More Wi-Fi advocates defended the FCC's April 6 GHz order, in an amicus brief (in Pacer) Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in docket 20-1190. Commission "engineers spent years assessing technical analyses and arguments from parties on all sides,” said Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Microsoft, NCTA and the Wi-Fi Alliance. “The [6 GHz] Order embodies a careful, conservative decision, based on a massive technical record, to unlock the benefits of next-generation unlicensed technologies while protecting licensed users from harmful interference.”
MobiTV has $19 million in assets and $75 million in liabilities, said the privately held streaming video provider in Chapter 11 papers (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware (docket 21-10457). The company incurred a $34 million operating loss for 2020 on revenue of $13.5 million. It generates revenue through “transportation rights” contracts with more than 120 pay-TV providers to deliver streaming content to 300,000 “end-user subscribers,” it said. T-Mobile, a key benefactor, agreed Jan. 29 to give MobiTV $2.5 million in “bridge financing” it said. MobiTV hired FTI Consulting to find a buyer, hoping to avoid the bankruptcy, but was unsuccessful, it said. It continues to employ FTI with the goal of “reengaging parties who originally showed interest,” plus finding “new potential buyers,” it said. MobiTV’s Chapter 11 petition (in Pacer) lists web-hosting company Rackspace as its top creditor, with $4 million owed on an Oct. 9 loan. No. 2 creditor Silicon Valley Bank is owed $3.06 million for an April 21 Paycheck Protection Program loan under the Cares Act. MobiTV said the bank denied its request for loan forgiveness. MPEG LA, the third-largest creditor, is owed $2.91 million in unpaid license fees, said the petition. MobiTV’s other top creditors include streaming content partners ABC Cable Networks Group ($362,000 owed), Fox News ($350,000), A&E ($90,000), MTV ($84,000) and Discovery Communications ($83,000). MobiTV was “incurring substantial operating losses,” despite “growing revenue and increasing subscriber and customer bases,” said the court papers. Though MobiTV “projected significant and material subscriber and revenue growth” entering 2020, the pandemic “materially impaired” growth opportunities, it said. The board approved the Chapter 11 filing in late January, it said.
Medicom opposed a West Des Moines motion to dismiss the company’s lawsuit claiming the city violated Iowa law when it used bonds for urban blight and poverty to build a $50 million municipal network for Google Fiber (see 2012100030). “A city council may choose to disregard statutes, work behind closed doors, and deprive voters of a voice in the city’s financial decisions,” Mediacom said Thursday at the Iowa District Court for Polk County. “But if a council makes that choice, no mere use of magic words or motion practice ... can dissolve the state judiciary’s authority and obligation to independently review the council’s conduct.”
Wi-Fi advocates defended the FCC’s April decision to allow unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band, in an amicus brief posted Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (in Pacer) in docket 20-1190. “The FCC has more than 30 years of experience managing unlicensed spectrum access, using rules and procedures similar to those" here, said Public Knowledge, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and New America Open Technology Institute. “The FCC has consistently and successfully nurtured the unlicensed ecosystem while protecting licensed services from harmful interference.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the National Lifeline Association's petition for a writ of mandamus (in Pacer) for FCC Lifeline minimum service standards in case 20-1460 (see 2101130061). The court cited "insufficient evidence of irreparable harm" Monday. The decision was disappointing, NaLA said, but it's "optimistic that the FCC, under new leadership and with a renewed focus on ensuring affordable access to broadband services for Lifeline-eligible subscribers, will finally address the problems created by an [MSS] rule and formula that fails to consider affordability," emailed John Heitmann of Kelley Drye.
Business and tech industry groups sought to stop Maryland’s digital ad tax in federal court Thursday. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Internet Association, NetChoice and Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) sued in U.S. District Court for Northern Maryland after the Assembly voted last week to override Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) veto of the bill (see 2102120050). The Internet Tax Freedom Act preempts the Maryland law, which also violates constitutional due process and commerce clauses “by burdening and penalizing purely out-of-state conduct and interfering with foreign affairs,” industry plaintiffs said. “The Act is a punitive assault on digital, but not print, advertising. It is illegal in myriad ways and should be declared unlawful and enjoined.” Though “styled as a tax, several features confirm its punitive character, including its severity (up to 10% of gross revenues), its focus on extraterritorial conduct, the segregation of its proceeds from the State’s general fund, and the legislative history leading to its enactment,” they said. A Hogan spokesperson emailed that the suit "highlights how not only are there real policy problems with the digital ad tax, but also serious legal questions surrounding it as well." The Maryland attorney general's office didn't comment.
The U.S. Court of International Trade plans to “proceed first” on choosing a “representative sample” of test cases to manage the roughly 3,500 Section 301 complaints inundating the court, said an order (in Pacer) signed Tuesday by the three-judge panel of Mark Barnett, Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves. All the suits seek to get the Lists 3 and 4A Chinese tariffs vacated and the duties refunded with interest. “The court expects that the number of sample cases identified will be small enough to permit the efficient disposition of this litigation while allowing the court to consider all claims raised by the various Plaintiffs,” said the order. “The court anticipates issuing a stay of all Section 301 cases assigned to the panel that are not selected to proceed as sample cases.” It set a March 19 deadline for plaintiff attorneys to submit a “coordinated proposal” on the test cases and to suggest lawyers to sit on a steering committee. Lawyers who think their complaint “would not be represented by a sample case proposal” or feel they belong on the steering committee have until March 26 to appeal, it said. Most court observers think the first-filed HMTX Industries/Jasco Products litigation is a shoo-in for one of the test cases. Virtually all the complaints argue the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its Section 301 authority under the 1974 Trade Act by imposing retaliatory tariffs against the Chinese and that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act by running tariff rulemakings that lacked transparency. A few complaints make the additional argument that USTR acted unconstitutionally by taxing importers.
Consumers use Google by choice, not because “they are forced to or because they cannot easily find alternative ways to search for information on the Internet,” Google argued (in Pacer) Monday in response to Colorado’s complaint at U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (see 2101290063). Google asked Judge Amit Mehta to dismiss the complaint and denied that its agreements with Apple, browser providers and mobile carriers are anti-competitive.
On its patent infringement cases against Google, Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus said one goes to trial Feb. 22, with a preliminary decision expected in early May. A second case, in U.S. District Court in Waco, Texas, also involves five different patents and is expected to go to a hearing in July to define patent terms; that case is scheduled for trial in June 2022. Sonos believes Google is “infringing a very substantial portion of our patent portfolio," and "we're going to continue with this process until we vindicate our [intellectual property] rights," Lazarus, a former top FCC official, told a quarterly call. (See Q1 materials here). A Google spokesperson said “Sonos has misrepresented our partnership and mischaracterized our technology. Our products and devices were designed independently. While we look to resolve our dispute, we will continue to ensure our shared customers have the best experience using our products.” Sonos stock closed up 16% at $36.44. Meanwhile, Sonos is working to ramp up to meet demand while the company transitions to manufacturing in Malaysia. That's where iRobot also is boosting capacity.
The federal court reviewing California’s net neutrality law asked how DOJ's withdrawing its challenge (see 2102080073) affects the separate lawsuit by ACA Connects, USTelecom, CTIA and NCTA. ISP plaintiffs and California should file a brief joint status report by Feb. 16 “stating their position as to whether the United States of America's voluntary dismissal in 18-cv-02660 affects this matter in any way, and, if so, how,” said Monday's minute order (in Pacer) in case 2:18-cv-02684 at U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California. ACA opposition to the California law is unchanged, a spokesperson said. USTelecom didn’t comment Tuesday, and CTIA and NCTA declined to comment.