The business of Internet, wireless, and telecom law.
On May 28, 2008, the FCC issued yet another declaratory order relating to TRS (Telecommunications Relay Service) providing clarification of a 2007 order related to the use of customer information by TRS providers. By issuing the clarification order, the Commission is seeking to avoid litigation initiated by TRS providers regarding their right to contact and [...]
For this post on IMS and FMC developers’ intellectual property, I collaborated with my friend, Michael Dowd, a partner at Foley, Hoag, LLP, in Boston. I provide counsel on licensing patents and trademarks, and Michael’s practice involves developing patenting strategies and resolving inventorship issues, software licensing disputes and trade secret misappropriation claims. As we explain below, these are intellectual [...]
Femtocells were all the rage at PulverMedia’s FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) Conference in Chicago last week. One carrier in the U.S., Sprint, is leading the pack. As of today, there are no femtocell rollouts in any geography. There are a few trials, some announced and others not. Telefonica, as reported in WSJ last week (9/6/2007), is [...]
A lot has been happening with MediaFlo mobile video. After considerable study, the European Union’s Executive Commission decided on July 18, 2007, that it would recommend that EU countries use Europe’s home grown DVB-H (“Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds”) standard, and not the MediaFlo standard. The EC decision may well have been driven by the fact [...]
UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) is driving FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence). UMA is really WiFi and cell phones combined. ABI Research, as reported by InformationWeek, currently projects that there will be 65 million UMA users by 2012. The growth in UMA is happening without strategic thinking by the wireless providers. Almost like a small sound that will [...]
Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt’s company, Frontline Wireless, is proposing that one of the requirements of the 700 Mhz auction is to require that certain spectrum be built out by the winner for public safety. GigaOM had a great blog on Frontline last month. I heard Chairman Hundt speak at the Boston TIECON 2007 conference [...]
The upcoming 700 Mhz auction keeps heating politically. This should be a good sign as in the past the voices of wireless commentators without very large company backing were ignored and politicians left the auctions to the expertise of the FCC. This auction is different from prior auctions because a) television stations are aware of [...]
A new niche boom is helping the deaf population by using video on the internet. CSDVRS is a for profit company with the mission of bringing new technologies – like video on the net – to help the deaf to communicate. Basically, on CSDVRS you can call a number with video and through a third party use [...]
The Football v YouTube action was reported immediately by Reuters on May 4, 2007. In a new twist, the plaintiffs created a web site specifically for the lawsuit. The plaintiffs in the case are England’s soccer club Football Association Premier League Ltd and the Bourne Company, an indie music producer. The suit alleged that YouTube willfully and deliberately encouraged copyright violations [...]
A Millward Brown study found that “online viewers were 53% more likely to pay attention to the ads during commercial breaks versus live TV viewers.” The reason for the dramatic increase in “attention” paid to the video ad versus the television ad is that the internet video ad is the sole advertisement running during a show and the [...]
