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[Commentary] A federal government committee has cleared the proposed acquisition of Sprint by SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications company, after securing concessions from both of them that should address national security concerns about the deal. Though they still have to clear a few more hurdles, the deal’s approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is encouraging news. SoftBank is offering to buy a 70 percent stake in Sprint for $12.1 billion and to invest a further $8 billion in the company. The deal, if approved by the Federal Communications Commission and Sprint’s shareholders, should make the telecommunications industry more competitive by providing consumers better and cheaper choices for phone and broadband connections. It should also help Sprint, which has long struggled financially, compete more effectively with the much larger companies that dominate the industry, AT&T and Verizon.
A Deal That Could Benefit Mobile Users
Dish Network has increased its bid for mobile-broadband operator Clearwire, topping the offer Sprint Nextel raised last week.
On May 22, Dish offered to acquire Clearwire for $4.40 a share in cash, a 29% premium over Sprint's offer of $3.40 a share. Clearwire shares jumped 19% to $4.15 after hours. The offer values Clearwire at about $6.3 billion. "The Clearwire spectrum portfolio has always been a key component to implementing our wireless plans of delivering a superior product and service offering to customers," said Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen in a statement. Clearwire shareholders are to vote on Sprint's takeover offer on May 31, but many of them have opposed the terms. Dish, which said it released its letter to Clearwire publicly due to the short notice, said it intends to commence a tender offer for the outstanding Clearwire shares before Friday's meeting. Dish said its offer is for all stockholders, but it's also willing to buy out only minority stockholders so long as it can acquire at least 25% of Clearwire's voting stock.
Dish Increases Its Bid for Clearwire
The tobacco industry really took a beating in 1998. The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) they signed with state attorneys general required them to give states $206 billion in compensation for the Medicaid and other costs of treating sick smokers. But the agreement also banned them from engaging in product placement deals for TV or movies. R.J. Reynolds couldn’t pay to have George Clooney smoke Winstons anymore. You’d expect to see fewer cigarettes in movies after a deal like that. But the size of the decline may surprise you.
A new study in JAMA Pediatrics by Elaina Bergamini, Eugene Demidenko and James Sargent at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College finds that the MSA led to an exponential decline in the appearance of tobacco brands in movies. Bergamini et al added up all the tobacco brand appearances in the top 100 grossing movies each year from 1996 to 2009. They find that the appearances dropped by about 7 percent every year, and then plateaued in 2006 at around 22 appearances a year:
Study: TV and movie characters are smoking less but still drinking heavily
Tom Donilon, the president's national security adviser, told Chinese officials in meetings this past week that the United States "will do all it must" to protect the country's critical computer systems from cyberattacks, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
"He made clear that the United States will do all it must to protect our national networks, our critical infrastructure and our valuable public and private sector property," Carney said during the daily White House press briefing. Carney did not elaborate on what steps Donilon said the U.S. government would take to protect those critical networks.
Carney: US 'will do all it must' to protect computer systems from hackers
The International Trade Commission (ITC), a trade panel that specializes in patent cases, will reconsider a split decision made by one of its judges in a long-running patent battle between Samsung and Apple.
The ITC said it would take a second look at an ITC judge's decision that Samsung had infringed one Apple patent for a text-selection feature in its smartphones and tablets. It will also look at the judge's decision, made in March, that the South Korean company, which supplies some Apple chips, did not infringe a second patent which detects if a microphone or other device is plugged into its microphone jack. A final decision is due on August 1.
Panel to review split ruling in Apple, Samsung patent fight
Here’s some good news if you happen to be a vendor that sells broadband gear to network operators and gets a nice shot in the arm with every upgrade cycle: Internet consumption is exploding and is showing no signs of dissipating.
The average, global fixed broadband speed will jump from 11.3 Mbps in 2012 to 39 Mbps in 2017 – a 3.5-fold increase -- Cisco predicted in its latest Visual Network Index (VNI) Forecast. In North America, Cisco’s predicting a slightly smaller jump -- from 13 Mbps in 2012, to 38 Mbps in 2017. Again, that’s just the global average speed and just one prediction among many presented by Cisco in its latest study of global broadband usage. Depending on the ISP and the region of the world, maximum burst speeds for residential broadband services, particularly in the downstream, are running anywhere from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps.
Average Fixed Broadband Speeds to Soar 350% By 2017
[Commentary] Is talk radio the same as "bonafide news"?
More than three-quarters of the American public say no, according to Pew Research, and one would think an agency sworn to protect the public interest and its airwaves would agree with that vast majority. But will Tom Wheeler, nominated to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, choose to put the public interest first, or will his FCC continue to simply turn a blind eye, as the agency has done since the Reagan administration?
Tell the FCC: Talk Radio Is Not 'Bonafide News!'
The Associated Press and New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson have indicated they will not attend aa session with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the Justice Department's monitoring of reporters, due to the fact that the meeting is to be conducted "off the record."
"We believe the meeting should be on the record and we have said that to the Attorney General’s office. If it is on the record, AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll will attend. If it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter," AP spokesperson Erin Madigan said. "We would expect AP attorneys to be included in any planned meetings between the Attorney General’s office and media lawyers on the legal specifics."
“We will not be attending the session at DOJ. It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general. Our Washington bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak investigations at this time," Abramson said. "Evidently, there will be a future session with department officials on the substance of how the law should be applied in leak cases and I am hopeful that our counsel, David McCraw will be able to participate in that meeting."
AP, New York Times will not attend off-the-record DOJ session N.Y. Times will not attend DOJ session, citing opposition to off-the-record provision (Politico – NYTimes)
Surging production and sales of tablets and smartphones has led many to tout the demise of the PC. Yet the personal computer is the one device Americans would choose to hold on to if they had to choose among PCs, TVs, smartphones or tablets and use one device for a year, according to results of a survey from Clear Channel Media & Entertainment.
Survey: Americans Would Rather Give Up Phone or TV Than PC
According to new figures from eMarketer, several markets worldwide reached a milestone in mobile usage last year. By the end of 2012, over half of mobile phone users in six countries had made the switch from feature phones to smartphones.
The coming years will see a domino effect hit regions around the world as smartphones become the norm in more places. The worldwide smartphone penetration rate among mobile users will remain just under one-third in 2013, eMarketer expects, and will approach the halfway point by 2017. In 2012, eMarketer estimates, six countries—South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Australia, the UK and the US—saw smartphone user penetration rates among mobile phone users rise above 50% for the first time. As a percentage of population, a majority of residents in South Korea, Australia, Norway and Sweden will also use smartphones this year, eMarketer estimates, though average penetration worldwide among the total population will come in under 20%. South Korea led the world last year in the share of mobile users who used a smartphone, at 60%. Australia, at 53%, was the only other country in Asia-Pacific to pass the halfway mark in 2012, with Japan set to follow in 2014.
Smartphone Adoption Tips Past 50% in Major Markets Worldwide