Comcast, Broadcom Corp., and Ucentric Systems announced plans for joint trial in Philadelphia that uses cable TV in- home coaxial infrastructure and home phone line to create home network. Broadcom’s HomePNA iLine32 chip provides physical layer of network over existing coaxial cable. Ucentric’s Home Media LAN software provides software layer. This is 2nd Comcast and Ucentric trial. First was announced in Oct. 2001, and is continuing in lab. HomePNA standard has historically used telephone lines to create home networks and is now being extended to coax. Companies said this trial should demonstrate promise of IP-based distribution of video throughout home on on-demand basis. Comcast spokesman didn’t know specifics about trial, including when it would start or in how many homes.
Eric Hansen promoted to head of SBS Bcstg. radio div… Christopher Coles, ex-Qwest, named CEO, Myrio Corp., which provides software for delivery of digital TV over broadband networks… Larry Matthews, co-founder of Zytec, joins Sorrento Networks board… Changes at National Cable Communications: Perry Shelman promoted to sales mgr., CableLink Interconnects Div.; Michael Price, ex-Cablevision, named national Interconnect mgr., CableLink’s Albany, N.Y., div… Jim Cable promoted to pres.-CEO, Peregrine Semiconductor.
Global Communications Conference is scheduled Nov. 17-21 in Taipei, Taiwan. Sponsored by IEEE, scheduled keynoters include Ericsson Pres. Kurt Hellstrom, Philips Semiconductor Exec. Vp Mario Rivas, NTT DoCoMo pres. Keiju Tachikawa. Workshops are scheduled on wireless communications, Internet and optical networks, emerging technologies such as new multimedia services and combination of wireless local are networks and cellular broadband access -- mgwiesman@comsoc.org.
Developments in space technologies that will improve satellite communications and protect U.S. space assets are among primary research areas that Air Force Office of Scientific Research (OSR) intends to pursue. OSR, which manages bulk of agency’s research investments, recently unveiled plan that seeks to include participation of industry and academia in attaining such technological advances. It said it would sponsor those and other communications and information technology research projects to enable “Air Force and U.S. industry to produce world-class, militarily significant and commercially valuable products.”
CEA has vowed to use all legal means possible, including seeking injunction in U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., to challenge FCC’s authority to mandate that DTV tuners be installed in all TVs if Commission so acts at agenda meeting today (Aug. 8) in Washington. Core of any CEA court argument will be that FCC “lacks statutory authority” to set tuner mandates under 40-year-old All-Channel Receiver Act (ACRA), CEA said in White Paper distributed to members July 23.
XM Satellite Radio subscribers increased in 2nd quarter despite posting wider loss, company said. XM added 60,476 subscribers, up 79% from previous quarter, for total of 136,718. By contrast, rival Sirius has fewer than 5,000 subscribers. XM reported net loss deepened to $117.2 million for year from $38.5 million in 2001. Loss applicable to shareholders was $122.4 million ($1.38 per share) compared with $44.3 million (76 cents). Revenue was $3.8 million. GM has started factory installation for 25 different models as company makes transition from retail-only distribution. XM also said it would introduce new generation of chips later this year.
High Tech Broadband Coalition (HTBC) gave FCC “quantitative analysis” estimating that continued imposition of unbundling regulations on incumbent telcos would deter $20 billion in investment in broadband fiber to neighborhoods. HTBC said the $20 billion was conservative because it was based on 2-year-old technology that would stop at neighborhood sites rather than going all way to homes. With unbundling obligations, it has proved uneconomical for telcos to provide fiber to neighborhoods, group said in reply comments filed as part of FCC’s triennial review of unbundled network element (UNE) requirements. Coalition is composed of high-tech associations including Business Software Alliance, Consumer Electronics Assn., Information Technology Industry Council, National Assn. of Mfrs., Semiconductor Industry Assn., Telecom Industry Assn. Group also repeated proposal to lessen UNE regulation of incumbent telcos’ broadband services while maintaining “significant safeguards” to assure competitors continued access to those facilities. Plan calls for eliminating unbundling obligations on incumbents’ new, last-mile broadband facilities, including fiber and DSL (or successor electronics) deployed on customer side of central office. At same time, coalition said, incumbents would continue providing competitors with colocation space and unbundled access to their legacy copper facilities. HTBC also called on FCC to implement bandwidth and deployment benchmarks on ILECs, once unbundling was removed.
House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) told more than 20 members of broadcast, cable, satellite, motion picture and CE industries Mon. that he planned to introduce bipartisan, omnibus digital TV bill in fall addressing most all outstanding issues involving transition to digital TV. Although he encouraged industries to try to resolve issues among themselves, he said he no longer would stand by and wait for them. Speaking at private DTV roundtable, Tauzin said he was directing his staff to draft bill to resolve conflicts among various industries over DTV cable carriage requirements, equipment functionality and interoperability, particularly cable systems, over-air DTV tuners, ability of affiliates to broadcast network-generated high-definition programming, content protection. Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson said, “We've made a lot of progress in a lot of areas, but it’s clear to us now that legislation will be necessary in order to complete the transition to digital.” He didn’t indicate how those issues would be resolved and which industries might fare better than others. FCC Chmn. Powell attended Tauzin’s 6th DTV roundtable but also met earlier with Tauzin for about hour, Johnson said: “They agreed that an aggressive approach is now necessary.”
Technology isn’t only solution for digital piracy and any attempt to deal with peer-to-peer (P2P) must respect fact that it’s “a basic functionality of the computer environment today,” group of high-tech CEOs said Mon. Ten CEOs wrote to CEOs of top 7 Hollywood studios -- Disney, Universal, MGM, News Corp., Viacom, AOL Time Warner and Sony -- offering “to advise you on the technical solutions” for protecting content online but noting that technology was “not the only solution.” Among solutions proposed: (1) Educating consumers about harm from piracy. (2) Enforcement of existing laws against piracy. (3) “Exploring avenues to harness the power of the Internet in bringing robust content to consumers.” (4) Addressing consumers’ desire for fair use rights, both as traditionally defined and as might seem appropriate with new technologies. High-tech CEOs -- Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Intel’s Craig Barrett, Sybase’s John Chen, Dell’s Michael Dell, Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina, Motorola’s Christopher Galvin, IBM’s Louis Gerstner, NCR Corp.’s Lars Nyberg, EMC Corp.’s Joseph Tucci and Unisys’ Lawrence Weinbach -- were responding to April 12 letter from Hollywood CEOs requesting further cooperation in finding digital rights management solutions, including possibility of forming new task force. High-tech CEOs said they intended to continue working with the Copy Protection Digital Working Group, which developed coding system for DVDs, but “unfortunately there is no panacea chip or cure-all piece of code that will stop piracy completely.” That’s particularly true, they said, in P2P, which is part of “the core nature” of computing and Internet. “Any solutions to the problem of piracy must not compromise the innovations this functionality has to offer,” they wrote. While encouraging Hollywood to “embrace the Internet as a medium for commerce,” they said that they wouldn’t accept any technology solution for piracy that would affect broader performance of general-use computers.
Public safety groups and Motorola urged FCC to adopt channelization plan that could accommodate 802.11 technologies in part of 4.9 GHz recently allocated to public safety operations. But several commenters on proposal that would clear way for high-speed digital technologies for emergency communications in band differed on who should be eligible to use that spectrum beyond “traditional” public safety entities. Representing critical infrastructure providers such as utilities, United Telecom Council (UTC) said FCC should adopt eligibility definition that would include entities such as pipelines and railroads that coordinate with public safety during emergencies. However, Assn. of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) backed narrower definition that would prevent fire, police and emergency medical entities from having to compete with others for that spectrum. One point of agreement across broad range of comments was that 50 MHz allocation in further notice approved by FCC in Feb. was important for homeland security, but still fell far short of spectrum needed for public safety operations.