The Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau are extending from Friday until Sept. 11 the completion date of phase 5 of the post-incentive auction repacking because of Hurricane Dorian, said a public notice Tuesday. The extension is to “assure that viewers will not be required to rescan their TVs during this period and risk missing important emergency news and information,” said the PN. “This extension will permit each station to determine the appropriate transition timing for its station and its viewers based on the developing conditions in its market.” Stations in areas not affected by the storm are encouraged to continue transitions on the original schedule, the PN said. “We will continue to work with individual stations, including those impacted by Hurricane Dorian, on a case-by-case basis." The FCC has been “working throughout the weekend” on preparations for Hurricane Dorian, said Chairman Ajit Pai Monday. It's working with other agencies, communications providers and power companies to encourage coordinated service restoration efforts “making sure they implement lessons learned from Hurricane Michael,” Pai said. After that storm, Pai urged action on wireless resiliency and service losses due to utility work (see 1905210035). Commission staffers were deployed to survey RF spectrum in areas projected to be hit by Dorian, to help identify impacts and outages, Pai said. The agency activated the disaster information reporting system for several Florida counties and has staff on hand 24 hours a day to assist first responders and communications providers, Pai said. An agency webpage acts as a hub for Dorian-related information. Storm damage to 34 Florida counties was described as “minimal” in a Tuesday morning DIRS report. No public safety answering points were reported down or rerouted, and 0.2 percent of cell sites were out of service in the affected area. The report listed 6,884 cable and wireline subscribers as out of service, and no broadcast stations were reported off-air.
Country of origin cases
A “pessimistic outlook” on the world economy from the U.S.-China trade war led to a 3.5 percent production drop in global worldwide smartphone assembly shipments in June, reported IDC Wednesday. More of the same is forecast for July and August: IDC expects smartphone original device manufacturer and electronics manufacturing services' assembly volume to shrink due to Samsung and Huawei lowering regional market targets, high inventory and the U.S.-China trade war, said analyst Sean Kao. Overall in Q2, worldwide smartphone assembly shipment volume grew 12 percent year on year to 332.6 million due largely to lower inventories in Q1 and increased competition, IDC said. Assembly shipment volume from Chinese smartphone ODMs and EMSes rose to 51.3 percent in Q2 from 40.7 percent in Q1, said Kao.
Some customer confusion greeted Verizon’s announcement it's automatically enrolling some in the free version of its Call Filter service that it introduced in March. Upgrades will start to become available on select Android devices immediately, Verizon said; all eligible customers can actively enroll in the free version anytime.
The FCC should seek comment on new developments in T-Mobile buying Sprint, including Dish Network’s waiver request and the DOJ consent decree, said the Communications Workers of America, Public Knowledge, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Consumer Reports to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly Thursday, per a filing posted Monday in docket 18-197. “Given the extraordinary nature of these developments, failure to seek public comment on these inextricably interrelated developments would be a violation of the” Administrative Procedure Act, the groups said. “The DOJ Consent Decree and the DISH waiver and extension requests represent significant changes to the original transaction and raise new and important public interest and competition issues.” Attorneys for T-Mobile had calls about the deal Wednesday and Thursday with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr, in response to questions from that office, said a filing. It described the conversations only as referencing the draft order and concerned with “several issues raised in the Applicants’ previous submissions and relevant to the Commission’s public interest and competition.”
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security tried to answer questions from stakeholders about standards organizations' activities that involve Huawei and about its BIS entity listing. It calls for licenses for any activities involving “the exchange, transfer, or other disclosure of technology or software that is of U.S.-origin or is otherwise subject to the” export administration regulations, BIS said Tuesday. Examples include: “participating in a non-public working or study group involving the exchange ... of such technology,” “participating in electronic exchanges within a standards body, by email or other means, that contain or attach such technology or software” and “releasing or otherwise providing access to blueprints, flowcharts, schematics, prototypes, or similar materials that contain such technology.” U.S. carriers using Huawei got more time this week to adjust to restrictions pushed by President Donald Trump involving the company (see 1908190040).
Some Facebook users will soon be able to review their external browsing data and disassociate that history from their accounts, the company announced Tuesday. Originally pitched as a tool for clearing browsing history, the Off-Facebook Activity tool will first be available to users in Ireland, South Korea and Spain. No timeline was offered for Americans. Users will be able to track what data third-party websites share with Facebook and opt out of activity tracking, but the data won’t be deleted.
The Apple Music service, plus the equipment, software and applications "implementing" it, infringe four U.S. patents dating to 2006 describing methods of creating and posting media for playback or for sharing in a communications network, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Plaintiff Post Media owns the patents, all naming technology entrepreneur Alan Bartholomew as the sole inventor, said the complaint. Patent and Trademark Office records show they were originally assigned to Trio Systems in Pasadena, California. The patents are “rooted in computerized electronic data communications networks,” and describe “an improved method to deliver content and provide interface among different accounts and computing systems,” said the complaint. Bartholomew is nearing retirement and “spent much money and effort to develop his inventions and procure patents,” it said. He “hopes to recoup his costs without incurring financial risk to his family,” and so “turned to Post Media, whose purpose in part is to conduct the work necessary to reward and provide compensation to Mr. Bartholomew for the patents in suit,” it said. Apple didn’t comment.
Beto O’Rourke supports amending the tech industry’s content liability shield to combat online hate speech and related violence, the Democratic presidential candidate said in a plan released Friday. He envisions amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to “remove legal immunity from lawsuits for large social media platforms that fail to change their terms of service” or implement systems designed to remove hateful content. Large platforms would be required to adopt terms of service banning content that incites or engages in “violence, intimidation, harassment, threats, or defamation targeting an individual or group based on their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability.” O’Rourke targets the right problems, said Free Press Action Senior Policy Counsel Carmen Scurato, but his vague proposal could weaken Section 230 and impair platforms’ ability to moderate. The campaign didn’t comment.
Congress can protect privacy and national security by letting the Patriot Act-related phone records program and other unwanted surveillance authorities expire (see 1905060048), said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Friday's comments responded to Office of National Intelligence outgoing Director Dan Coats’ request that the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees permanently reauthorize certain Patriot and USA Freedom Act-related authorities. Coats seeks permanent authorization of a controversial call detail records (CDR) program he acknowledged the intelligence community suspended. Privacy advocates hoped ODNI would allow some provisions to expire, after reports the program had gone dormant (see 1904240068).
BALTIMORE -- Chairman Ajit Pai said the FCC expects major carriers to meet a Nov. 30 deadline for more targeted wireless emergency alerts. “I am re-emphasizing my call to all stakeholders to continue working cooperatively and expeditiously to meet the Nov. 30 deadline,” Pai told APCO Tuesday. He stopped short of discussing what the agency will do if carriers are unable to meet the deadline. His remarks were later posted.