A tough 2020 for emergency call takers shows the need for more federal funding, said three local call center heads on an NG-911 Institute webinar Tuesday. Current funding is “grossly inadequate” to build facilities with sufficient technology, security and interoperability, said Orleans Parish Communication District Executive Director Tyrell Morris. “I don’t know of a single federal resource that is available today for construction of a 911 center to really meet these needs.” There are grants for technology improvements, "not the true brick and mortar we need.” New Orleans faced a disastrous spike in COVID-19 cases last year after Mardi Gras was a super-spreader event, he said. Unable to telework when the coronavirus first hit, 911 call takers were left “more vulnerable than the average person going to work,” said Renee Gordon, Alexandria, Virginia, Department of Emergency Communications director. As the virus continued to spread, Alexandria learned how to tweak existing equipment to allow remote working (see 2006120038), but many smaller centers couldn’t do that, she said. Teleworking would have helped during the 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball game in Alexandria, she said. “We had an influx of calls,” and it would have helped to allow workers not on shift to immediately take calls at home, she said. More rural network infrastructure funding would improve emergency response in Larimer County, Colorado, said Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority CEO Kimberly Culp. During summer wildfires last year, landline emergency alerts had a 60% failure rate, she said: It wasn’t due to the carrier or the alert system, but because many rural areas lack broadband and cell towers.

A University of Missouri professor working on a manufacturing plan for a low-cost wearable to track vital signs like blood pressure, heart activity and skin hydration received $500,000 from the National Science Foundation, said the school Tuesday. A device could wirelessly transmit vital signs to a healthcare provider -- providing critical information for early detection of issues such as COVID-19, said the university.

AMC Entertainment stock closed 17.7% higher Tuesday, after the theater chain hailed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) decision greenlighting the March 5 reopening of cinemas in New York City. Cuomo’s executive order Monday put theaters in the five boroughs in line with most cinemas elsewhere in the state that were allowed to reopen with limited capacities in late October. Theaters in the city have been shuttered since the first COVID-19 lockdown orders took effect March 22 statewide. Theater restrictions will be uniform statewide, including mandatory masks and preassigned socially distanced seating, said Cuomo. Attendance will be limited to 25% of capacity or 50 people per screen, whichever is smaller, he said. AMC will reopen all 13 of its locations in the city when the restrictions lift March 5, said CEO Adam Aron. S&P at least twice downgraded the stock, warning investors AMC was precariously close to running out of cash amid COVID-19 theater closures and the pullback of major film slates from in-person audiences (see 2101220036). The New York development is a “ray of light” for AMC, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Tuesday. The move could entice other densely populated areas to reopen and lead to studios maintaining Q2-Q3 film slate release plans, he said. The analyst tempered remarks about pent-up demand saying people may remain reluctant to attend movies until they get inoculated for protection against COVID-19. Pachter stood by his comments Monday (see 2102220052) that he doesn’t expect movie attendance to begin returning to normal before July.

It was a “transformational year” for Dropbox, as the world “abruptly shifted to working from home due to the pandemic,” said CEO Drew Houston on a Q4 call Thursday. “We helped many of our customers through this transition” and “adapted quickly to the new environment ourselves,” reorienting product “to address many of the new challenges and opportunities that distributed work presents,” he said. Revenue for the year increased 15% to $1.91 billion, he said: “We ended 2020 with more than 15 million paying users and 525,000 business teams.” Dropbox experienced a surge in demand during the onset of COVID-19, including “elevated trial starts” that were “mostly isolated to the first half,” said Houston. “Engagement broadly has been up.” Permanent work-from-home rituals in 2021 and beyond “will be a tailwind, given that folks are shifting to distributed work and Dropbox becomes a lot more important when you're working out of the screen,” he said. “We see a lot of opportunity to address new pain points in the virtual work experience. Everybody has a need to keep all their content organized. It's a very fragmented and distracting and overwhelming experience now.”

Extend Lifeline program waivers from Feb. 28 "to prevent the involuntary de-enrollment of Lifeline subscribers while the public health emergency persists," Free Press and the National Consumer Law Center asked FCC Wireline Bureau staff, per a filing Friday in docket 20-445. They asked the commission to consider an electronic benefit transfer program as a way to confirm eligibility for the $3.2 billion emergency broadband benefit program (see 2102170028).

Let E-rate funds be used for remote learning, providers, industry and advocacy groups told the FCC in comments posted Wednesday in docket 21-31 on a petition led by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (see 2101260055). Granting this petition would “further the public interest by meeting pressing educational needs, and do so without jeopardizing public health, ” said Amazon, echoed by Microsoft and Apple. The homework gap has “grown into a remote learning gulf,” said Microsoft. Wireless internet access should also play a "critical role" in connecting students, as weekly wireless data use increased nearly 30% since July, said the Competitive Carriers Association, which CTIA echoed. The temporary request should be “administratively and financially separate from the traditional E-rate program,” because it would “likely substantially increase the amount of funding,” said AT&T. Consider a “supplemental application window” to support off-campus E-rate support, Verizon suggested. Speed is essential, and rules should be simplified for schools interested in applying E-rate funds for off-campus use, said USTelecom, which NCTA echoed. Allow flexibility in how E-rate funds are used to meet the needs of schools and students, said New America, Public Knowledge, Consumer Reports, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and Access Humboldt. "Declare that so long as remote learning connections and services are used primarily for educational purposes, cost allocation is unnecessary during the pandemic emergency and through the end of the 2021 E-Rate fiscal year." Existing mechanisms "afford the commission the ability to address this extraordinary need created by the pandemic," said ACA Connects.

CEDIA Expo producer Emerald had a 73% Q4 sales plunge year on year to $12.2 million. Declines were partially offset by insurance payments, said the company Thursday. Emerald held two events in Q1, said Chief Financial Officer David Doft on a quarterly call. The trade show company canceled the remainder of Q1 events, and many Q2 events were postponed until later in 2021, he said. The company hopes the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines allows more activities in the second half. Emerald canceled 19 events in Q4 and 94 in 2020, including CEDIA Expo. Buying software-as-a-service company PlumRiver will help expand digital presence, said CEO Herve Sedky on his first such call since joining Emerald Jan. 5 from Reed Exhibitions.

Q4 revenue at Shopify spiked 94% to $977.7 million, reported the company Wednesday. At the end of 2020, 1.7 million merchants were selling on the e-commerce platform, said President Harley Finkelstein on a quarterly call. Responding to a question on whether the growth in business creation spawned by COVID-19 is sustainable, Finkelstein noted the U.S. had more business registrations in Q3 than at any time since 2004 and said Shopify is seeing similar. The pandemic created a "catalyst," whether people needed to supplement their income or lost a job and needed to find something else, but “I do not think this trend is going away.” As countries roll out vaccines in 2021 and consumers are able to move about more freely, “the overall economic environment will likely improve,” said Chief Financial Officer Amy Shapero. Some consumer spending “will likely rotate back to offline retail and services," and the shift to e-commerce, which accelerated in 2020, "will likely resume a more normalized pace of growth,” said Shapero.

With COVID-19 vaccines being distributed, many businesses are beginning to prepare for a “hybrid work environment,” with some workers based in the physical office and others working from home for “the foreseeable future,” said RingCentral CEO Vlad Shmunis on a Q4 call Tuesday. As companies adapt to this new “work from anywhere norm,” digital transformation of business communications will become more critical, with “cloud-based communications solutions” enabling that, he said. “We are increasingly confident in the size of the opportunity.” The company’s annualized recurring revenue in 2020 grew 35% year over year to $1.3 billion, he said.

Kroger teamed with Gauss to sell what they call the first smartphone-enabled COVID-19 rapid antigen test kits to patients nationally, they said Tuesday: The at-home test awaits Food and Drug Administration emergency use OK.