Firm to manage 2003 DVD Forum U.S. Conference is being sought by DVD Forum’s Promotion & Communication Committee (PCC). Conference will be scheduled sometime between Sept. and Dec., group said. Interested parties should apply through link on DVD Forum’s Web site (www.dvdforum.org) with firm name, contact person and e-mail address to receive guidelines for conference. Deadline for proposals is July 18 at PCC’s Tokyo office. Proposal must include: Proposed date or range of dates, city and event facility, all supported by specific reasons; itemized budget proposal; preliminary program, including topics, time allocations and, if possible, suggested names of speakers. Additional suggestions for event are welcome, PCC said. All proposals received by July 18 deadline will be evaluated at July 23 PCC meeting, and company will be chosen to coordinate event. Result will be communicated to all applicants by e-mail by end of July. Contact is PCC Chmn. Takeshi Kitade of Hitachi -- kitade@itg.hitachi.co.jp.

Comcast sued the City of San Jose, seeking a preliminary injunction to declare illegal the city’s requests and conditions for renewing its cable franchise. Besides violating its First Amendment rights, the company said in the suit filed in U.S. Dist. Court, San Jose, that the city was seeking to impose “multiple and illegal conditions” relating to institutional networks (I-NETs) and public, educational and govt. (PEG) channels. The company also objected to the city’s appointing a 3rd-party hearing officer to conduct the administrative renewal proceeding and delegating to that officer the power to make recommendations on renewal to the City Council. That “effectively has taken the decision on renewal out of the hands of the City Council, thereby denying Comcast the procedural protections” under the Cable Act, it said. The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called the suit the latest “political maneuver” by cable to have courts support the industry’s First Amendment rights as “paramount over the public rights.” It charged Comcast with using a “specious” First Amendment argument as a weapon, “hoping that the courts will foolishly confuse the entertainment conglomerate’s bundle of programming channels as the equivalent of a serious newsgathering operation worthy of greater constitutional protection.” Cable wants to limit the ability of local govts. to use the franchise process to require that some portion of broadband networks are set aside for the public, it said. Comcast had to file a protective lawsuit because it was faced with a 120-day deadline to challenge the procedural aspects of the renewal, Exec. Vp- Gen. Counsel Terry Bienstock said. The city had a budget crisis that was independent of the company, he said, and “they did not have time to spend on cable.” By the time the city officials resumed discussions it was a week before the deadline, he said. The company told the city that if issues “weren’t resolved it would have to file a protective lawsuit. They were totally fine with it. So we filed this lawsuit but we continue talking to them.” Bienstock said Comcast and the city remained committed to resolving the outstanding issues.

In what was called a “very delicate” compromise, the World Radio Conference (WRC) in Geneva moved forward Wed. with a tentative plan for making additional spectrum available at 5 GHz for radio local area networks (RLANs), including Wi-Fi. The proposal, approved by the WRC allocations committee, appeared to bridge differences between European administrations and the U.S. on certain outdoor use restrictions. The agreement, which awaits final plenary approval, would allow outdoor RLAN operation at 5250-5350 MHz, while asking that countries take “appropriate” steps that would lead to most systems’ being operated indoors.

The Vt. Public Service Board (PSB) asked wireless operators in the state to provide information on surcharges related to local number portability or number pooling, citing “several possible concerns with such charges.” Wireless carriers face a Nov. 24 deadline for providing wireless LNP in the top 100 metro areas in the U.S. Earlier this month, the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., turned down a wireless industry challenge to an FCC decision to not exercise forbearance on this LNP requirement. With the FCC making clear the agency had no plan to delay the date, attention has turned to possible relief on Capitol Hill. Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned last week that Senate Appropriations Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) was particularly interested in attaching LNP relief to legislation such as the FCC reauthorization bill. Schumer also cited a NARUC projection that the wireless industry would collect $1.8 billion this year in LNP fees that carriers already were charging consumers. In a letter to carriers, PSB Regulatory Policy Dir. Peter Bluhm said the board wanted to collect preliminary information on: (1) Why LNP or pooling fees would be billed separately when carriers were subjected to other kinds of govt. mandates that weren’t treated similarly. (2) Why a wireless carrier might assess an LNP fee “at a time when the provider does not actually provide number portability” and “why a customer charge for number pooling would be imposed directly on retail customers and not on other carriers.” (3) What legal questions related to the right to recover the charge and consumer notice. While federal law preempts state authority over commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) entry and CMRS rates, “it preserves state authority over other terms and conditions of those services,” the letter said. The board also raised concern that LNP or pooling charges might “improperly suggest” to customers that the charge was a tax or govt. charge on the sales transaction, rather than a provider-imposed rate “to cover its own cost of operating its business.” The PSB asked for copies of sample bills for the 2 most popular rate plans that each carrier offered in the state. If customers must pay number portability or pooling charges, the PSB said, it wanted to know the rationale for the charge, how it was determined, whether it was meant to reimburse the company for costs imposed by a govt. mandate or whether it was part of a state or federal tariff. The deadline for replies is July 7.

Disney/ABC became the last network to quit the NAB, citing a continuing dispute with some of the larger affiliate groups that came to a head with the NAB’s support of the FCC’s old 35% national network cap on audience reach. Disney Exec. Vp-Govt. Relations Preston Padden, in a news briefing Tues., said the cap itself wasn’t so much the issue as the idea that the NAB board had become dominated by a few “firebrand” affiliate groups that pitted affiliate stations against network owned & operated (O&O) stations in the name of localism.

First comprehensive tests into life expectancy of recordable DVDs is set to begin this summer under auspices of National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), DVD 2003 conference in Gaithersburg, Md., was told Wed.

AT&T shareholders voted against establishing term limits for outside directors and capping CEO compensation, according to preliminary proxy voting results announced at AT&T’s annual meeting Wed. in Savannah. Results showed only 7.7% of 525.4 million shareholders voted for directors’ term limits and 7.6% voted for a cap on CEO compensation. AT&T Chmn. David Dorman told attendees that the company expected to end the year with net debt under $10 billion, compared with $12 billion at the end of the first quarter. He said AT&T, among other things, planned this year to implement “a single global IP network” and would offer bundled local-long distance services to consumers in as many as 22 states by the end of the year. He said that despite “a challenging environment,” the company gained share in several areas of the business market, including local, IP and managed services. “From an operational standpoint, the challenges of the last year and the downturn of the industry overall have made AT&T a better company,” Dorman said. “We have become more focused and more efficient, improving processes and setting a very specific, simplified vision for our future.”

As it pledged late last month (CED May 22 p3), Interactive Digital Software Assn. (IDSA) joined VSDA, Hollywood Entertainment and others to challenge constitutionality of recently passed Wash. violent videogame law. Law, signed last month by Wash. Gov. Gary Locke (D), makes it illegal to rent or sell videogames containing violence directed at law enforcement officers to kids under 17. It’s to go into effect July 27 unless U.S. Dist. Court, Seattle, stops it.

Lockheed Martin Space & Strategic Missiles and Northrop Grumman Space Technology have completed all 49 preliminary design reviews (PDRs) for the advanced extremely high frequency (AEHF) project, Lockheed said. The completion means all technical performance requirements have been met, the company said. The AEHF program will benefit military communications between warfighters, providing more secure, survivable communications.

More than 100,000 counterfeited DVDs were seized in raid by U.K.’s Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and Customs Service and local police, FACT announced Mon. Raid followed Customs’ interception of 5,000 counterfeit copies of Disney’s Holes at Heathrow Airport May 1. Following investigation that identified major U.K. importers of pirate DVD product from Far East, in particular Malaysia, authorities raided private house May 2. FACT said potential sales value of professionally pressed pirate DVDs seized was more than ?1,425,000 ($2,337,000 at ?1 = $1.64), making it largest pirate DVD haul to date in U.K. Also seized were numerous other optical discs, import documents, computer equipment. Thousands of pieces of artwork were recovered, including sleeves and imported “topside labels” for DVDs that appeared to be for application to counterfeit DVD-R discs, FACT said. Unidentified suspect was immigrant from Singapore who had been in U.K. for less than 6 weeks but already had managed to bank thousands of pounds in cash, group said. Information obtained from house indicated that suspect had aspirations to take over 50% of London pirate market, FACT said. In search, officers also found small DVD-R lab in upstairs room with 10 DVD burners housed in 3 PCs. More than 2,000 DVD-Rs with unknown content were seized along with disc labels with latest film titles ready to be adhered to DVD-Rs, FACT said. Motion Picture Assn.’s program in Malaysia has received preliminary information from raid and is investigating in Malaysia and Singapore to locate manufacturing source. Separately, FACT said Mon. it had noticed increase in number of pressed counterfeit DVDs with 2 or more titles in recent weeks. Phenomenon has been reported in past, but those discs generally were poor quality DVD-R versions produced on PC burners in U.K. Compilation discs are concern as they have at least double impact on industry, priced around ?8-?10 in U.K. markets. Source material used for DVDs in some cases was camcorder copy of theatrical titles, but also post-video release titles ripped digitally and of better playback quality, FACT said. X Men II and Matrix Reloaded compilation were seized by FACT May 25 in open-air market, it said.