DVD-player installed base was 41.7 million U.S. households as of June, just 6 years after format’s rollout. But figure is misleading and actually higher, owing to homes with multiple devices capable of DVD playback. So contends preliminary report from research firm Centris released Fri. Moreover, group said growth in DVD household penetration was coming from other DVD- enabled platforms such as PCs, videogame consoles and portables, in addition to standalone DVD set-tops.
SBC filed an application with the FCC Thurs. to offer long distance service in its remaining 4 Midwest states -- Ill., Ind., Ohio and Wis. -- delivering more than 175 boxes of regulatory material to the Commission. SBC said it had received “strong endorsements” from PUCs in 3 of the states and “a preliminary indication” from the Ind. Utility Regulation Commission that it would support SBC’s long distance entry. “This multistate filing is the climax of 7 years of effort to bring competition, lower prices and more choice to consumers and businesses in our Midwest region,” SBC Pres. William Daley said. The 4 states, plus Mich., comprise the old Ameritech territory before the SBC-Ameritech merger.
FCC Comr. Adelstein said Tues. the agency made a serious error in its new media ownership rules, creating a situation where a small town like Minot, N.D., could be treated as if it had more TV stations than Detroit. Adelstein said his fellow commissioners should reconsider the rules to fix what he called an anomaly that would allow greater concentration in small markets. An FCC spokesman declined to comment, but agency staffers acknowledged privately that Adelstein could have a point. However, they said such an issue should be brought up in a petition for reconsideration.
The 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, reversed a lower court’s decision to increase a bond that Sprint had to post in case it had to reimburse CAT Communications for blocking its customers from improperly using Sprint’s network. The July 11 decision grew out of a suit Sprint filed against CAT, a CLEC, in 2000, charging that CAT customers were using Sprint’s network for long distance calls without authorization or payment. The U.S. Dist. Court, Newark, N.J., issued a preliminary injunction in 2000 and required a $250,000 bond to cover expenses in the event CAT were found to have been enjoined wrongfully. In 2002, at the request of CAT, the Dist. Court raised the bond to $4.95 million because CAT reported it already was faced with $2.7 million in blocking fees by Verizon and other phone companies whose lines CAT leased. Sprint then appealed to the 3rd Circuit. Sprint also appealed the lower court’s decision to dissolve the preliminary injunction, but the appeals court affirmed that part (02-2209).
Depending on a judge’s decision, EchoStar may be required to remove its 2 Christian networks, DayStar and Family Net, from its Dish Network programming lineup, a spokesman said. EchoStar is in litigation with Dominion Video Satellite, owner of the Sky Angel Network, over terms of their contract.
In first round of court battle between state of Wash. and videogame interests, latter declared victory as week came to close. Interactive Digital Software Assn. (IDSA) and VSDA praised ruling by U.S. Dist. Court Judge Robert Lasnik, Seattle, who granted preliminary injunction against enforcement of law that would make it crime for retailers to sell videogames to minors that contained violent acts against law enforcement officers. In decision, Lasnik said “plaintiffs have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of House Bill 1009 and the balance of hardships tip in their favor.”
Sony’s Vaio PC group will undertake new initiative to help retailers and salespeople market AV and PC convergence to technologically overwhelmed consumers. Retail “boot camps” and “store-within-store” programs are follow-through on recently unveiled product strategy that will exploit synergies between Sony’s PCs and digital AV products, such as camcorders, DVD recorders and broadband-capable portable music devices (CED July 7 p2).
Despite new marketing initiatives that have yielded positive preliminary results, Tweeter Home Entertainment still expected to report somewhat disappointing results for back half of year, including 3rd quarter ended June 30, CFO Joseph McGuire told CIBC World Markets investor conference in Boston Wed.
Following a marathon plenary session that stretched past 3:30 a.m., the World Radio Conference (WRC) approved a compromise Thurs. on coordinating nongeosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellites, satisfying backers of Europe’s Galileo and U.S. interests that rely on GPS. The agreement bridged differences between Europeans, who favored a more regulatory-heavy coordination process, and the U.S., which sought to continue coordinating radionavigation satellite systems (RNSS) through an informal consultation process (CD July 3 p3). It was “an enormously political issue,” U.S. WRC Ambassador Janice Obuchowski told reporters from Geneva shortly after the 4-week conference ended its plenary sessions.
The Ind. Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) gave preliminary conditional support for SBC interLATA long distance entry. The IURC action wasn’t an actual endorsement, but spelled out conditions SBC must meet in order to win official endorsement. The IURC gave SBC until July 11 to respond to its conditions: 1) Continue operation support system testing and fixes until program has concluded. 2) Spell out its procedures and processes for notifying competitors of hardware or software problems. 3) Describe its plans for attempting resolution of conflicts and disputes before bringing them to the IURC. SBC said it was pleased by the IURC decision and will make every effort to meet the agency’s conditions.