The global market for inbuilt set-top boxes will grow at a 2 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), passing 179 million units by 2020, said a Technavio report Friday. Driving the moderate growth are government mandates in countries such as China and India where digitization of TV networks will fuel demand for set-tops that offer more channels, improved picture quality and DVR technology, it said. Hybrid versions combining satellite, cable and IPTV set-tops and offering over-the-top and pay-on-demand service are expected to grow at a 13 percent CAGR to 53.5 million units by 2020, said Technavio. To tap the growing set-top market, vendors are introducing services such as on-demand, push-VOD and specialized Internet services to increase average revenue per unit, said analyst Soumya Mutsuddi. Services include free-to-air and pay TV on the digital video broadcasting side and value-added services on the IP side, Mutsuddi said. The market is led by Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa countries. In the Americas, the market for satellite set-tops is “declining rapidly” as consumers switch to smart TVs and hybrid set-tops, said the researcher, while the market for Ultra HD set-tops will grow "substantially" during the period.

MCI agreed to FCC conditions for waiving a U.S. benchmark termination rate for Cuba as specified in a 2011 TeleCuba waiver order and 2012 international settlements policy reform order, MCI parent Verizon told the commission in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 10-95. Cuba didn't accept the U.S. benchmark rate of 19 cents per minute for terminating calls, preventing direct U.S.-Cuba calling for years (indirect calls were routed through other countries). Under the 2011 and 2012 FCC orders (here and here), U.S. carriers can exceed the benchmark rate and pay up to 84 cents a minute to terminate calls in Cuba if they adhere to various conditions, including that they reach nonexclusive interconnection agreements with Cuban carrier Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A.. The agreements must state the parties intend to reduce the termination rates toward or below the benchmark rate over time and take at least one significant step in that direction. IDT Telecom and Sprint reached three-year agreements in 2015 (here and here) that generally set termination rates of 60 cents per minute for U.S.-to-Cuba traffic and 15 cents per minute for Cuba-to-U.S. traffic.

Norway's consumer protection agency filed a complaint Thursday against U.S.-based Tinder, saying the mobile dating app company's terms and conditions may have breached Norwegian law, affecting the country's roughly 500,000 Tinder users. The Norwegian Consumer Council, or Forbrukerrådet, asked the government-appointed Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman to investigate several issues. For instance, the complaint said Tinder's terms of use say disputes shall be settled by binding arbitration in Texas, where the company is based, "limiting the users' scope in taking legal action against the company." The council also said the wording of Tinder's terms of use implies people are bound by it whether they access the app or website and even if they don't create an account. After accepting the terms, the permission granted by the user to Tinder "is far-reaching and would appear to be infinite" and includes all types of storage and information processing such as sharing information with its partners, the complaint said. It said that the terms imply that user consent can't be revoked and accounts can't be deleted. Another problem is that Tinder says users must be at least 13 years old to access and use the app, but it doesn't require consent from parents or guardians for minors to use the service, the council said. "The fact that Tinder targets users this young means that not all users of the service are equally qualified to evaluate the terms and conditions," the complaint said. "The Terms of Use are also only available in English, and the wording is difficult to grasp." The council said Tinder can also amend the service without notifying users, which may be "an unfair contractual term." Tinder's terms of use may also violate European law, the council said. A Tinder spokeswoman emailed that the company tries to comply with alllocal and national regulations. "If and when authorities bring up larger privacy concerns, we always take them into consideration and, if applicable to our users, take steps to implement any necessary changes," she wrote. "We are committed to protecting our users’ privacy and strive to uphold a fair and trusted privacy policy."

Digital literacy and ensuring that “locally relevant content and services are available” are keys to connecting 363 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean already covered by mobile broadband networks but not yet connected to the Internet, the GSM Association said in a report released Tuesday. Affordability and network coverage are the other major barriers to “digital inclusion” in the region, the report said. Some 634 million live in the region and only about 10 percent are outside the footprint of a 3G or 4G network, GSMA said. “Mobile broadband is the primary method of delivering affordable internet access across the Latin America and Caribbean region, delivering a range of economic and social benefits and supporting the UN Social Development Goals,” said Sebastian Cabello, the GSMA’s head-Latin America, in a news release. “But there is also the danger of a widening ‘digital divide’ in the region due to millions being either unable or unwilling to use mobile broadband services. We therefore urge governments to work with the mobile industry to address the barriers to adoption and ensure that the mobile internet is more accessible, useful and understandable for everyone.”

Facebook announced a new collaborative project among operators, infrastructure providers, system integrators and other technology companies that would "reimagine traditional approaches to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure," wrote Jay Parikh, the company's global head of engineering and infrastructure, in a news release. He wrote Sunday that the current infrastructure isn't moving fast enough to meet the "data-intensive experiences like video and virtual reality." In its new Telecom Infra Project, member companies will contribute designs in access, backhaul and core and management areas through a more open framework to get better cost and operational efficiencies, which could lead to faster development of technologies like 5G, he said. In one example, he said, Facebook collaborated on a pilot, based on the project's principles, to provide cellular coverage for the first time to a small Philippines village. Facebook along with members Intel and Nokia would contribute an initial suite of reference designs, while Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom would help define and deploy technology tailored to their needs, he added. Other partnership members include Harman, its website said.

Four cybersecurity software products from Malaysia's e-Lock Corp. are considered of U.S. origin for government procurement purposes, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a final determination published in Monday's Federal Register. The “source code” is written in Malaysia while the “object code” is compiled in the U.S. "CBP has consistently held that conducting a ‘software build’ -- i.e., compiling source code into object code -- results in a substantial transformation," the agency said. The finished software products are determined to be of U.S. origin, CBP said.

Ericsson is partnering with Amazon Web Services to help telecom providers speed up their use of cloud-based services, the Sweden-based tech provider said in a Monday news release. Ericsson said its work with AWS will help telecoms better improve productivity and efficiency, reduce complexity and risk and better capitalize on opportunities like the IoT and big data analytics. "Ericsson will contribute expertise from its 25,000 R&D engineers and 66,000-person service workforce -- more than 17,000 of whom are consultants and systems integrators, delivering 1,500 projects per year around the world," the company said. Ericsson said AWS, which is providing resources such as professional services and training, is also helping to develop new capabilities like end-to-end security and data traffic management, workload management, and services related to local regulation and compliance requirements.

The FCC proposed an action to remove its nondiscrimination rules on the U.S.-Cuba route, which currently require all facilities-based U.S. carriers providing services on the U.S.-Cuba route to operate under "identical rate terms and conditions," the commission said in a news release Friday. Cuba is the only country still under the nondiscrimination requirements. "If the proposal is adopted, U.S. carriers would have more flexibility to negotiate rates with the state-owned telecommunications operator ... and to respond to market forces," said the release. The FCC said its action is a result of the State Department's recommendation to remove the requirements based on the recent change in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba. The action seeks comment on removing particular nondiscrimination requirements and "asks whether removal would lead to more direct agreements between U.S. carriers and the state-owned telecommunications operator, and encourage competition on the U.S.-Cuba route."

A Pakistani citizen admitted to laundering more than $19.6 million in proceeds from an international telecom fraud scheme in which foreign-based hackers hijacked private branch exchange systems that ran the internal phone networks of businesses and other organizations in the U.S. Muhammad Sohail Qasmani, 47, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, said the FBI in a Thursday news release. It said hackers placed calls on an organization's phone system to identify unused extensions and then illegally reprogrammed the system to make unlimited long distance calls that were charged back to the victimized organization. Qasmani, who was arrested in December 2014 at Los Angeles International Airport, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The agency identified the scheme's mastermind as Noor Aziz, 53, who's on the FBI's list of most wanted cybercriminals.

Trademark holders said some countries don't protect U.S. copyright, and the International Intellectual Property Alliance, which includes MPAA and RIAA, said the U.S. Trade Representative's office should resume classifying Ukraine as a priority country for not protecting U.S. IP. In the filings we were able to get in the runup to last Friday's deadline for comments to USTR, the Trademark Working Group, while not recommending the office add countries to the priority countries list, said Argentina, Brazil, India, the Philippines and Malaysia -- which TWG called the “slows” -- regularly fail to adjudicate oppositions and cancelations in a “reasonable period of time.” IIPA, in comments it released Friday said Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam should be added to USTR's priority watch list. Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates should go on the regular watch list. IIPA members also include the Association of American Publishers, Entertainment Software Association and Independent Television & Film Alliance. Last week's Trans-Pacific Partnership signing was "a timely reminder of the valuable role our government plays in promoting U.S. economic interests abroad, and of the need to seek enforceable commitments from key trading partners to remove impediments to legitimate marketplaces," said IIPA Counsel Steven Metalitz in a news release. "TPP holds the potential to make a critical contribution, along with other trade agreements and Congressionally mandated reviews like the Special 301 Report, to this market-opening drive.” Monday, USTR posted about 30 public comments. The next issue of this publication will report on what tech groups like the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Internet Association and others said.