FCC Chmn. Powell appeared on 2 news talk shows in just over 12 hours Tues. and Wed. to explain the FCC’s controversial media ownership rules, and clearly struggled with the fact that his role has become increasingly politicized.
A debate over ultra-wideband (UWB) standards is headed to an IEEE meeting in Singapore this month, although some industry observers said they expect resolution of competing proposals may be months away. An IEEE working group in July narrowed proposals for the 802.15.3a draft standard to one backed by Intel, Texas Instruments (TI) and others. But that draft for wireless personal area networks failed to win the 75% of votes needed for confirmation. Sources said that meant that if votes still fell short at this month’s meeting, a window remained open for an alternative backed by Motorola and XtremeSpectrum to move forward.
Former top brass at Time Domain and an executive from semiconductor firm Legerity launched an ultra-wideband (UWB) company that will design UWB chipsets for commercial communications applications. The Austin-based company Alereon said in a press release Mon. that most of its 27 employees are engineers from UWB developer Time Domain. Alereon said its first product will be commercially available in late 2004 and will be compatible with emerging IEEE standards for personal area networks, or 802.15.3a. U.S. equipment makers have recently drawn lines in a heated debate on UWB standards-setting at the IEEE concerning the draft standard for personal area networks. Alereon said it’s working with Texas Instruments, Intel, Motorola and Panasonic on a standard in this area. The company has financial backing from Austin Ventures and Pharos Capital. Eric Brockman, formerly of semiconductor firm Legerity, is CEO and former Time Domain executive Jim Baker is COO. Jeff Ross, also ex-Time Domain, is exec. vp. Alereon said its products will connect devices such as TVs, camcorders and digital cameras with UWB technology at “hundreds of megabits per second,” very low power and low cost. Debate at the IEEE has centered in part on a proposal backed by XtremeSpectrum and Motorola that is based on a “traditional” UWB system that occupies a very broad swathe of spectrum under FCC limits. Another, backed by Intel, Texas Instruments and others, relies on frequency-hopping technology, which also is permitted under the FCC order, according to its backers. Last month, XtremeSpectrum and Motorola asked the FCC to provide guidance on how to interpret parts of its UWB rules that covered compliance testing of certain frequency hopping modulations of UWB systems. Debate over the standards work has involved, partly, whether a frequency hopping system would have to be tested for compliance with the hopping function turned off. “They've asked us some questions and we've basically told them “go, have your own food fight in the standards bodies,” said FCC Office of Engineering & Technology Chief Edmond Thomas last week when asked by reporters about the standards debate on UWB. Thomas told reporters in a wide-ranging briefing at the FCC’s lab in Columbia, Md., that the agency hasn’t decided whether it would offer guidance in response to the request by XtremeSpectrum and Motorola.
An application submitted recently to the FCC by Satellite Access Corp. (SAC) proposing a local-into-local service and “other complementary services” for rural and underserved markets points to potential entry into the DBS market by a new player, satellite industry analysts agree. The application, filed in June, asks for permission to deploy one million receive-only VSAT terminals across the U.S. to operate in the DBS band from 12.2-12.7 GHz.
News Corp. and Hughes are considering incorporating several nonsatellite technologies into DirecTV’s system, the companies said in response to an FCC July request for additional information. News Corp. also said the “vision, energy and drive” evidenced in its track record would contribute to “a substantial portion of the benefits” of its proposed acquisition of Hughes, because Hughes parent GM “does not want to be in the satellite television business. News Corp., by contrast, has been trying to enter the U.S. satellite television market for the better part of 2 decades.”
After failing to reach agreement with its affiliates’ board, Fox TV Network said it now was going directly to stations to negotiate individual deals for their help in paying for NFL rights. Network already has “signed up a significant majority of the affiliates,” Fox spokesman told us, but he refused to divulge details of the agreements or any groups that had agreed: “We don’t want to negotiate… in the trades,” he said.
Ever-chagrined by the obligation to pay royalties to overseas patent-holders for low-margin digital products such as DVD, a consortium of govt.-backed Chinese consumer electronics companies said they've developed their own standard and patents for next-generation digital products aimed at a huge and increasingly-affluent domestic population. The so called “Audio-Video Coding Standard” (AVS) could shave $300 million to $1 billion from the end- user cost Chinese consumers would absorb over the next 10 years from royalty-payments built into digital devices, China Daily reported. The announcement of AVS came Thurs. at the AVS Forum 2003 in Beijing. Gao Wen, head of the AVS standard working group supported by China’s Ministry of Information Industry, said: “With our own AVS standard, we will be able to develop China’s audio video standards without being controlled by foreign patent-holders.” Huang Tiejun, secy.- gen. of AVS Working Group, said they'll submit standard this year for ratification as national standard in 2004. First chip based on AVS standard will be available by year-end 2003, preparing groundwork for large-scale adoption in 2004.
Simon & Schuster Interactive (S&SI), the game publishing division of Viacom, said it developed a plan with cable industry veterans Chip James and Bill Zaccheo that would drive cable modem subscriptions through online gaming called “massively multiplayer online gaming “(MMOG). “To date, the cable industry has focused their marketing on always-on and the fast download speed that cable modems provide. We think it’s great entertainment that will be a catalyst to drive new subscriptions and customer retention,” the company said. Cable operators will distribute the MMOG title Eve to new and existing subscribers, it said. Although the estimated street price of Eve is $50, operators who participate will get the game at a substantially reduced rate, S&SI said.
Congressional Democratic leaders’ request that President Bush appoint labor lawyer Robert Lenhard to a Democratic seat on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) “is beyond disappointing,” said Meredith McGehee, pres. of the Alliance for Better Campaigns. In a statement released Mon., she said the appointment of “an avowed opponent” of the McCain- Feingold campaign finance reform law now under attack in the U.S. Supreme Court was “symptomatic of why the congressional Democrats remain in the minority… and a transparent and hypocritical attempt to have it both ways: To claim support for campaign finance reform while working behind the scenes to chip away at the recently enacted law.” Lenhard is assoc. gen. counsel of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees and is part of a legal team that challenged the law’s constitutionality. He disputed charges he was opposed to the campaign reform, saying he simply was part of an AFL-CIO legal team that challenged specific provisions of the law, including those relating to broadcasting. If named to the FEC, he would replace Scott Thomas, who first joined the Commission as a legal intern and who supports McCain-Feingold and is seeking reappointment.
At the World Radio Conference (WRC) that ended this month in Geneva some of most divisive conceptual debates emerged between N. American and European delegations, with the split based largely on differing regulatory philosophies, WRC-03 Ambassador Janice Obuchowski said. “What you see there is a very profound difference in how one regulates,” she said in an interview, and the differences emerged in areas such as policy on new spectrum for Wi-Fi and similar systems at 5 GHz. “With the U.S., we have a much stronger instinct for technology rather than a regulatory solution.”