Paul Gluckman

The $8.3 billion five-year “landmark” deal announced Friday to supply 5G solutions to Verizon is the largest contract in Ericsson’s history, said CEO Borje Ekholm on a Q2 call. “We see the North American market moving very fast with a strong demand for 5G and it will be a key opportunity now as the operators are building out mid-band spectrum that will be lit up at the end of the year.” The big priority is building out coverage, followed by density, “because ultimately that is what's going to give the end consumer the user experience of 5G,” he said. Ericsson is “the largest contributor to the overall alliance” on open radio access network standards, but “we recognize there is a need to build out the 5G networks around the world right now,” he said. “Purpose-built networks actually can deliver the performance that's required in 5G today.” By the time ORAN is ready for broad commercialization, “we will also be there with solutions, but we don't feel it's the right time right now and divert focus from actually what goes on in the market,” he said.

Cinedigm “successfully completed” moving from a “legacy” digital cinema equipment business to “high-growth independent streaming,” CEO Chris McGurk told a call for fiscal Q4 ended March 31. There’s a “huge potential market for our portfolio of enthusiast streaming channels,” said McGurk Wednesday. “This strategy and our channels are perfectly complementary to the big general entertainment subscription services like Disney+ and Netflix.” Cinedigm will soon launch the Elvis Presley Channel as an ad-supported VOD and linear streaming service in partnership with Elvis Presley Enterprises, said Cinedigm Networks President Erick Opeka. Cinedigm distributes 16 “enthusiast” streaming channels through 31 platforms, including TCL, Roku and Vizio, said Opeka.

U.S. importers sourced 14.19 million smartphones in May, up 13% from May 2020, per Census data we accessed Sunday through the International Trade Commission. Unlike downward pricing trends in notebook PCs and tablets, average smartphone customs value suggested an upmarket shift due to the increasing mix of 5G-enabled handsets. The average smartphone import was worth $275.95, up 15%. China shipped 11.08 million handsets here, up 12% and costing $284.08 on average, an 11% gain. Vietnamese devices soared 31% to $218.43, gaining 2.1 points of share to 2.36 million handsets.

The House Judiciary Committee's antitrust package targeting big tech, set to be marked up Wednesday, “is an existential threat to our competitiveness,” CTA President Gary Shapiro told the Media Institute Tuesday. “The bills would effectively prohibit acquisitions by our largest companies, leaving startups and their investors, who counted on selling their companies, out in the cold.” Industry groups said this week that the bipartisan legislation would upend centuries of U.S. antitrust law (see 2106220061).

Advocates of third-party independent device repairs hailed Thursday’s congressional introduction of what they called the first "broad" federal right-to-repair legislation. The Fair Repair Act, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-N.Y., would require tech manufacturers to give device owners and independent repair shops access to parts, tools and information they need for fixes. “Electronics manufacturers have locked down our tech,” said iFixit. “Big tech companies shouldn’t get to dictate how we use the things we own or keep us from fixing our stuff.” Consumer Reports almost immediately endorsed the legislation, saying it “would ensure that consumers have real choices for fixing the devices they own,” saving them money and preventing waste from devices that need to be discarded if not fixed. IFixit isn't aware of any right-to-repair "movement" in the Senate, said Policy Lead Kerry Sheehan. Right-to-repair opponent CTA didn’t comment.

Semiconductor Industry Association CEO John Neuffer was unfazed by criticism of fully funding the Chips Act to promote long-term leadership and resilience in U.S. chipmaking -- as last week’s White House supply chain report recommended (see our report here). This won't become a handout to wealthy chip companies and will be the incentive the industry seeks to boost U.S. standing in global semiconductors, he said. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260) cleared the Senate last week by “a very strong bipartisan vote” with $52 billion in U.S. chipmaking and R&D incentives, he told an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar Wednesday. “Now the battle goes to the House, and we’re very optimistic that something good is going to come out of that, so that the president will have a bill to sign.” The way that Chips Act funding in S-1260 is structured, “sure, there’s going to be grants involved, but there’s going to be far more investments required from private sector players,” said Neuffer. “These are solid companies that have to have a lot of capital to be able to do these kinds of investments.” The most “leading-edge” fabs cost $30 billion to build, he said. No policymaker should “adopt a goal of decoupling” U.S. chip production from global supply chains that are heavily concentrated in East Asia, said Neuffer. He cited a September SIA-Boston Consulting Group report.

There’s no ad-supported Disney+ offering in Disney’s future, CEO Bob Chapek told a virtual Credit Suisse investor conference Monday. “We're always reevaluating how we go to market across the world, but we've got no such plans now to do that,” he said: “We're happy with the models that we've got,” but “we won't limit ourselves and say no to anything.” On Chapek’s previously announced intentions to debut new Disney+ content on the service weekly, the plan is to “hit that cadence this year,” he said. “Something new can be a new movie, a new piece of content or something new added to the library,” plus a new season of episodic TV, he said. Chapek wouldn’t comment on when the timing will be right to shift ESPN to an a la carte offering. “We bought flexibility into every new media rights deal that we've done in terms of sports rights,” he said. The “speed of the transition” will depend on how fast “consumer behavior” evolves, he said. “When full content migration to such a platform makes sense, we'll be prepared to do that.”

Right-to-repair advocates called New York Senate passage Thursday of the Digital Fair Repair Act (S-4104) the first measure dedicated to consumer tech repair to clear any state's chamber. Though a matching Assembly bill failed to clear committee on the last day of the legislature’s 2021 session, the Senate's 51-12 bipartisan OK “speaks to the support right to repair gets when it receives a fair vote, against tech lobbyists’ wishes,” emailed Kerry Sheehan, iFixit U.S. policy lead. S-4104 would prohibit consumer tech OEMs from withholding diagnostics and other repair materials from consumers or service shops. Last month’s FTC report saying OEM restrictions on independent third-party repairs harmed consumer protections in the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (see 2105070013) “is a huge help across the board in helping lawmakers understand how baseless opposition arguments against right to repair really are,” Sheehan told us. “We'll continue to see it as an extremely useful resource for educating lawmakers.” Advocates are unfazed by a matching Assembly bill's failure to clear committee, she said: “Some opposition lobbyists were able to convince Assembly leadership not to bring the bill forward for a floor vote this year." Backers in the Assembly have "a dedicated bill sponsor" in Patricia Fahy (D), "who is committed to moving right to repair forward,” said Sheehan. Right to repair was one of Fahy's top priorities for the end of the legislative session, emailed a spokesperson Friday. Fahy's office hosted two town halls and "created a coalition bigger than any existing one," including 30 Assembly co-sponsors, he said. "We are extremely frustrated with the lack of movement we’ve received based on the support and work put into it." The tech industry "will likely be back bigger and stronger next year" to oppose a measure in the Assembly, "so we’re already planning how to keep the issue alive in the off-session and build even more momentum surrounding it next session," he said. CTA didn't comment.

Mark Warner, D-Va., is confident the Senate Intelligence Committee he chairs will produce "strong" bipartisan legislation “within the next couple of weeks” on mandatory reporting of cyberattacks, he told an Axios webinar Thursday. He hopes the Biden administration endorses the legislation “since it will be strongly supported,” and that “we can move on this quickly,” he said.

April imports to the U.S. of laptops, tablets and smartphones were little changed sequentially and double digits higher than April 2020, per Census data we accessed Wednesday through the International Trade Commission. The 59.81 million smartphones shipped here in 2021's first four months were 25% above the 47.89 million handsets in the year-earlier period. April smartphone imports to the U.S. from all countries under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8517.12.00 reached 15.09 million, up 27%. China generated 77% of April smartphone imports.