Berlin’s successful cutoff of the analog TV service in Aug. 2003 was a key case history for the House Commerce Committee as it compiled its recently released draft legislation setting Dec. 31, 2008, as a hard DTV deadline in the U.S. But a House Telecom Subcommittee hearing on the draft last Thurs. (CD May 27 p1) revealed that Berlin’s smooth imposition of tuner subsidies for low- income families would likely prove a tough act to follow here. Judging from that hearing, it also may represent a make-or-break issue in how DTV legislation advances through Congress.
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.
Verizon will buy MCI for more than $8.9 billion, the companies said Mon., including assumed debt, giving Verizon MCI’s IP-based system and marketing teams around the world, as well as its govt. contracts business. The deal will help Verizon move most of its calls to MCI’s IP- network, which company officials said will result in substantial cost savings. Verizon officials told analysts they don’t expect to have to divest any assets to win approval from the FCC and the Dept. of Justice.
About 2/3 of people with camera cellphones said it was easy to take photos. But 62% of owners still store their snapshots on their phones and only 22% of respondents said they print photos taken on their camera phones, although 73% of them expressed a strong interest in doing so. Those were among the results of a survey released Tues. of 500 Americans conducted by research firm Greenfield Online for online photo service Snapfish. Printing ranked as the most difficult among a list of 9 surveyed camera phone functions, Snapfish said. Poor picture quality and the high cost of sharing photos were the other biggest hurdles. Although camera phones enable mobile digital photography, the home was rated the top location among cellphone photographers, with family gatherings and vacations the next most likely places, followed by the workplace and while driving. The survey found consumers are not yet interested in video from their camera phones; it ranked last in a set of 9 desired features. Although 56% of those surveyed said they believed camera phones will replace digital and film cameras within the next 2 decades, the respondents did see a down side to the technology. Invasion of personal privacy ranked as the top potential drawback of a camera phone, followed by the possibility for corporate espionage. Privacy and security issues about camera phones surfaced last week in a N.J. bill that would require all camera phones sold in the state to provide an audible or visible alert warning unsuspecting subjects they're being photographed (CED Jan 12 p4).
EchoStar said it can’t receive, process and relay emergency alerts to the 550 Emergency Alert System (EAS) local areas. “The difficulties of obtaining this capability are likely insurmountable,” EchoStar said in reply comments on the FCC’s review of EAS. The company wouldn’t specify the costs of such a system, an EchoStar spokesman said, saying only that the price in resources and bandwidth would be “nearly inestimable.”
As the FCC prepared to release its report to Congress on the benefits and drawbacks of a la carte pricing late Thurs., the Parents TV Council released its own report to Congress showing the “dire” need for such selective cable options. The PTC report looked at original series that aired during all times of the day on 7 channels that are included in many basic and expanded cable packages. It said cable TV was “rife with the most licentious, decadent and perverse content imaginable.” Several industry sources said they expected the report to favor cable operators, who have argued that an a la carte system would drive up costs, take up more bandwidth and reduce program quality and diversity.
A la carte pricing would mean the end of religious- based programming, a coalition of religious broadcasters said Wed. in comments to the FCC. The Faith & Family Bcstg. Coalition cited a GAO report that concluded an a la carte system would likely raise prices for many cable and satellite subscribers and harm smaller networks on cable. The Commission is expected today (Thurs.) to issue its report to Congress on the benefits and drawbacks of a la carte pricing. “There’s an enormous amount of analysis,” FCC Chmn. Powell told reporters outside the CNBC D.C. Summit Wed. Powell said the Commission was attempting to understand the economic impact of a la carte “and offer some of our views of what Congress would want to think about one way or another,” he said.
The FCC Media Bureau is expected to issue a report to Congress later this week on the benefits and drawbacks of a la carte pricing. The report is expected to contain a lot of analysis and may not provide actual recommendations to Congress, a source said. In May, the FCC sought public comment to use in a feasibility study on a la carte after several members of Congress, including Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.), asked the Commission to explore the issue (CD May 26 p8).
New technology that makes satellite newsgathering (SNG) competitive with microwave-based electronic newsgathering (ENG) is working well at WVEN-TV (Ch. 26, Univision) Daytona-Orlando, according to executives there. The new British Telecom Satnet system is “very cost effective,” said Chief Engineer Chuck Seithle, and it allows the station’s crew to “push a button, sit back and wait 4 minutes, and you're ready to go.”
A proposal by FiberTower that the FCC allow much smaller antennas for 11-GHz transmissions could be a boon to companies from railroads managing their trains to wireless carriers building out their systems. But it has run into strong opposition from the Satellite Industry Assn. (SIA), which is raising interference concerns.
Cable channels are like guava paste -- if people stumble onto the product, they like it, said Jon Mandel, co-CEO and chief global buying officer for advertising firm Mediacom Worldwide (not connected with cable MSO Mediacom). The power of a large bundle of cable channels is similar, he told an FCC symposium on a la carte pricing: Many people will happen upon a cable channel, only to find programming they can no longer live without.