The GSM Association released a specification Thursday that allows consumers to remotely activate the SIM card embedded in a smartwatch, fitness band or tablet. The spec, the first from the GSMA’s industry-backed Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning initiative, will enable consumers to add devices to a mobile subscription and connect them securely to a mobile network, said GSMA. Mobile network operators, mobile device manufacturers and SIM vendors worked together on the spec that will allow consumers to activate the SIM embedded in a range of devices with a subscription from a mobile network operator of their choice, said GSMA. The initiative “does not aim to replace all SIM cards in the field” but is designed to help users connect multiple devices through the same subscription, it said. The spec will help mobile device manufacturers develop smaller, lighter mobile-connected wearables, it said. GSMA will also release a specification in June that will include remote provisioning for smartphones, it said.

Digital media player company Autonomic and lighting and control company Vantage Controls joined ProSource as vendor members, the buying group said Tuesday.

The “great future for television when it comes will be in high definition, high frequency color,” Zenith Radio Founder-CEO Eugene McDonald told Variety magazine in a letter that was 70 years old to the day Sunday that LG said Friday it had unearthed from the Zenith archives. “Television will one day be a great industry,” McDonald said in the Feb. 14, 1946, letter. “There is nothing wrong with it that money will not cure but it needs a box office,” said McDonald, who was 59 then. “The advertisers, in my opinion, do not have the kind of money it needs to supply appropriate acceptable programs in quantity that will be needed to make television a great industry,” said McDonald, who also founded NAB in 1922 and was its first president.

HDTV antenna retailer Mohu joined TVFreedom, the coalition of broadcasters and allies said in a news release Thursday. Mohu is the 30th member of TVFreedom, it said. TVFreedom's membership also includes the ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC TV affiliates associations, said its website.

The pay-TV industry isn't popular, with large numbers of people thinking the service is too expensive and its providers are "greedy," according to Harris Poll results commissioned by broadcast TV ally TVFreedom released Tuesday. Ninety-four percent of pay-TV subscribers think providers should be required to make fees easy to understand, 90 percent believe one shouldn't need to get a double- or triple-play package to get the lowest TV service pricing, 74 percent believe DVR/set-top box rental fees are too high, and 51 percent feel they have affordable, competitive choice in pay-TV providers, Harris said. Among pay-TV subscribers, it said, 21 percent said equipment rental fees are their biggest complaint, other than price, about their service, followed by poor service or connection quality. Harris also said that among all those surveyed, 86 percent believe pay-TV services are too expensive, and 77 percent believe pay-TV providers put more weight on profit than service quality. Harris said, 52 percent describe pay-TV providers as "greedy," with 22 agreeing with the adjective "unpleasant" and 18 percent with "heartless." Positive adjectives like "convenient" (26 percent) and "innovative" (13 percent) were less often selected. The poll was done online in December of 2,047 U.S. adults ages 18 and up, of whom 1,536 subscribed to a pay-TV service, Harris said. NCTA didn't comment.

An investor group including former NAD Sales and Brand Manager Stephen DeFuria bought the Vana distributorship from founder Kevin Wolff, effective immediately. Vana’s new headquarters will be in Lake Grove, New York, with a logistics and distribution center in Buffalo. DeFuria, director-business development, will retain a Boston office and be responsible for establishing and growing the sales channel. DeFuria is teaming with Vana CEO James Feldstein, Chief Technology Officer Roy Feldstein and Managing Director Justin Feldstein, principals of Lake Grove, New York-based Audio Den. Vana represents Audio Physic, European Audio Team and Dr. Feickert Analogue. The firm will focus on high-performance products in “every price altitude in each product category,” said DeFuria. Vana will target independent audio dealers serving the audio enthusiast and luxury customer, he said.

Content-Centric Networking/Named Data Networking (CCN/NDN) could solve a lot of the drawbacks inherent to IP when it becomes ready for deployment in three to five years, CableLabs said in a white paper released Monday. CCN/NDN "promises to significantly improve network scalability, performance and reduce cost over a network built on the Internet Protocol," CableLabs said. With HTTP/IP being ubiquitous in networks, it may "seem daunting to consider the use of a non-IP protocol," it said, though the likelihood is that technology and time will bring a replacement. Replacing HTTP/IP with CCN would require phasing it in to avoid disruptions and cost, and the replacement itself requires CCN-HTTP translation and CCN/IP tunneling technologies, CableLabs said. CCN/NDN still has some issues to be worked out, CableLabs said, including optimized CCN router and cache implementation, congestion avoidance and network control, it said. In a blog post Monday, CableLabs Distinguished Technologist Greg White said CCN/NDN "provides a more elegantly scalable, faster, and more efficient network infrastructure for the majority of traffic on the Internet today" by moving from a "host-centric" network approach, involving delivering data from one specific host to another, to a "content-centric" approach that identifies and routes content by the use of globally unique names. "To get a sense of how big a mind shift this is, consider this: in CCN/NDN devices don’t have addresses at all," White said. "A device can retrieve content by requesting it by name, without needing to have a way of identifying a server where that content is stored, or even identifying itself." CableLabs is experimenting with CCN/NDN and looking into applications that could drive its adoption, said White, who wrote the white paper with CableLabs Lead Architect-Advanced Technology Group Greg Rutz.

Multichannel video programming distributor apps allow consumers to view MVPD content on multiple devices without endangering licensing and copyright agreements, said NCTA in meetings with aides to FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai last week. The “government intervention” into navigation devices “could increase consumer costs, threaten security, ignore content licensing agreements, and undermine consumer protections,” said the association in a filing posted Monday to docket 15-64. NCTA and other pay-TV programmers and distributors have opposed a coming NPRM to make it easier for non-MVPD set-top boxes to get content that's now mainly received in homes via an MVPD-provided set-top.

Altice debt levels, broadband speeds and cable modem policies are among areas of interest to the FCC Wireline Bureau as it reviews Altice's plans to buy Cablevision. The agency posted its information request Thursday in docket 15-257 as it reviews Altice's planned $17.7 billion takeover of Cablevision. The bureau's seven-page request seeks a comparison of Altice's expected post-transaction debt levels compared with the eight largest U.S. cable companies and an explanations of how the deal would affect current peering policies of the two companies. Merger opponent Communications Workers of America raised the issue of post-deal debt, arguing it would result in cuts to employment and to customer service (see 1601270048). The bureau said it wanted information on Altice's plans for upgrading residential broadband speeds and how this differs from Cablevision's current upgrade plans. It asked numerous post-acquisition cable modem billing policy questions of Altice, including its plans for pricing of integrated and unintegrated modems and what the two companies' policies have been in the past regarding separate line-items on customers' bills for such modems. Modem maker Zoom Telephonics pushed for the FCC to designate Altice's Cablevision application for hearing, or for it to impose cable modem-related conditions (see 1512080013).

CTA backed an FCC waiver for e-readers to follow advanced communications services accessibility rules (see 1602020058), a spokeswoman for the group told us Wednesday. "We appreciate the FCC’s thoughtful decision-making in granting an indefinite waiver," Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Julie Kearney said. The group's members include Amazon and Sony, which along with Kobo have made up the Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers, according to CTA's website. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau order, released earlier this week, said the coalition requested the waiver.