The complexities of the content distribution system, a lack of uniformity among different platforms and absence of regulatory requirements are among the reasons for inconsistency in which online content includes audio description, said panelists from streaming services and consumer groups at the FCC’s Video Programming Accessibility forum Monday.

Getting Congress to approve rules that include wireless as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was one of the “greatest moments” in his long career in Washington, Jonathan Adelstein, president of the Wireless Infrastructure Association, said at the South Wireless Summit, streamed from Nashville Tuesday. Wireless came very close to being left out of the broadband spending in the act, he said. Adelstein sees a continuing bias in the White House in favor of fiber over wireless, he warned.

Musicians are turning to the gaming industry for additional revenue opportunities, said Evan Heby, Tipalti senior marketing manager, on a Digital Media Wire webcast Friday. He cited rapper Travis Scott as one of the first musicians to host a concert on a gaming platform, “expanding an artist’s audience in a really natural way," by connecting with fans via other avenues fans are interested in.

HP believes its “scale” can help relieve Poly of the supply-chain woes that have hampered recent revenue growth for the supplier of audio and video work-from-anywhere solutions, said CEO Enrique Lores on an investor call Monday summarizing HP’s definitive agreement to buy Poly (the former Plantronics) for $3.3 billion cash. HP Chief Financial Officer Marie Myers said the transaction is expected to close by the end of calendar 2022 and will be financed with cash on hand, plus new debt, without sacrificing HP’s previous commitments to buy back $4 billion in stock during its fiscal year ending late October.

Digital commerce accounted for 31% of discretionary dollars spent by consumers in Q4, said Ryan Williams, Comscore’s head-client insights, on a Thursday State of Retail webinar. About 20% of Q4 dollars were spent via desktop, 11% on smartphones and tablets.

ISPs sought minor modifications of the FCC’s 2016 broadband consumer labels as the agency works to create new labels required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In reply comments posted Friday in docket 22-2 (see 2203100059), disagreement continued on what details should be included in the labels. Others raised issues with calls to require privacy disclosures in the eventual labels, suggesting links that include more detailed information instead.

T-Mobile’s pending shutdown of its 3G/CDMA network Thursday isn’t raising the same level of concerns as when AT&T shuttered its legacy network last month (see 2202240002), experts said. T-Mobile has far fewer security or other alarm systems attached to its network than AT&T. Dish Network raised concerns about 3G handsets used by Boost customers, the prepaid provider it acquired from T-Mobile, but those have been largely addressed, experts said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative sought confidential advice from “private-sector advisory committees,” believed to be under the Industry Trade Advisory Committee (ITAC) program managed jointly by USTR and the Commerce Department, before imposing the List 3 Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, Stephen Vaughn, the agency’s then-general counsel, wrote USTR Robert Lighthizer Sept. 17, 2018. The document was one of about a dozen “decision memos” spanning 488 pages that DOJ filed Thursday in the Section 301 litigation docket (1:21-cv-52) at the U.S. Court of International Trade as an “appendix” to oral argument held there Feb. 1 (see 2202010053).

Big internet platforms will be subject to tougher competition rules after EU governments and lawmakers reached political agreement on language in the proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA), they said. The deal, if approved by the full EU Council and European Parliament, targets "gatekeepers," large companies that provide core platform services and have annual revenue of at least 75 billion euros ($83 billion), the Council said Thursday.

The EU and U.S. "found an agreement in principle" on trans-Atlantic personal data transfers, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted Friday. The U.S. made "unprecedented" commitments to put in place new safeguards to ensure that signals intelligence activities are "necessary and proportionate in the pursuit of defined national security objectives," and to create a new mechanism for EU individuals to seek redress if they believe they're unlawfully targeted by such activities, said a White House fact sheet. The deal addresses the concerns of the European Court of Justice in Schrems II, it said.