May 2013

While the bidding fracas over Hulu begins to take on the dimensions of an all-out war, it appears that the brand's suitors are unwilling to pay anywhere near its $2 billion valuation.

Yahoo announced it would throw its hat into the ring, and the reported bid (between $600 million and $800 million) is the largest that has been leaked thus far. Trouble is, it only accounts for between 30 percent to 40 percent of Hulu's year-ago value. Marissa Mayer's gambit comes on the heels of Yahoo’s $1.1 billion investment in the revenue-challenged microblogging site Tumblr. Other Hulu suitors include DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and the Chernin Group, as well as the private equity firms Guggenheim Digital, KKR & Co and Silverlake Partners. One factor in the declining valuation of Hulu is its loss of market share. Not only has Hulu been dominated by the 800-lb. gorilla that is Google, but it is also losing ground to ad-supported video services such as BrightRoll, LiveRail and Adap.TV.

Researchers at Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs have devised a new way to transmit data super-fast over fiber cables: using “twin waves” of information rather than just one and them bringing them together when they arrive at their destination. The result cut down on signal distortion and led to rates of 400 Gbps across a record distance of 12,800 kilometers, or more than 7,900 miles, according to the research paper, published by the journal Nature Photonics. The pairing of signals in essence cancels out the ups and downs — peaks and troughs, in physics terms — of data. That means the signal-to-noise ratio improves, which lets fiber optic communications travel farther without more gear along the way to boost the signal. That’s a big deal.

The European Union's competition watchdog is likely to ask Google to make further concessions to address the concerns of competitors who have complained about the way the Internet search giant displays results, EU Commissioner Joaquín Almunia said.

"This market test should have been concluded yesterday, but at the request of some participants we have decided to prolong [by] one month the market test, so at the end of June we will receive the answers," Almunia said in the European Parliament. "After we will analyze the responses…we will ask Google probably, I can't anticipate this formally but almost 100%, we will ask Google to improve the proposals." Almunia said he's looking into a separate complaint that Google uses its cellphone operating system Android to monopolize the mobile marketplace. "We have received a formal complaint regarding some aspects of the Android ecosystem," Almunia said at the hearing before the European Parliament. "We haven't decided if we will open or not a formal investigation."

Sorenson Communications, an Internet-based Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) provider, has agreed to pay $15.75 million to settle an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau into whether the company billed the TRS Fund for calls made by unregistered, unverified, or ineligible individuals, and for calls that were made by or on behalf of the provider itself.

FCC registration and verification requirements are designed to protect the integrity and of the TRS Fund, which compensates TRS providers for reasonable costs of providing interstate TRS calls involving persons with disabilities, and is funded from a fee paid for by subscribers of interstate telecommunications services. As part of the settlement, Sorenson must implement a robust compliance plan, requiring detailed operating procedures, comprehensive training of its employees, and immediate reporting of possible violations. Of the $15.75 million, just over $4.2 million will be reimbursed to the TRS Fund, and the remaining approximately $11.5 million will be paid to the U.S. Treasury as a voluntary contribution. TRS enables an individual who is deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, or who has a speech disability, to engage in telephone communications with one or more individuals.