loose ends for a request that could come any day now.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would put every DVR user at risk of copyright infringement liability if it overturns a district court’s decision not to block Aereo from operating while litigation over its remote DVR service continues, Aereo said in a brief filed with the appeals court Friday. Broadcasters appealed a decision by Judge Alison Nathan of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan (CD July 13 p3) that rejected their arguments over why Aereo’s service, which lets subscribers watch and record broadcast TV programming over the Internet, should be stopped.
Europe’s privacy framework could harm the development of a global cloud-computing industry, said U.S. and Japanese business interests in a report last week. It was prepared for a “Director General-level meeting” of the U.S.-Japan Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy in Washington, the State Department said Friday (http://xrl.us/bnvifp). State said “participants concurred” at the meeting last week that the U.S.-Japan Cloud Computing Working Group, set up earlier this year, should “continue its discussions while giving consideration to the balance between free flows of information and personal data protection."
Lawmakers are skeptical that Congress will pass cybersecurity legislation this session, despite a commitment by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to resurrect the Cybersecurity Act (S-3414) in November. Aides to Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and the leader of the House Cybersecurity Task Force, Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said during a cybersecurity event Monday hosted by 1105 Media that the effort would likely fail.
Dish Network’s settlement with Cablevision and AMC Networks will strengthen its hand in wireless, giving it multichannel video distribution and data service (MVDDS) spectrum licenses potentially for microwave backhaul to help in building out a network, analysts said.
The way Congress and the president ultimately address the dire economic questions looming over this election will have a tremendous impact on federal agencies’ procurement strategies and payroll decisions, analysts said at a TechAmerica event Monday. Though lawmakers still have time to deal with the pending Jan. 2 sequester, federal agencies are already discussing contingency plans to dramatically reduce their expenses, and contractors should prepare for tougher contract negotiations and more limited procurement decisions, they said.
T-Mobile and MetroPCS need to merge to have the scale to challenge Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the two combining companies said in an FCC filing Friday. It said the new company formed will be called Newco, to be renamed T-Mobile, and will have enough spectrum to support 20 x 20 MHz LTE deployments in many parts of the U.S. The two also said combined they don’t hold spectrum above the levels in the most recent screen in any U.S. market. Parts of the carriers’ arguments were redacted from the public version of the filing. The deal, in which T-Mobile USA parent Deutsche Telekom is buying MetroPCS to merge it with its U.S. subsidiary, was announced Oct. 3 (CD Oct 4 p1). That deal and Softbank agreeing last week to buy control of Sprint Nextel may mean smaller carriers will be bought by the Big Four, analysts predicted. (See separate report below.)
Other smaller carriers will eventually be purchased or merged with the “Big Four” U.S. carriers, now that T-Mobile and MetroPCS are combining, analysts said. MetroPCS stockholders will get $1.5 billion in cash and 26 percent ownership of the merged company (CD Oct 4 p1), and Japanese carrier SoftBank said Monday it will buy 70 percent of Sprint Nextel for $20.1 billion (CD Oct 16 p1). Leap Wireless backs consolidation, the company told us. Also Friday, T-Mobile and MetroPCS made the case for their deal in a filing applying for FCC approval. (See separate report above.)