In preparation of 4G services operators who will deploy in the 700 MHz band, the FCC adopted an order on Friday that bans the use of wireless microphones and other devices that operate in the band. 

The agency is giving users of wireless microphones--which are widely used in stadiums, concert venues and houses of worship--until June 12 to move to a new frequency. A number of wireless microphones have operated illegally on vacant channels in the 700 MHz band without licenses, but the FCC never enforced the ban. Interestingly, Shure, a major manufacturer of wireless microphones, exposed the problem by complaining about potential interference posed by white-space devices.

Shure, however, said it began focusing on new products that don't operate on the 700 MHz band in 2001, but many of Shure's legacy products still do operate in that spectrum. In 2008, public interest group Media Access Project filed a complaint with the FCC over wireless microphones operating illegally in the band. At that time, it estimated that anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million illegal wireless microphone systems operate in the 700 MHz band. 

 For more:
- read this nextgov article

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As expected, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has asked Congress for a one-month extension for presenting the national broadband plan to the lawmakers.

The daunting task is now expected to be completed by March 17. Genachowski, in a letter to Congress, said the extra time "will enable the FCC to continue to obtain input from key stakeholders and more fully brief Commissioners and the House and Senate Committees on aspects of the Plan as it comes together."

The plan was mandated as part of President Obama's economic stimulus program to present ways to bridge the digital divide. But it has been faced with a number of challenges that include how to change the Universal Service Fund, find new spectrum and the lack of data about where broadband is and is not available.

 For more:
- see this InformationWeek article

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What kind of year will 2010 be in IPTV and related fields? Maybe the only thing that can be said for certain is that the number of IPTV subscribers will continue to grow, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Though, they may not continue to grow at the robust pace we have grown accustomed to in recent years.

Beyond that, I think some of the trends that closed out 2009 suggest that it could be a year of fits and starts and frustratingly slow progress for the sector. Give those trends, five of which were highlighted among FierceIPTV's top stories of 2009, here are 10 things that I think will--or in most cases actually won't--happen in 2010:

1) AT&T won't acquire DirecTV: The stars seem to be aligning to enable this deal to happen, but solid IPTV success for AT&T and an already-successful satellite TV partnership argue against it. Does AT&T have more to gain by owning DirecTV, or could such a deal just cause conflicts with DirecTV's other telco resale partners?

2) Cable TV operators will continue to acquire broadcasters: The Comcast-NBC deal was just the beginning. Having said that, I have no idea who will buy whom next, but other major service providers, telcos included, won't quietly cede control of the content universe to a single cable TV operator.

3) Telcos will increasingly launch localized content: Battles with the cable TV incumbents over access to local news, sports and information programming suggest that modest efforts so far by Verizon and AT&T are just the beginning of a new trend.

4) TV Everywhere's progress will be delayed: Public advocacy groups are appealing to regulators, which could tie up TV Everywhere in controversy during the coming months. Some TV Everywhere providers also may proceed with only limited launches as they try to figure out how authentication should work and what mix of content is best.

5) The FCC's set-top box review won't shake up the market: Many different parties want many different things out of the review, and that means this issue will drag on. Expect some statements out of the FCC to go along with next month's update on the national broadband plan, but don't expect a completely open and revitalized market anytime soon.

6) The Comcast-NBC deal will face year-long scrutiny: Anti-competitive concerns will slow down this joint venture. The ability to dominate much of the programming sector is too good an opportunity for Comcast to pass up, but what sort of regulatory conditions will it have to agree to in order to get its joint venture to proceed?

7) Hulu won't go away: Verizon chief Ivan Siedenberg said that Hulu eventually "won't matter." While Hulu and similar ventures will face an uncertain future if the Comcast-NBC deal proceeds and TV Everywhere gains growth quickly, stats like video stream growth of more than 300 percent and monthly user growth of more than 95 percent in 2009 hardly suggest a dying phenomenon.

8) Rural telcos won't give up on IPTV: Last year at this time, IP-Prime's demise highlighted the uncertainties for small telcos looking at launching IPTV services. But, other parties have aggressively moved in to help those telcos, while vendors like Microsoft have made strides to make their platforms more appealing and more affordable from the little guys.

9) Home networking won't be dominated by a single technology: The G.hn home networking standard won't change anything about the diverse home network technology universe anytime soon. The standard is inching along toward a commercial impact, but that impact is unlikely to be felt this year, and even when commercial G.hn gear becomes available, existing home networking technologies will continue to thrive.

10) Targeted advertising won't have a major impact in 2010: At this time last year, it looked like 2009 was going to be a big year for progress toward new TV advertising models, in particular targeted advertising. But, those projections were way off base, as the industry is still struggling with the best way to cultivate and promote targeted ads. Linear ad insertion seems likely to be the major focus of TV service providers in 2010.

Agree? Disagree? What are some of your predictions for the coming year? Let us know.

-Dan

Over the holidays, the Federal Communications Commission received a large volume and wide variety of opinions from cable TV, telco TV and related parties on how to handle its review of the set-top box market. The agency had asked the industry for comment on the review, with a comment-filing deadline of Dec. 21. Last week, Light Reading's Cable Digital News took a closer look, via multiple, related stories--at the comments filed by various parties.

The notable ones we'll mention here (you can follow the links below for more details), include comments by Verizon Communications and TiVo. Verizon said it supported the review's efforts, and asked the FCC to rescind the mandate for CableCARD STB security technology in favor of a more technology-agnostic approach from the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions.

TiVo, for its part, took issue with the cable TV industry's control over the STB sector, saying cable companies discriminate against independent STB vendors by unduly influencing and controlling STB design and functions. It will be interesting to see how TiVo's comments go over with service providers, since the DVR pioneer has been interested in wooing service providers as partners, but also has legally challenged the DVR offerings of some of them.

For more:
- LR CDN has multiple stories (one, two and TiVo) on the comments filed

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AT&T has asked the FCC to create a timetable that would allow the company to shut down its analog public switched telephone network (PSTN). AT&T said doing so is the only way to meet Congress' goal of covering all Americans with broadband services as more investment would flow to its IP-based initiatives.

"That transition is under way already," AT&T wrote to the FCC. "With each passing day, more and more communications services migrate to broadband and IP-based services, leaving the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and plain-old telephone service (POTS) as relics of a bygone era."

AT&T argues that having to maintain and invest in two networks--broadband and the PSTN--means Congress' goal won't be met efficiently or timely. The company said that while 90 percent of Americans have access to broadband services, reaching that last 10 percent would require an investment of about $350 billion. Meanwhile, AT&T continues to struggle with its own 3G network because of data hungry smartphone users.

"Due to technological advances, changes in consumer preference and market forces, the question is when, not if, POTS service and the PSTN over which it is provided will become obsolete," AT&T wrote to the FCC.

AT&T also said that less than 20 percent of Americans rely exclusively on POTS for voice service, while 25 percent of households have abandoned POTS. It noted that some 700,000 lines are being turned off each month.

AT&T outlined steps for shutting down the PSTN and wants the FCC to swiftly follow them. AT&T's letter was in response to a public query from the FCC seeking comment on how the nation should migrate from circuit-switched networks to all-IP voice networks.

For more:
- see this eWeek article

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The news: With a change of leadership at the White House we knew net neutrality was coming. And it came in like a lion. Almost the minute FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was sworn in, he jumped into action, publicly laying out plans less than three months later to implement net neutrality and open Internet regulations for telecom companies--both wireline and wireless.

In October, the FCC voted 5-0 to begin the rule-making process, further fueling the debate of whether the wireless industry even needs open access in the first place. Wireless executives say the industry is competitive enough. Big providers like Verizon and AT&T don't have a problem with net neutrality being applied to wired networks but they do on the wireless side because spectrum is a finite resource. Allowing any device, any application would create congestion problems on the network. Genachowski said the rules will take this problem into account.

AT&T has already acknowledged it is struggling to keep up with the data traffic on its network, thanks in most part to the popularity of the iPhone, which is the reason why it delayed offering MMS on the device and has indefinitely delayed tethering. In May, AT&T defended a network policy that prompted content placeshifting technology developer Sling Media to remove 3G access from the iPhone edition of its SlingPlayer Mobile video application, with the operator arguing the app would consume too much network capacity.

Why its significant: The FCC's actions on net neutrality could have significant implications for numerous wireless industry stakeholders. Net neutrality threatens the existing business models of operators. If Google Voice or Skype is used enmasse, such a trend would upend the voice cash cow operators current experience, despite the growth in data services.

The FCC has published a framework that outlines the final development phase of a National Broadband Plan, which the commission must present to Congress in February.

The framework outlines options for a host of possibilities, ranging from universal service to launching broadband service across tribal lands. Blair Levin, the man in charge of this effort, told journalists via a conference call that despite having to present a broadband plan to Congress in about two months, not every question needs to be answered beforehand.

Levin said that a bill currently being considered in the House (H.R. 3125) authorizing a spectrum inventory would be good to have but not necessary. "Obviously, we agree with the concept, but I don't think we need a bill... it's not a necessity," Levin said. 

Levin was vague about any timeline for spectrum availability but underscored the importance of moving the process along. The FCC has sent out a notice seeking official public comment on how TV broadcasters use their current spectrum holdings, and whether they should give up some spectrum for wireless broadband use."If we don't get more spectrum to wireless carriers, the level at which they will be able to compete with wireline broadband are diminished. It's just that simple." 

For more:
- see this Wireless Week article
 
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Insight Research said the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding granted and loaned to entities willing to bridge the digital divide is not nearly close to enough to deploy truly universal broadband access.

The firm's analysis of January 2008 FCC data indicates that the number of households either without Internet service or using dial-up connections is about 58 million--about half of the households in the U.S. Insight Research further projects that some 40 million homes will continue to be without broadband access by the close of 2014. That figure was then divided by the actual amount of funds going toward broadband deployments to determine that the $7.2 billion in funds translates into just $164 per household.

Insight Research says $1,500 per household is the cost to deploy broadband. As such the amount of money needed for universal access is $60 billion--nearly seven times what the government is allocating.

"Certainly the current administration recognizes the direct relationship between extending broadband access to all Americans and the future health of our economy, but the current allocation of funds is just not going to get the job done," said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research, in a statement.

For more:
- see this Wireless Week article

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Comcast's recently-announced deal for NBC Universal is likely to be subject to some serious regulatory scrutiny, but it's not the only cable TV issue in the regulatory spotlight right now. Another is the set-top box review that the Federal Communications Commission embarked on recently and is currently in the comment-gathering stage. The FCC's comment deadline on the matter is later this month, Dec. 21.

The STB review is concerned with a perceived lack of both innovation and competition at the STB level, and how cable TV companies in particular have encouraged a slack environment by allegedly failing to promote open platform initiatives that could have led to a vibrant and competitive market for STBs. The cable TV industry, meanwhile, wants to make sure that it, as the core of TV service provider incumbents, does not feel the full burden of the FCC's concerns--cable wants the review to apply to telco TV and satellite TV companies, too.

The timing of the FCC's interest is curious because while STB innovation has lacked for years, it certainly hasn't within that last year. The review comes at a time when a new hybrid TV model is emerging, and we have seen the development of many new boxes that work around the traditional STB model. That evolution in turn has spurred much activity aimed at developing the next generation of the traditional STB, one that can handle the demands of a hybrid environment that seems to point toward a natural evolution to more open access to any kind of content through the STB (though I realize I'm jumping far ahead to this conclusion).

However, this recent innovation is happening a little too late and at the same time that a new FCC is aggressively looking to put its own stamp on the telecom and TV environments. The FCC seems ready to take a hard look at how STBs are sold, the type of content that travels through these boxes and where that content is allowed to go once inside the home. A new retail market for STBs could result.

Yet, it remains unclear how this review will affect the evolution toward walled-garden TV Everywhere services that TV service providers are creating. Will a more open STB be a moot point if service providers and TV programmers already have worked out how to keep the great unwashed masses from getting too much of the most popular TV content? Will a company like Comcast care about open STBs if it ultimately controls some of the most valuable programming that end users ultimately are accessing?

Regulating to get more STBs on the shelves at Best Buy is a good start for the FCC, but the issues of control and influence the FCC is concerned with reach much further and deeper into the content world. That's something regulators will need to review as TV Everywhere progresses and the Comcast-NBC paperwork lands on their doorstep. -Dan

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski wants to apply a reworking of the $7 billion Universal Service Fund (USF), currently used to subsidize phone service in rural areas and for low-income families, and apply it toward bringing broadband into hard-to-serve areas.

Bringing that plan from paper to action, however, won't be easy as rural phone companies have long opposed any changes to the USF.  

"USF is a multi-billion dollar annual fund that continues to support yesterday's communications infrastructure," Genachowski said in a Wall Street Journal article. "We need to reorient the fund to support broadband communications."

Additionally, Genachowski said established spectrum allocations could be re-evaluated as part of a plan to free up more airwaves for mobile broadband. The FCC is considering taking spectrum from broadcasters and using it for mobile broadband--much to the dismay of broadcasters

For more:
- see this Wall Street Journal article (sub. req.)

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