“We don’t yet know the terms of the settlement” between Amazon and Simon & Schuster (S&S), but “we’re very pleased to learn that authors will not be targeted in another standoff,” emailed Roxana Robinson, Authors Guild president. Amazon reached a multiyear agreement with S&S to sell its print and digital books in the U.S. (see 1410210031). “We’re pleased to hear that pricing will be based on the agency model, and we hope that this new structure will allow publishers to give more favorable e-book royalties to authors,” Robinson said Tuesday.

CTIA President Meredith Baker, who took over in June (see 1404240050), is making some of her first big moves as the head of the group, telling staff in an email that Executive Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe is leaving. Also leaving is John Walls, vice president-public affairs, a former sports reporter who followed Baker’s predecessor Steve Largent to CTIA. Baker earlier named Brad Gillen chief of staff. Gillen was a key Baker aide when she was an FCC commissioner (see 1407150066). Guttman-McCabe had been at CTIA since 2001, eventually being named executive vice president last year (http://prn.to/1oqVPg9). He has often been the face of the group at the FCC and before Congress.

Amazon confirmed in a statement Tuesday it reached a multiyear agreement with Simon & Schuster (S&S) to sell its print and digital books in the U.S. “The agreement specifically creates a financial incentive for Simon & Schuster to deliver lower prices for readers,” said Amazon. “We are very happy with this agreement as it is economically advantageous for both Simon & Schuster and its authors and maintains the author’s share of income generated from eBook sales,” said S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy in a Monday letter to its authors. The deal "addresses our mutual concerns about preserving the value of our intellectual property in the marketplace, as it is a return to a version of agency pricing that, with some limited exceptions, gives control of eBook pricing" to S&S, she said. The agreement comes as Amazon continues it e-book pricing dispute with Hachette (see 1410020087; 1407100037; 1406020077). “I’m delighted that the Sword of Damocles … has been removed from the heads of Simon & Schuster authors,” emailed author Doug Preston, who spearheaded Authors United in opposition to Amazon’s negotiating tactics with Hachette. “The big question is this: are the terms Amazon offered S&S the same as are being offered to Hachette? Or is Amazon reserving an especially vindictive set of terms to Hachette alone?” Preston asked. The new agreement won’t affect Authors United's forthcoming letter to the Justice Department seeking an antitrust investigation into Amazon, he said.

The HomePlug Alliance is demonstrating multivendor interoperability of HomePlug AV2 technology as a powerline solution for distribution of Internet, over-the-top video, multiroom IPTV, online gaming, audio and smart home applications at Broadband World Forum this week in Amsterdam. “With the growing number of connected devices per household and increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications running on those devices, service providers and consumers are increasingly utilizing HomePlug products to support high-speed and high-capacity whole-home networks,” said Rob Ranck, president, HomePlug Alliance. HomePlug members exhibiting at the forum include Broadcom, Cisco, Devolo, Huawei, Lea, Marvell, MStar Semiconductor, Netgear, Orange, Qualcomm, Sigma Designs, Technicolor, TP-Link and ZyXEL.

Nielsen and Adobe partnered to deliver a comprehensive, cross-platform system for measuring online TV, video and other digital content across the Web and apps. Nielsen’s digital audience measurement products will be integrated with Adobe’s digital analytics and online TV delivery platforms, they said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1zjlMD7). This lets customers have comparable metrics to measure audiences across every major IP device, including smartphones, tablets and over-the-top boxes, it said. Media companies and advertisers can use the new system in 2015, it said.

Verizon reported earnings of 89 cents per share in Q3 on $31.6 billion in revenue. The carrier also added 1.5 million retail wireless connections and finished the quarter with 6.5 million FiOS connections, an 8.8 percent increase year-over-year (http://vz.to/1Fy0O40). A big part of the wireless growth was tied to tablets, Verizon said, with the company adding 457,000 postpaid phones and 1.1 million postpaid tablets in Q3. “We see continued, healthy customer demand for wireless and broadband services, and we are encouraged by the growth we are starting to see in the areas of video delivery and machine-to-machine,” said CEO Lowell McAdam. Verizon officials declined to answer any questions from analyst about the upcoming AWS-3 or TV incentive auction during the quarterly financial call. Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo was asked directly about Verizon's plans for the incentive auction. Shammo said the company wouldn’t have anything to say, since it's in the quiet period leading up to next month’s AWS-3 auction.

ViaSat offered higher capacity to its Exede In the Air service for executives, charters and others who rely on general aviation jets. The service is similar to the Internet in-flight service available on JetBlue and United Airlines, it said Monday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1wk0cZA). “Flight tests have validated multiple devices simultaneously using high-bandwidth applications,” like multisite videoconferencing, social media, and live streaming of HDTV and movies while switching between Ku and Ka satellites, it said.

The Tizen Association said it has added 16 partner companies, bringing membership to more than 100 companies since its launch in November. The association is holding its second Tizen Developer Summit in Shanghai Monday and Tuesday. Tizen encompasses a “wide range of connected devices, generating opportunities for a broad range of partners including application developers, wireless operators and device manufacturers," said Ryoichi Sugimura, a Tizen Association board member from NTT Docomo, Monday. New association members are CloudTrains Systems, Digital Horizons, Dotscreen, Fractal Media, Fresvii, Integral and Open Systems, Jongla, Kitsilano Software, Max Secure Software, Mobile Inform Group, Ngine Networks, Phaymobile, ReyLabs, Salt and Pepper, SaturnMob and Vserv.

NCTA urged the FCC to seek comment on the full range of issues and potential consequences of expanding obligations of multichannel video programming distributors if it plans to explore the MVPD issue in a rulemaking proceeding. Expanding the MVPD definition to include online video distributors (OVDs) would misconstrue the provisions of the Communications Act “and raise a host of practical and regulatory concerns,” NCTA said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-83 (http://bit.ly/1swUEdy). To the extent that the FCC finds that OVDs qualify as MVPDs, OVDs “must be subject to the obligations of MVPD status as well as its benefits,” like program carriage, closed captioning and emergency alerts, it said. Giving OVDs regulatory benefits that Congress provided to traditional facilities-based MVPDs without imposing their obligations “would dilute and undermine the policy goals underlying those obligations-including fair marketplace competition,” NCTA said. The filing pertained to a meeting with Chief Bill Lake and other staff from his Media Bureau, and staff from the Office of General Counsel.

Little will be known about the level of broadcaster participation in the TV incentive auction until the auction actually takes place, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday during a news conference after the commission's open meeting. "This is a marketplace that we're talking about here," he said. "We're creating a marketplace. We're trying to provide information that's relevant to that marketplace so that people can make decisions." Wheeler declined to say whether any incentive auction-related items will be on the agenda for the November meeting. The FCC is sticking with the "agenda" for the auction established by the FCC right after he took office, Wheeler said.