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.
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.