New Jersey legislators supported extending an emergency telehealth law and executive order until 90 days after the end of the COVID-19 crisis. The Assembly voted 73-0 Monday to send S-2467 to Gov. Phil Murphy (D), whose office declined comment Tuesday. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed an executive order Monday trimming a previous telehealth EO because the legislature had codified some parts of it.

The Mississippi legislature cleared $150 million for rural broadband, responding to COVID-19, with the Senate voting 52-0 Monday to concur with House amendments to SB-3046. The House voted 109-0 Sunday for the bill supported by Mississippi Public Service Commissioner and NARUC President Brandon Presley (see 2006260059). “In the past three days, the state flag has been changed and $150,000,000 in broadband funding has been approved,” the Democratic commissioner tweeted. “Not a bad few days for Mississippi’s future.” Gov. Tate Reeves (R) still must sign the bill; he didn’t comment Tuesday.

Joy introduced a COVID-19 “wedding calculator” to help adjust marriage plans. It gives couples an “overview” of adjustments to consider, including possible scheduling, guest count and venue changes, said the wedding tech company Tuesday. The company estimates nearly half of 2020 U.S. weddings were postponed to next year, it said: "We expect that by the end of July, 75 percent of 2020 weddings will be postponed to 2021."

Automakers' enhanced connected car “functionalities” can help stem COVID-19's spread, reported Gartner Monday: Automated door locks and engine start/stop actions using a smartphone app “can reduce surface contact inside the vehicle.”

Q1 smartphone panel revenue grew 3% globally, topping $9 billion, reported Strategy Analytics Monday. Samsung Display's revenue share was 51.8% in smartphone panels, followed by BOE (14.3%) and Tianma (8.2%), SA said. "We expect the display panel market to continue to observe a slowdown in smartphone panel demand due to disruptions in supply chains of customers along with a strong decline in demand for end-market products owing to COVID-19 pandemic.”

Despite concerns networks might buckle under the strain of a sustained spike in internet traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic, Comcast’s network averaged “above-advertised speeds," blogged Chief Network Officer Jan Hofmeyr Monday. As part of a $12 billion investment, Comcast has doubled capacity every 2.5 years, said the executive. In March and April, Comcast added more than 35 terabits per second peak capacity to regional network facilities and 1,700 100-gigabit links to the core network vs. 500 in the year-ago period. It invested in pushing fiber to customers’ homes, Hofmeyr said.

The COVID-19 pandemic is harming Sony “production, development, sale and distribution” of products and services in all segments, said the company’s annual report posted Monday at the SEC, saying Sony expects “this negative impact” to continue well into the future, but it doesn’t risk delaying the holiday launch of the PlayStation 5. Sony-owned factories in China and Thailand making digital cameras and smartphones “are currently operating as usual,” it said. Sony’s retail sales are down “significantly due to the closure of retail stores globally,” said the report. Work-from-home orders and the ban on international flights due to the coronavirus “presented some challenges” in bringing the PS5 to market in time for the holiday, said the report. Sony encountered delays in the PS5 “testing process and the qualification of production lines,” it said. Development is “progressing” well, and “no major problems have arisen in the game software development pipeline,” it said.

Sheltering-at-home spurred a record number of consumers to experiment with over-the-top video, reported Parks Associates Monday. The churn rate for OTT services grew to 41% in Q1 from 35% in Q1 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than two in five U.S. broadband households trialed an OTT service, and 8% of U.S. broadband households surveyed subscribed to at least one new OTT service. Stay-at-home orders helped newcomers Disney+ and Apple TV+ beef up their subscriber rosters in Q1, with 49% of new OTT subscribers joining Disney and 27% picking up Apple TV+, Parks said. A key question is whether subscribers will keep these service, said analyst Steve Nason. “A significant challenge, especially for services relying on original programming, is delivering new content since production on many series has halted.”

Revenue in CalAmp’s LoJack business was $6.6 million in Q1 ended May 31, down from $11.2 million in Q4, said Chief Financial Officer Kurt Binder on a Thursday investor call. It’s the first time CalAmp broke out that stolen-vehicle recovery business it bought four years ago, he said. Executives charted a future for that business. The stock closed 8.9% higher Friday at $8.37. It's moving to "aggressively transition it to a subscription-based business model” from a one-time stand-alone device sale, said Binder. He blamed the revenue decline on the “slowdown in device installations” due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Installations “got better” as fiscal Q1 progressed, and “more of the markets around the country opened up,” said interim CEO Jeff Gardner. “But it was a struggle.” Reopenings take place “at a different pace,” “depending on the region or the state,” he said. LoJack is “challenged from a performance perspective,” said Gardner. “It's one of my top objectives to begin transitioning this business to a recurring revenue model that offers significant value to our dealer partners and their customers, similar to a model that we provide to all of our international businesses.” The business suffers because its “legacy” product runs on a proprietary RF frequency out of step with the automotive industry, said Gardner: “The world's really moving to telematics,” and LoJack is playing catchup.

Auction 903 and rural broadband experiment funding recipients have a limited waiver until the end of 2021 from letter of credit rules, the Wireline Bureau said Friday. Skybeam and the Connect America Fund Phase II Coalition petitioned for waivers to conform with recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund rules (see 2003110034). Staff said waiver is justified given how the pandemic has increased demand for broadband while impeding business.