Russia export controls and sanctions

In a DisplaySearch survey of 15,000 connected TV owners in 15 countries, 88 percent of tablet users and 82 percent of smartphone owners said they use their mobile device at least “some of the time” while watching TV, the research firm said. Primary second-screen activities include checking email, browsing the Web, texting, and checking Facebook and weather, it said. “For many people around the world, multi-tasking with apps on smartphones and tablets while watching TV has forever changed the traditional TV-focused viewing experience,” said DisplaySearch analyst Riddhi Patel. While 85 percent of tablet owners use their devices to watch online content, just 65 percent of smartphone owners use their device to watch online content, primarily due to screen size, DisplaySearch said. Other reasons cited for not watching video on a smartphone include inferior sound quality, the discomfort of holding the device for a long time and difficulty in finding content to watch, it said. The 15 percent of tablet owners that never view online content on a tablet don’t because of screen size and poor sound quality, it said. There’s little evidence to support a “commonly held belief” that tablets and smartphones will cannibalize or adversely affect sales of TVs larger than 30 inches, Patel said. While tablet ownership has impacted sales of smaller-size TVs, “owning smartphones has little or no effect on TV purchases,” she said. Results varied according to region, Patel said. Some 60 percent of connected TV owners in the U.S. and other mature markets said they sometimes watch content on a tablet, as said 72 percent in emerging markets including Brazil, China and India. The survey was done between January and June across key global markets including Brazil, urban China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, the U.K., U.S. and Vietnam, DisplaySearch said.

BRUSSELS -- The 700 MHz band will likely be harmonized globally for mobile broadband services at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015 but under three different band plans, speakers said Wednesday at a Forum Europe spectrum management conference. The goal of WRC-15 is to coordinate use of the 700 MHz and other bands, but the Radio Regulations don’t deal with band plans, Joaquin Restrepo, ITU Radiocommunication Bureau head of outreach and publication services division, said. If the 700 MHz band is coordinated for wireless uses, but there are separate band plans for the U.S./Canada, China and the rest of the world under the Asia-Pacific band plan, then economies of scale, roaming and interoperability will suffer, he said.

LISBON, Portugal -- The U.S. surveillance program Prism, modes of cross-border, global regulation and net neutrality were among the top issues of this year’s European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG). The EuroDIG is the European version of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of the U.N., supported by the Council of Europe, the European Commission and several EU governments.

Space Systems/Loral will provide a satellite to Sky Perfect JSAT of Japan. JC Sat-14 will replace JC Sat-2A at 154 degrees east “and expands on its capacity to meet the growing demand for telecommunications infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region,” SSL said in a press release (http://bit.ly/14wU8Ro). The satellite has 26 C-band transponders and 18 Ku-band transponders for service in Asia, Russia, Oceania and the Pacific Islands, it said. The C-band coverage will be used for broadcast and data networks “and the satellite’s Ku-band regional beams will provide high-speed connectivity for maritime, aviation and resource exploration use,” it said.

PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2013-2017 projects a rise in global entertainment and media spending from $1.6 trillion in 2013 to $2.2 trillion by 2017 (http://pwc.to/ZO5QaL). In the global entertainment and media market, digital revenue will be the main driver of growth over the next five years, it said, growing to 47 percent of the total by 2017, from 35 percent in 2012. In 2014, mobile Internet access is expected to surpass fixed broadband in global Internet access revenue, at $259 billion, more than 50 percent of total Internet access spending. The report projects the penetration of mobile Internet devices will reach 54 percent by the end of 2017 compared to 51 percent for fixed broadband. The report expects growth to be driven by emerging markets, with Brazil, China, India and Russia alone accounting for 45 percent of fixed broadband subscriptions and 50 percent of mobile Internet users by the end of 2017. The report projects IPTV will be the fastest growing pay-TV platform in 2017, but only in certain markets, including the U.S., China and South Korea. Cable will remain the dominant platform globally for delivering pay-TV services, though its share will decline, between 2012 and 2017, the report said.

Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt was expected urge the FCC to eliminate the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule in a speech he was scheduled to give at UCLA Wednesday night, according to a Hundt spokeswoman, who provided a copy of the speech to us. In it, Hundt says the FCC’s enforcement of cross-ownership rules has become “an exercise in intellectual contortions that persuade on-lookers that the Commission is acting in an arbitrary fashion.” Hundt says the numerous other ways that consumers get access to media have made the rules outdated, and also said they don’t serve the goal of promoting minority media ownership. “Anyone who believes that a ban on print and broadcast combinations promotes minority ownership need only look to the bidding wars that arise among non-minority companies when a media property becomes available,” he said. Hundt says the rule has become “perverse” in denying struggling newspapers access to broadcaster capital. “If a profitable broadcaster wants to buy a newspaper in its city -- to expand the amount of attention it can obtain from an audience or just to have more impact on the way people think -- the FCC should welcome this extra support for the trouble-plagued newspaper industry.” In the speech, Hundt denounces the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch, but says he can’t imagine “any government in a truly free country” doing anything to stop them from buying “the Los Angeles Times, or any newspaper, or any media outlet of any kind.” Hundt says “the cure for awful speech is an awful lot of money,” and he advocates eliminating the cross-ownership rules as a way of increasing participation in the sale of newspapers like the Times. “I can imagine that some person as progressive in politics as I am, but of course vastly richer, might want to assemble a broadcast-TV combination that increased audiences for both, expanded news coverage on television, and built a better Web presence than either a newspaper or a TV station can do it on its own,” says Hundt. “One of the glories of the United States -- one of the many things that make our system better than the system in China or Russia -- is that we truly do believe in free speech,” he says in the speech. “When applied to media, that means we should honor the freedom to own the means of speech.”

​Delegates to the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) Thursday adopted by consensus a non-binding report by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré and six opinions from the ITU-initiated Informal Experts Group (IEG) on Internet-related issues. That ended the conference after extensive debate on governments’ role in Internet governance. Delegates chose not to act during the conference on a seventh opinion, introduced by Brazil but also containing controversial Internet governance language from an earlier Russian Federation contribution, because they couldn’t reach a consensus in the allotted time. Touré told delegates at the end of the conference that he would send that opinion to the ITU Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet), which will decide on the best forum for continuing the debate.

Astrium will build Eutelsat’s Express-AMU1 (Eutelsat 36C) satellite. It will be launched in 2015 “to provide follow-on and expansion capacity for the EUTELSAT 36A broadcast satellite operating at 36 degrees east,” Eutelsat said in a press release (http://bit.ly/16Af4ts). The satellite will have about 70 transponders and provide coverage for broadcast services to Russia in the Ku- and Ka-bands, it said. It also will “ensure service continuity and growth for broadcast markets developed by Eutelsat in sub-Saharan Africa,” Eutelsat said.

The World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) will be a “chance to pause, reflect and debate the emerging issues” involving the Internet, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said Tuesday during the conference’s opening ceremony in Geneva. Tuesday’s proceedings were dominated by ceremony and discussion of the conference’s governance and structure. Ivo Ivanovski, Macedonia’s minister of information society and administration, is WTPF’s chair; representatives from Costa Rica, Gabon, India, Poland, Russia and Saudi Arabia are vice chairs. Plenary Working Group 1 began presenting the Informal Experts Group’s (IEG) draft opinions on promotion of Internet exchange points as a long-term connectivity solution and fostering broadband connectivity growth, as well as member states’ contributions on those opinions. Debate on those two opinions is set to continue when the conference reconvenes Wednesday morning. Working Group 2, which is handling the IEG’s draft opinions on the adoption and deployment of IPv6, are set to present those opinions Wednesday. Working Group 3, which is handling the IEG’s draft opinions supporting “multistakeholderism” in Internet governance and the Enhanced Cooperation Process, is also set to begin presenting those opinions Wednesday. The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute endorsed a statement on the “Best Bits” network submitted to the ITU ahead of the conference that urged adoption of the IEG’s opinions and supported instituting “inclusive and transparent ITU processes and uphold[ing] and protect[ing] the public interest and fundamental human rights.” Thirty-two groups in the U.S. and elsewhere have endorsed the statement, which Best Bits originally submitted prior to the controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications (http://bit.ly/196issz). While the tone of WTPF shows the ITU has “taken some positive steps to open up these important discussions, the ITU must create legitimate mechanisms for open and participatory policymaking with all stakeholders,” said Benjamin Lennett, OTI’s policy director (http://bit.ly/13Zw5cy).

Hughes signed Morsviazsputnik, the operator of Inmarsat’s mobile satellite services in Russia, as a distribution partner for Hughes broadband global area network (BGAN) mobile satellite products. The Russian operator will resell Hughes’ portfolio of BGAN products in Russia, Hughes said in a press release (http://bit.ly/YRpwKd). Hughes designs and manufactures a full line of mobile satellite terminals that operate over Inmarsat’s BGAN, “serving a wide range of mobile workers who need reliable, high-speed connectivity on the move,” it said.