Broadband Cable Association of Pennsylvania

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March 1, 2012

A satellite communications engineer and an airport planner gave their expert testimony on the impact the proposed cargo airport would have on the neighboring Service Electric Cablevision station during Thursday's hearing before the Schuylkill County Zoning Hearing Board for a special exception request.

Gladstone Partners LP, Pittsburgh, intends to build the cargo airport on a property that falls within 1.6 miles of a SECV station with 12 satellites in Hazle Township, Luzerne County. The airport property also extends into Kline and East Union townships, Schuylkill County. Rob Sensky, an attorney representing Service Electric Cablevision, presented both witnesses Thursday.

Philip A. Rubin, a licensed professional in telecommunications and satellite engineering, and president and CEO of RKF Engineering Solutions, LLC, Washington, D.C., said all the satellites at the station point south and southwest, directly towards the proposed cargo airport. Rubin said there are three things that could potentially disrupt SECV satellite reception. The first is a plane flying through the signal. The second is the radar on planes during takeoff and landing. The third is the radar from the airport.

Rubin said while there are many things that pass through satellite reception, he said the close proximity of the planes at the airport would create problems, but the disturbances from their radar and the radar coming form the airport would be more significant. "On large, airplanes use radar altimeters which are very well known for their interference issues," Rubin said. Radar altimeters provides the distance between the plane and the ground and are only used during takeoffs and landings. He said since the airplanes could be passing within 1/4 of a mile of the satellites, their radar signals can overpower the equipment in the station. Based on simulations and studies, Rubin said four percent of airplanes passing through the signal would cause a disturbance while radar interference would be 17 percent. As a result, Rubin said 21 percent of airplane operations at the airport would cause interference in satellite reception.

Edward Nasuti, a licensed consulting engineer and registered land surveyor and president of Lee Simpson Associates Inc., Dubois, said he has worked on about 400 airport projects and said to his knowledge, this is the first time he has seen the issue of a proposed airport interfering with a cable provider come before a county zoning board. "I believe that the work of Gladstone and their engineers have done to date is excellent work, but I think it falls significantly short of what is required to assess the impact of the new facility on the surrounding community," Nasuti said. "Not having quantified the impact, they have not supplied the zoning hearing board with enough information to make a decision."

Due to time constraints, attorney Frederick J. Fanelli, who is representing Gladstone during the hearings, will cross examine both witnesses when the hearings resume. A tentative date for the hearings to continue is at 6 p.m. April 12 in courtroom no. 1 at the county courthouse. Hazleton Standard Speaker

Major media companies and some New York area television stations sued broadcast-TV startu-p Aereo Inc. in federal court on Thursday, alleging copyright infringement.

Aereo, unveiled in February, plans to offer New York City residents the ability to stream broadcast-TV signals over Web-enabled devices for $12 a month, beginning March 14. Aereo's investors include Barry Diller's technology-and-entertainment company IAC/InterActiveCorp. In two separate suits, broadcasters that include NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and a unit of Univision Communications Inc. argue that Aereo doesn't have the right to the copyrighted programming that is the basis of its service. The broadcasters asked the court for an injunction stopping Aereo's service. "This case is not about stifling new video distribution technologies, but about stopping a company from violating our copyrights and redistributing our television programming without permission or compensation," according to a statement by some of the companies, including Fox and Univision. Fox is owned by News Corp. , which also owns The Wall Street Journal. NBC is a unit of Comcast Corp., ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co. and CBS is a unit of CBS Corp.

In a statement, Aereo said: "Aereo does not believe that the broadcasters' lawsuit has any merit and very much looks forward to its upcoming product launch as well as a full and fair airing of the issues." When Aereo unveiled its service in February, it was pitched as a complement to online video services such as those offered by Netflix Inc., Google Inc.'s YouTube or the joint venture Hulu LLC. The service could make it easier for consumers to cancel their cable-TV subscriptions. At the time, Chet Kanojia, founder and chief executive of Aereo, described the service as "the equivalent of going to RadioShack and buying an antenna and putting it on top of your TV or roof." Asked about the possibility of upsetting the TV networks, he said the service was "very new. So I'm assuming there will be lots of questions and reactions to it."

TV stations have the right under federal law to force satellite and cable-TV operators to negotiate for the right to transmit stations' over-the-air signals to customers. In recent years, pay-TV operators have increasingly paid rates of as much as $1 a month per subscriber. Aereo, of New York City, said it didn't plan to pay any such fee to the broadcasters. The suits argue that Aereo is violating copyright law at least in part because it is reformatting and retransmitting the networks' TV signals. One suit says Aereo's contention that it is renting antennae to consumers who are doing the rebroadcasting is a "fiction." The other said it "simply does not matter whether Aereo uses one big antenna" or "tons of 'tiny' antennas." Wall Street Journal

AT&T Inc. pulled the plug on its all-you-can-eat plan for smartphone customers, telling subscribers they will see much slower speeds if they exceed a new monthly usage cap. The new limit, which applies to some 17 million subscribers, means users of the No. 2 U.S. carrier have little choice but to start paying more as they download more video, stream more music and use more apps.

The shift came as the company separately warned some users of its most basic phones that they soon may not be able to make or receive calls if they don't upgrade to devices that run on faster networks—devices that it is offering free. Together, the moves underscore how AT&T—still smarting from the government's decision to block its takeover of T-Mobile USA—is looking to squeeze money out of a user base that is no longer growing quickly by pushing expensive data plans and sophisticated devices. The company says it is also looking to rein in the heaviest users to improve service for all subscribers.

Carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, have long chafed at having to spend billions of dollars to build and maintain networks only to watch Internet companies like Google Inc. and device makers like Apple Inc. collect most of the profits for using them. The pressure on carriers has grown more acute with the rise in use of smartphones like the iPhone, essentially mini computers that make mobile Internet use easy and put a heavy toll on networks. AT&T moved toward cashing in on rising wireless Internet traffic in 2010, when it became the first major U.S. carrier to stop offering unlimited data plans to new subscribers. Instead it pushed them into contracts that charged higher prices for greater data use. In January, it raised the prices of those tiered plans by as much as 33%.

Now, AT&T is telling the subscribers who were grandfathered into $30-a-month unlimited plans that their Internet download speeds will be cut back if they use more than three gigabytes of data a month—enough to stream about 10 hours of high-definition video, the carrier says. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the new guidelines were needed to clear up confusion among unlimited customers over when their download speeds would be slowed. Mr. Siegel wouldn't say how significantly speeds would be reduced. "It was a gigantic difference," said Matt Spaccarelli, 39, a dump truck driver from Simi Valley, Calif., who sued AT&T in Ventura Superior Court last month for slowing his speeds on his iPhone 4. "Downloading a video would take two or three times longer." Mr. Spaccarelli, an AT&T customer since 2008 who likes to watch episodes of "The Office" on his smartphone, was awarded $850 in the case. Using a program on his phone, he determined AT&T had slowed his download speeds to 0.26 megabits per second from 5 megabits per second. "Either it's unlimited or it isn't, and a throttled plan is not unlimited no matter what you call it," he said in an interview Thursday.

Some saw AT&T's new policy as more transparent and generous than its previous policy, under which it slowed Internet use for the top 5% of unlimited data users in individual markets. That vague limit often resulted in users seeing their Web-surfing slowed after they had only used around two gigabytes of data. AT&T's blanket new rules, however, mean there will be little difference between the carrier's $30 "unlimited" plan, which puts limits on usage over three gigabytes, and its $30 tiered plan, which charges more for usage over three gigabytes. While AT&T is trying to make more money as more Internet traffic takes place on mobile devices, it is also trying to manage capacity on its network by inhibiting the heaviest users.

The carrier also is spending billions of dollars to build out a next-generation broadband network, using a technology called LTE, that can handle more wireless data traffic. Subscribers to that service, now in the process of coming online, will be allowed to use up to five gigabytes of data a month under their unlimited plans before being throttled back. The limits also apply to each device on unlimited family plans.

The new policy could give AT&T's iPhone customers a reason to shift to Sprint Nextel Corp., which still sells unlimited plans. But limits are becoming the norm in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Verizon Wireless got rid of unlimited plans for new smartphone subscribers last summer. Customers grandfathered into such plans can see their speeds throttled back if they are among the top 5% of users in areas where cell sites are congested, a spokeswoman said. She declined to say if the carrier had any plans to change its policy. Sprint doesn't impose any limitations on throughput for its unlimited customers. Low-end carrier MetroPCS Communications Inc., which sells all-inclusive data and voice plans to customers who pay month to month, said Thursday it is considering a move to tiered pricing to boost revenue.

AT&T and other carriers have been pushing Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to release more licenses to use wireless airwaves, or spectrum, to help stave off a capacity crunch as mobile Internet traffic grows. They made some progress last month, when Congress agreed to let the FCC auction off airwaves held by television broadcasters. But that auction may not happen for a few years, and deploying the spectrum will take even longer.

The data limits aren't the only moves the Dallas-based giant is taking to manage its network. In recent weeks, the carrier has begun sending out notices to some customers still using cellphones on its older, 2G cellular network to swap out their devices for newer ones that can run on 3G networks. "Your current, older-model 2G phone might not be able to make or receive calls and you may experience degradation of your wireless service in certain areas," AT&T cautioned in the letter. Mr. Siegel, the spokesman, said the carrier hoped to use some of the 2G spectrum for new technologies.

The carrier sent the notices to customers in the New York metropolitan area, where it has struggled to keep up with the traffic. Notices may be sent to other customers as well, Mr. Siegel said. He noted the program was voluntary and affected a small number of subscribers and most 2G phones would continue to work. AT&T is offering the users one of four free phones to replace their current devices. Wall Street Journal; more in New York Times

Cut-rate rental DVD kiosk operator Redbox said Thursday it had renewed a deal to carry Universal Pictures movies 28 days after discs are made available for sale. The deal extends through August 2014 a pact first made in April 2010. Hollywood studios have differing views of how long Redbox, a subsidiary of Coinstar Inc., must wait after discs are released for sale. Some worry consumers will rent instead of buying discs, which cuts into profits, while other studios don't see a negative impact from renting and selling at the same time. Comcast Corp.'s Universal and News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox sell discs to Redbox at a discount as long as the kiosk operator waits 28 days after the films are released for sale. Associated Press

State Rep. Mark Cohen (D-Philadelphia), thinking that his streak of 28 years without an election foe would continue, called a ward leader in December, moments after the General Assembly approved a Legislative Reapportionment Commission plan that shifted an expected challenger out of his district. In a voice-mail for Sharon Losier, the 61st Democratic Ward leader, Cohen said that the residence of her nephew Numa St. Louis was shifted in the redistricting to the adjacent district of state Rep. John Myers (D-Philadelphia), who is not running for re-election. "If he wants to run for the Legislature, there's an open seat for which to run," Cohen said in the voice-mail to Losier.

But then the Supreme Court rejected the redistricting plan, and St. Louis was back in Cohen's 202nd District, which stretches from Ogontz to Rhawnhurst. Cohen, who is now challenging the nominating petitions that St. Louis submitted to get on the April 24 Democratic primary ballot, rejects the claim that the voice-mail was political intimidation. "It was information," Cohen said. "I would think a lot of people would love to wake up some day to find they are in a district with an open seat. That's the political dream for many people."

Quotable: "Make no mistake, they are tipping the scales of power in their own favor." - Sam Smith, state House speaker, complaining yesterday about a Supreme Court order to schedule special elections for six vacant House seats, including three in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Daily News

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