The African Network information Center (AFRNIC) should prepare now for the exhaustion of its remaining IPv4 addresses, based on the experiences of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and other regional Internet registries (RIR) that have run out of their IPv4 allocations, said ICANN Vice President-Technical Engagement Adiel Akplogan Monday in a blog post. ARIN said last week that it had officially run out of IPv4 addresses, making AFRNIC the “last frontier for IPv4,” Akplogan said. “When a region runs out of IPv4 addresses, it does not negatively impact that region's Internet growth and development,” Akplogan said. “To the contrary -- it forces the region to embrace the future. It should not be any different in Africa. The AFRINIC community probably needs to take a closer look at the situation and develop policies that strike the right balance between allowing newcomers to come online and giving the region a chance to actively embrace the future.” ARIN's exhaustion of its IPv4 pool highlights “the need for consumer technology companies to continue joint efforts to move the industry to IPv6,” CEA said in a news release. “There are already more connected devices in the world than IPv4 addressing supports, and companies are using more complicated IPv4 address sharing techniques to compensate,” said CEA Senior Vice President-Research and Standards Brian Markwalter in the release. “With some projections envisioning more than 50 billion devices connected to the Internet as soon as 2020, the time is now for CE manufactures to help lead the shift to IPv6.”

Rovi signed an extension with Time Warner Cable of an existing interactive program guide license and distribution agreement and patent license agreement, the vendor said Monday in a news release.

Turner Broadcasting and WME-IMG jointly are creating a competitive electronic gaming league that will include live events and televised coverage to air on TBS, Time Warner said Thursday. Atlanta's Turner Studios will be headquarters for the league and primary operations facility for the live gaming events, and Turner Sports will produce the competitions along with WME-IMG. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be the featured game during the league’s first season, to start in 2016, it said.

A total of 14.9 percent of pay-TV subscribers plan to make changes in their plans over the next six months, Digitalsmiths said in its Q2 2015 Video Trends Report issued Tuesday. The most common plan was to change providers (8.1 percent), followed by cut service (4.5 percent) and switch to an online app or rental service (2.3 percent). Another 31.7 percent said they might change providers, Digitalsmiths said. Of those planning a change, 41.1 percent said they would stay if content search functionality improved, according to the survey. While 76.6 percent of pay-TV subscribers are "very satisfied" or "satisfied," the "unsatisfied" category was 23.4 percent -- up more than six percentage points from the Q2 2013 survey, Digitalsmiths said. Increasing fees for cable/satellite service and for Internet service were the two leading reasons for dissatisfaction among those surveyed, with poor customer service close behind, Digitalsmiths said. Among those surveyed, 57.7 percent subscribed to an over-the-top service, up nearly 30 percentage points in two years, according to Digitalsmiths. Named as the biggest draws for OTT are convenience, ability to watch certain TV shows and their whole seasons, and cost, the survey said. The survey was conducted in Q2 by a third-party survey service, Digitalsmiths said.

Friday’s "Presidential Series" breakfast featuring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) (see 1509210059) was canceled in the wake of Walker's withdrawal from the Republican presidential race, Sarah Jones, spokeswoman for the Northern Virginia Technology Council, emailed us Tuesday. Her group was to have co-sponsored the event with CEA.

Broadcast and wireless broadband will “demonstrably interfere with each other,” and repacking broadcasters into the duplex gap will make that worse, Sinclair Broadcast Group said in comments filed in docket 12-268 and posted online Tuesday. A study by the European Broadcasting Union on potential sharing of wireless LTE and broadcast spectrum concluded that “such sharing is impractical; LTE cannot share spectrum with digital broadcasting,” Sinclair said. “Interference prevention is the raison d'être of the FCC,” Sinclair said. “The laws of physics have not changed and repacking broadcasters in bands reserved for mobile wireless broadband highlights the Commission’s challenge.”

Consumer confidence toward the overall economy remains flat, CEA said Tuesday, citing its Index of Consumer Expectations (ICE) for September. Expectations about technology spending rose slightly, it said. “In recent months, consumer attitudes toward tech purchases have mirrored overall sentiment,” Chief Economist Shawn DuBravac said. If sentiment doesn’t pick up in October, DuBravac said, CEA expects to see “retailers and manufacturers seek to stoke demand in the coming weeks in advance of the holiday shopping season.” DuBravac cited a “volatile market correction last month” as a leading factor contributing to a flat consumer sentiment toward the overall economy in September. The CEA ICE showed an increase of 0.4 point overall for the U.S. economy to reach 170.5, while consumer technology spending expectations advanced 2.1 points to reach 88.8 in September, but was lower year over year, CEA said. “Depressed levels of sentiment serve as a cautionary note heading into the holiday season,” DuBravac said. “October’s CEA Index will be a key metric as we head into the final months of the year.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is scheduled to speak at a "Presidential Series" breakfast Friday sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) and CEA. The event begins 7 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia. Walker scheduled a 6 p.m. EDT news conference Monday, where he was expected to announce his withdrawal from the race for the Republican presidential nomination. NVTC representatives didn't comment Monday on how Walker's withdrawal might affect Friday's event.

Video relay service users will be able to communicate directly with each other starting in May because of accessible communications for everyone (ACE) software, said an ITU blog post Thursday by Peter Hayes, CEO of VTCSecure, a tech company focused on serving those with disabilities. Hayes said the open-source software addresses the lack of robust interoperability that the FCC identified as a major problem for deaf and hard-of-hearing users of VRS and other telecom relay services. "Reaching VRS and [TRS] services using their existing mobile phones (Android and iOS) and computers (Windows and Mac OSX), users will be able to engage in simultaneous real-time video, text and voice communications," he said, noting ACE uses ITU and Internet Engineering Task Force standards. "The FCC has committed to updating code to operate with newly released operating systems, meaning that developers around the world will be able to design reliable communications applications based on ACE that will work with widely available consumer devices, now and in the future. This solution could mean global relay services for all, and is already linked with Sweden, France and other European countries." Because ACE is open source, it can be modified for those with other disabilities, Hayes said: "The possibilities are endless. One modification already in the works is Video Remote Assistance (VRA) which is designed to assist blind individuals. It sends real-time video to the next available visual interpreter in a call center who then tells the blind user what the phone’s camera is seeing. This allows a blind user to get help reading documents or navigating inside a new building."

Videogame software remains free from the advanced communications services (ACS) requirements of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, under a CVAA waiver posted Wednesday by the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and included in Thursday's Daily Digest. The waiver, requested in May by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) in docket 10-213, extends a class waiver granted in 2012 that was to expire in October; it now will run through 2016. Section 716 of CVAA requires ACS providers to make their products usable and accessible to people with disabilities. ESA argued in its petition that while videogame software is capable of accessing ACS, it's designed for something else -- game play -- the bureau said in the waiver order. Pointing to materials for such games as Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Diablo III, the bureau said these show "that video game software marketing currently emphasizes game playing, not ACS." ESA's waiver request was shorter than the eight-year waiver it sought in 2012 and this time didn't cover game consoles and peripherals. "The increased availability of accessible console and platform-level ACS features is likely to help game developers and publishers address their ACS compliance obligations if such additional time is granted to achieve such compliance," the bureau said in the waiver order.