AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel told the FCC that imposing data roaming requirements on wireless carriers would go against agency policy and a commission declaration that wireless broadband is an information service subject to light-handed regulation. But small carriers said they need the same kinds of roaming agreements with other carriers for data that they have for voice, and the agency should impose a mandate.
Drawback
A duty drawback is a refund by CBP of the duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods, which were imposed upon importation as prescribed in 19 U.S.C. 1313(d). More broadly, a drawback also includes the refund or remission of other excise taxes pursuant to other provisions of law.
Two of ten companies offering mobile DTV technology for consideration in ATSC development of an industrywide standard have combined their proposals. That creates a third contender in what had been viewed as a two-horse race. Zurich-based Micronas and Thomson Grass Valley have merged their mobile DTV proposals, ratcheting up competition to technologies from Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz and Harris and LG. Broadcasters hope to nail down a standard in time to offer in-band mobile DTV service by the February 2009 analog cutoff. Thomson said it will take the lead in management and the presentation layer of the technology; Micronas will focus on the physical layer.
GENEVA -- A European Commission decision to back DVB-H as the standard for mobile TV (CD July 19 p10) has not ended debate. Public broadcasters and companies opposing a European Commission mandate for DVB-H say that would hobble investment and delay mobile TV adoption. The European Broadcasting Union urged the EC to follow its recommended principle of technological neutrality rather than require a solution, the EBU said in response to the EC decision to recommend DVB-H en route to a possible mandate.
The Agriculture Dept.’s Rural Broadband Loan Program needlessly subsidizes broadband entries in places service is provided, Qwest told Agriculture Secy. Mike Johanns in a letter Thurs. Qwest “supports the intent” of the program, part of the Rural Utility Service (RUS), but calls it poorly run. “Loans are being provided in markets where there are already two, three or sometimes as many as four broadband service providers,” Qwest Senior Vp Gary Lytle said. That boils down to subsidizing competitors to Qwest and other providers, Lytle said. “This practice has several drawbacks,” he said: (1) Subsidies in “already served and competitive markets” deny money to areas lacking high-speed Internet access. (2) “Government subsidies in competitive markets undermine the risk-capital and shareholder funds that commercial service providers have invested.” (3) Commercial broadband providers have less incentive to invest in un- served areas “for fear of having to compete against a government subsidized competitor.” Lytle was “encouraged” to learn the Agriculture Dept. is working on new regulations that may focus lending better, he said: “We support your efforts to reform this program.” Qwest has been lobbying to revise House and Senate agriculture bills so they reform the broadband loan program, whose enabling legislation is “too loosely written,” he said.
Consumers will pay for mobile TV services, Mobile Digital TV Alliance said in a study pushing open standards and DVB-H. “But testing the waters with unicast” video services such as Verizon’s V Cast “will not do the trick” in getting the public to adopt video on mobile devices, Alliance Pres. Yoram Solomon said in the paper: “When prospective subscribers are asked if they are willing to pay $20 a month for the service, before experiencing the service first-hand, only 10% on average respond positively. However, once holding phones in their hands with real, live, high-quality broadcast services available, this number should change, and more than 50% will be willing to pay for the service, as worldwide commercial trials (Italy, Finland, U.K.) have shown.” Mobile video ads “must be treated carefully… and be focused and relevant to the specific subscribers,” he said. That’s a drawback for mobile broadcasting because broadcast ads are more generic and harder to target than ads tied to VoD or IPTV.
Rich nations’ residents are “waking up in a surveillance society,” U.K. Information Comr. Richard Thomas said Thurs. Speaking to data protection officials in London, he pushed for public debate on balancing surveillance as a tool against terror and crime and its threat to individuals. Thomas released a Surveillance Studies Network report urging new regulatory attitudes toward privacy and surveillance. “Everyday encounters with surveillance” include monitoring and storing of telecom and Internet data, tracking of mobile device location and automatic filtering for key words and phrases of all telecom traffic passing through the U.K. by the global surveillance system ECHELON, the report noted. Such activities need controls, but most systems for controlling personal data processing evolved solely with privacy in mind and have drawbacks for surveillance, the report said. Regulators tend to handle technological shifts after the fact, focussing mostly on technical and managerial issues. Much regulation embraces a narrow concept of personal privacy, and then only on its value to individuals, with rules applied after scant public debate. Media coverage centers on “horror stories” about privacy invasion and “utopian and Orwellians views about surveillance technologies,” the report said. Current rules are based on “fair information principles” -- such as the requirement that an entity say why it collects data and keep it secure -- founded in laws, international accords or some sectors’ self- regulation. But privacy rules aren’t enough in a surveillance society, the report said, pushing incorporation of privacy impact assessments in the writing of regulations to protect data subjects, and calling for surveillance impact assessments to gauge the potential for societal harm by surveillance.
Under “normal commercial conditions,” a coupon program of the “size and scope” estimated for NTIA’s DTV converter box $40 voucher giveaway would take 18 months to prepare, a potential vendor said in Request for Information (RFI) filing at the agency Sept. 15. NTIA’s proposed schedule for awarding contracts June 2007 and begin issuing coupons Jan. 2008 is “feasible” but will require “solutions that can be implemented quickly,” said the vendor, Archway Mktg. Services, of Rogers, Minn.
The lowest unit charge (LUC) period for political ads begins Sept. 8, 60 days before the general election. But ad and research executives told us candidates are shunning the cheapest spots to buy costly ad inventory. “Lowest unit rate really doesn’t matter anymore”, Evan Tracey, COO-TNS Media Intelligence’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, said: “It was a good idea once upon a time. Now the market has figured out how to deal with this.”
BURLINGAME, Cal. -- The novel part of the Silicon Valley rant against large carriers’ monumental ineptitude Thurs. at an Emerging Telephony Conference here was the source -- a France Telecom (FT) executive -- and the inside view he provided. Calling the carriers “dinosaurs” is an insult to dinosaurs, since they lasted 100 times as long as humans have, said Norman Lewis, technology research dir. of the company’s Home Div.
In a first for the consumer electronics industry, Samsung Electronics plans to use new downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) technology from CableLabs in a coming generation of 2-way, cable-ready DTV sets, set-top boxes and other devices.