The federal government shutdown slowed the regulatory review of two major wireless transactions -- Verizon’s bid to buy Vodafone’s 45 percent of Verizon Wireless for $130 billion and AT&T’s $1.2 billion bid for Leap Wireless -- but in the end likely won’t prove a major hurdle, industry officials said this week. Verizon/Vodafone is the biggest telecom deal in U.S. history.
The Senate advanced FCC Republican nominee Michael O'Rielly out of the Commerce Committee Wednesday evening. But a block prevented the Senate from approving O'Rielly and FCC chairman nominee Tom Wheeler by unanimous consent, as some observers predicted possible. After 16 days of a government shutdown, the Senate has now taken a recess for the next week. Congress has begun rescheduling postponed events, and surveillance review remains a key priority in coming weeks, privacy advocates told us.
The Senate advanced FCC Republican nominee Michael O'Rielly out of the Commerce Committee Wednesday evening. But a block prevented the Senate from approving O'Rielly and FCC chairman nominee Tom Wheeler by unanimous consent, as some observers predicted possible. After 16 days of a government shutdown, the Senate has now taken a recess for the next week. Congress has begun rescheduling postponed events, and surveillance review remains a key priority in coming weeks, privacy advocates told us.
Sonos has quietly begun installing store within a store sections as part of a plan to have 20 locations throughout North America, Consumer Electronics Daily has learned. Several are already in place, including at an Abt’s Chicago-area location and a P.C. Richard & Son store in New York, a Sonos spokesman told us. Sonos is eying 20 stores nationwide to offer a way for “critical custom installation and specialty channels to have more presence with Sonos” and to showcase home theater and music solutions, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, Sonos filled in the entry level of its amplified speaker lineup Monday with the $199 Play:1, a round, compact solution for “nooks and crannies where you want a bit of music,” the spokesman said. Sonos is under siege from a host of audio companies looking to grab a slice of a pie that Sonos has owned to date. In the past month, Bose, Samsung and Phorus have launched multi-room streaming audio products, and Lenbrook is on deck to unveil its Bluesound multi-room audio products Thursday. The timing is purely coincidental, the Sonos spokesman said. Play:1 has been in the works for two years and is the “smallest, most aggressive form factor possible” while maintaining the company’s sound quality standards, he said. “It just happens to be launching at a time when all the others are coming in,” he said, “and it validates what we've been doing all along.” The future is “wireless and streaming,” he said. Although the Play:1 resembles Bluetooth speakers on the market, it doesn’t need Bluetooth due to a software upgrade Sonos added in December that enables users to stream music from an iOS device or Android tablet to one Sonos speaker “or a whole house of speakers,” he said. New software features that launched with the Play:1 and Sonos 4.2 include the ability to use a speaker’s Mute button for play, pause or skip functions without the need to use a smartphone or tablet, according to the website, and social networking song tagging. Also with the new release, a Connect:Amp and Sonos speakers can be configured for use as left and right rear speakers in a Sonos surround-sound setup. The feature was designed for custom installers, Sonos said.
Ongoing FTC litigation might be delayed or dismissed and industries could be permanently altered if the government shutdown drags on beyond a month, said lawyers, advocates and a former FTC chief of staff in interviews this week. The unavailability of the agency’s website (WID Oct 2 p1) has already caused a commotion in the app developer community, said an industry representative. The shutdown has thus far caused difficulty for COPPA compliance and a judge has also denied an FTC stay request for an ongoing marketing fraud case.
Ongoing FTC litigation might be delayed or dismissed and industries could be permanently altered if the government shutdown drags on beyond a month, said lawyers, advocates and a former FTC chief of staff in interviews this week. The unavailability of the agency’s website (CD Oct 2 p8) has already caused a commotion in the app developer community, said an industry representative.
As World Trade Organization talks lurch forward in the lead-up to the WTO Bali ministerial summit in December, participant nations may deliver an Information Technology Agreement expansion deal that will eliminate ITA tariffs on a host of new information technology products, said industry officials. The Chinese aim to table a new product list that would fall under the agreement during the next ITA negotiation round in Geneva, the week of Oct. 21, said speakers at a National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) event Tuesday and an Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) official in a blog post that day. The agreement hasn’t expanded since its inception in 1996 despite many IT industry developments.
As World Trade Organization talks lurch forward in the lead-up to the WTO Bali ministerial summit in December, participant nations may deliver an Information Technology Agreement expansion deal that will eliminate ITA tariffs on a host of new information technology products, said industry officials. The Chinese aim to table a new product list that would fall under the agreement during the next ITA negotiation round in Geneva, the week of Oct. 21, said speakers at a National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) event Tuesday and an Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) official in a blog post that day. The agreement hasn’t expanded since its inception in 1996 despite many IT industry developments.
The potential for progress at the World Trade Organization (WTO) December ministerial summit in Bali lies largely in the areas of information technology tariff elimination and trade facilitation, said roundtable participants at a National Foreign Trade Council event on Oct. 8 and an Information Technology Industry Council industry official on the same day. Participant nations may deliver an Information Technology Agreement expansion deal that will eliminate tariffs on a host of new information technology products, said the officials.
With the shutdown of numerous government websites, public access to government information will be affected in a way it wasn’t during last government shutdown that lasted several weeks in 1995 to ‘96, several experts told us Tuesday. Some significant government resources such as Thomas, the online legislative database of the Library of Congress, pulled about faces Tuesday to stay running, but other major informational sites such as the FTC aren’t accessible. “Times have changed in terms of how agencies communicate with the public, so it is a different ball of wax if a website goes dark than if it had in the ‘90s,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “It will have ramifications for consumers and for small businesses."