LAS VEGAS -- New technologies and apps are creating excitement among manufacturers and other businesses, said CTA Vice President-Research Steve Koenig during an annual trends to watch presentation Sunday. “It’s not because it’s cool and fun,” he said: “It’s because it’s a very competitive marketplace, and businesses around the world are looking for an edge. Technology provides that.”
LAS VEGAS -- Enthusiasm for smart cities has been scaled down at recent CESs as cities encounter hurdles, said Brian Collie, Boston Consulting Group senior partner, on a panel Monday. Enthusiasm has also waned for autonomous vehicles, he said. Speakers agreed that to be a success, smart cities need a push, starting at the federal level.
FTC antitrust staff is right to scrutinize the consumer welfare standard, experts said in interviews. If the agency ultimately delivers related antitrust guidance, as Chairman Joe Simons suggested, some expect it in 2020. Critics claim the standard contributed to lax antitrust enforcement, but one expert said that narrow discussion is distracting from broader antitrust doctrine concerns, which led to enforcement failings. The FTC didn’t comment Monday.
The FCC is moving forward to clear spectrum in the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band for 5G and to take other actions to speed deployment, as leadership changes at other agencies raise questions about whether spectrum policy disarray continues elsewhere in President Donald Trump's administration. Trump recently moved Robert Blair from the State Department to oversee the administration’s 5G push under National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow (see 1912240015). Blair is the latest in a line of advisers to fill that role.
ISPs serving rural communities are helping to facilitate telemedicine expansion through hospitals, healthcare providers and directly to the home, stakeholders said in interviews in recent weeks. After much talk about such opportunities, experts said they now expect more deployments. Industry is partnering with academics, hospitals and others in the rollout. Government has a role, too.
Don't expect big, transformative mergers and acquisitions in entertainment and media this year, experts said in recent interviews. Instead, companies are focused more on direct-to-consumer offerings and on integrating and rationalizing the properties they have, analysts and lawyers said.
Businesses entered the new year with questions about the California Consumer Privacy Act that took effect Wednesday, privacy attorneys told us this week. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) has until July to develop rules and start enforcing them, but CCPA is now law with enforcement to look back to Jan. 1.
Three Massachusetts-based sex-abuse survivor groups are drafting a letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., criticizing her bill directing a federal study of 2018 anti-sex-trafficking legislation (see 1912170041). Warren introduced the bill with Reps. Ro Khanna and Barbara Lee, both California Democrats, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. It would direct a study of the small percentage of consensual sex workers who claim a 2018 anti-sex trafficking law made their lives less safe and their trade more difficult, Living in Freedom Together (LIFT) CEO Nikki Bell told us. Some 200 survivors signed the draft letter, she said. The House version of the bill is HR-5448.
The FCC’s clarification of political file rules creates new, subjective disclosure obligations that aren’t backed up in the law, burden companies and raise First Amendment questions, said broadcasters, network affiliates and NCTA in comments posted Tuesday in docket 19-363 supporting NAB’s petition for reconsideration (see 1911180068). “This decision will harm the entire local advertising ecosystem and burden the speech of political and nonpolitical advertisers alike,” said a joint filing from Gray Television, E.W. Scripps, Meredith, Block Communications and WBOC. Transparency groups including Campaign Legal Center, Sunlight Foundation and Common Cause disagree. “Any possible burden” is “clearly outweighed by the benefits of public disclosure,” the groups said.
CES will give FCC Chairman Ajit Pai an opening to further lay out plans for commission action on the C band, industry officials said. It's the first CES since the broader launch of 5G in the U.S., and numerous federal policymakers are expected to speak. Most policymakers stayed home for the 2019 show because of the prolonged federal shutdown. Industry officials said 2020 is shaping up to be a big year for spectrum and 5G, and for Wi-Fi and unlicensed. Pai is expected to circulate a 6 GHz item, the key Wi-Fi band, most likely for the March meeting.