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A new smartphone app from British Telecom will let customers connect their landline tariffs to their smartphones as the telecoms group seeks to benefit from customers looking for ways to minimize their mobile phone bills. The “SmartTalk” app hooks up a customer’s smartphone with their home calling plan and its perks, such as free evening and weekend calls, as well as cheaper calls home from abroad. The move puts further pressure on mobile operators who in recent years have had to compete with “IP-based comms” – products which use an internet connection to field calls and text messages, rather than standard mobile networks.
British Telecom app heaps pressure on mobile operators
In response to a shareholder proposal, Apple has amended its Board’s Audit and Finance Committee charter to include responsibility for privacy and data security risks that confront the company. The change was praised by advocates as an important step in improving accountability for privacy and data security at the highest levels of corporate governance.
“Apple is to be congratulated for recognizing the critical risks that privacy and data security can pose to a company’s financial performance,” said Michael Connor, Executive Director of Open MIC a non-profit organization that assisted investors in drafting the proposal at Apple. Apple’s amended charter requires its Audit and Finance committee to maintain board oversight of the “legal and regulatory, and reputational risks” of privacy and data security and to review with management “the Corporation's privacy and data security risk exposures; the potential impact of those exposures on the Corporation’s business, operations and reputation; the steps management has taken to monitor and mitigate such exposures; the Corporation's information governance policies and programs; and major legislative and regulatory developments that could materially impact the Corporation's privacy and data security risk exposure.” The shareholder proposal, filed by investment firms Trillium Asset Management LLC and Zevin Asset Management LLC, had sought more clarity from Apple’s Board regarding oversight of privacy and data security. Citing a number of potential risks to the company, the proposal said shareholders believed “Apple’s Board has a fiduciary and social responsibility to protect company assets which include the personal information of a variety of stakeholders.”
Apple Amends Board Committee Charter to Include Privacy and Data Security
A senior writer for CNET, the technology news Web site, resigned less than an hour after a report suggested that CNET was barred from presenting an award to a company being sued by CBS, which owns CNET.
Greg Sandoval, a former Washington Post and Los Angeles Times reporter who has spent the last seven years at CNET, said he no longer had confidence “that CBS is committed to editorial independence.” Sandoval announced his resignation on Twitter and did not immediately respond to an interview request. Sandoval’s resignation stemmed from a decision made last week to disqualify a Dish Network ad-skipping product from a CNET tradition — the Best of C.E.S. Awards. Promoted as the official awards program of the Consumer Electronics Show, the awards were presented Jan 10 in Las Vegas. A tablet called the Razer Edge went home with the Best in Show award. But Dish’s Hopper could have won it instead — if CNET hadn’t taken it out of consideration.
Resignation Suggests Rift Between CNET and CBS
C-SPAN has filed a motion to dismiss an antitrust complaint filed against it in November in a DC federal district court by Sky Angel.
C-SPAN says the company was off base when it took its claims that the public affairs network improperly withdrew its programming from the distributor in 2009 directly to the district court while the issue was still before the Federal Communications Commission. “We regard the complaint as merely another chapter in Sky Angel's longstanding dispute with the FCC over whether as a program distributor it can invoke the so-called program access rules to its benefit," said C-SPAN's corporate VP/general counsel Bruce Collins. "They are attempting to get into federal court by dressing up their program access complaint as an antitrust violation.” C-SPAN asked the court to dismiss the complaint with prejudice (it could not then be re-filed), saying there was case law that clearly prohibited Sky Angel from undertaking what C-SPAN said was "an end run around the FCC's exclusive jurisdiction on program access issues."
C-SPAN Asks Court to Dismiss Sky Angel Claim
This report summarizes information collected about telephone services as of December 31, 2011. It demonstrates continued growth in subscribership to interconnected VoIP and mobile telephony services and continued decline in subscribership to traditional wired telephone services. Retail local telephone service customers are served by two wireline technologies – “end-user” switched access lines and interconnected VoIP “subscriptions” – and by mobile wireless subscriptions.
- In December 2011, there were 107 million end-user switched access lines in service, 37 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 298 million mobile subscriptions in the United States, or 442 million retail local telephone service connections in total.
- Over a three-year period, interconnected VoIP subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 19.0%, mobile telephony subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 4.5%, and retail switched access lines declined at about 8.8% a year.
- Of the 144 million wireline retail local telephone service connections (including both switched access lines and interconnected VoIP subscriptions) in December 2011, 83 million (or 58%) were residential connections and 61 million (or 42%) were business connections.
- Cross-classified by technology and customer type, the 144 million wireline retail local telephone service connections in December 2011 were: 36% residential switched access lines, 38% business switched access lines, 22% residential interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 4% business interconnected VoIP subscriptions.
FCC Releases New Data on Local Telephone Competition
This Report to Congress on State Collection and Distribution of 911 and Enhanced 911 Fees and Charges is submitted by the Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, pursuant to the New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008 (NET 911 Act).
Prepared by Commission staff in the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau), this is the fourth such annual report on the collection and distribution of 911 and Enhanced 911 (E911) fees and charges by the states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories, and the Indian territories, and covers the period January 1 to December 31, 2011. As discussed below,4 45 states plus Puerto Rico submitted information indicating that they use collected 911/E911 funds exclusively for 911/E911 purposes. Five states and Guam report that they use or are allowed to use collected funds, at least in part, to support programs other than 911 and E911.
FCC Report to Congress on State Collection and Distribution of 911 and Enhanced 911 Fees and Charges FCC (Seeking Public Input on Next Report)
Thank you for giving me an interesting proposition to take issue with: namely, that the phone system – whatever that means – is about to end. I’m going to explore three main points related to this proposition. First, that we should be speaking of a transition, not an endpoint. Second, that as this transition continues to unfold, federal and state governments have key roles to play in protecting consumers and promoting competition. And finally, that you should not worry about running out of interesting papers to write, because we have not yet run out of hard problems to solve, in particular crafting appropriate transitions for universal service and interconnection policies.
The End of the Phone System
The ad value of marathon viewing, or the amount and value of the viewing behavior seven days and beyond (Beyond 7) live programming broadcast (Live), has been widely debated. However Nielsen’s pilot study featured in the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, and for the first time, measures Beyond 7 programming up to 29 days past Live.
The data highlights that, while the vast majority of shows are in fact viewed within the first seven days, a handful of programs–science fiction being the top Beyond 7 genre–get a sizeable audience in days eight through 29. Respectively, among the top 10 shows in broadcast and cable to report Beyond 7 figures, just over 5 percent of viewing happens within this time period, affecting ratings. According to the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Americans spent more than 34 hours per week in front of a TV set in the third quarter of 2012. Traditional TV viewing was up 78 minutes from the previous quarter, as consumers continue to enjoy both Live and time-shifted content, DVDs, or use their game consoles. Americans also spent close to five hours a week on a computer screen, using the Internet and watching video content.
The Cross-Platform Report: How Viewers Watch Time-Shifted Programming
Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest mobile-phone company, agreed to buy wireless spectrum and a local cable business from Shaw Communications for C$700 million ($712 million).
Rogers will buy Shaw’s Mountain Cablevision Ltd. unit based in Hamilton, Ontario, the two companies said in a joint statement. In return, Calgary-based Shaw will acquire Rogers’ one-third interest in the TVtropolis network and an option to buy wireless airwaves in Western Canada, the companies said. Rogers is buying Shaw’s unused wireless spectrum to meet growing demand for bandwidth from data-hungry smartphone users. At the same time, the Toronto-based company wants to use Mountain Cablevision to bolster its cable business in southwestern Ontario, Canada’s most populous region.
Rogers to Pay C$700 Million for Shaw’s Spectrum, Cable Unit
[Commentary] Starting the New Year off by attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas provides a wonderful lens with which to focus on the year ahead in technology. Today, broadband is the driver for almost all of today’s digital technologies. Of the hundreds of examples of digital technologies that I experienced last week, I cannot recall a single one of them that wasn’t broadband-enabled. Going to the show allows one to double-check one’s instincts for top issues in broadband.
Here’s our list of the 10 most significant broadband developments to watch for in 2013:
- Data Caps for Wireless Broadband, the Spectrum Crunch, and Wireless Home Networking
- How Will FirstNET Improve Public Safety Communications?
- Smart Cars, Data Sensors, and Machine-to-Machine Communications: What’s Coming Up this Year
- Becoming a Gigabit Nation: What Have we Learned About Ultra-High Speed from Google, Comcast, Verizon and Others?
- Global and Mobile: How Wireless Broadband Spurs Economic Development
- Smart Energy: Broadband and the Green Revolution
- Over the Top: Broadband Video Challenges Cable and Broadcast Programming
- Mobile Health: Will Wireless Devices Help Solve the Nation’s Health Crises?
- Changes to Patent Law and the Landscape for Innovation
- Will Tablets Dethrone Computers as the Gateway to Sustainable Broadband Adoption?
Top 10 Tech Issues for 2013