In remarks to the Business Roundtable on February 24, 2010, the President discussed his Administration's National Export Initiative and the goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next five years. The President also stated that his Administration has launched the Trans-Pacific Partnership to strengthen U.S. trade relations with Asia. For the same reason, the Administration will work to resolve outstanding issues and move forward on trade agreements with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia and conclude a Doha trade agreement that creates real access to key global markets. (Remarks, dated 02/24/10, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-business-roundtable
Approve the Senate Commerce Committee’s cybersecurity bill or face doom: That was the stark choice posed by the George W. Bush administration’s last Director of National Intelligence at a committee hearing Tuesday. Mike McConnell, executive vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton’s national security business, laid out a vision for a future Internet brought under federal control in the same way that railroads came under heavy regulation at their peak of influence. Meanwhile, an FCC official made a pitch for his agency to use its experience in collecting status information from traditional communications networks to do the same for the Internet at large.
Major wireline Internet service providers are already acting as if network neutrality rules had been imposed, so their businesses won’t be affected much including raising money from investors if the FCC adopts them, analysts said on an FCBA panel Monday. But it would be much different if the commission put broadband service under Title II of the Communications Act, one said. “I think from an investment standpoint, it would totally freak people out … which is not what the FCC is looking for right now,” said Rebecca Arbogast, Stifel Nicolas analyst.
Major wireline Internet service providers are already acting as if network neutrality rules had been imposed, so their businesses won’t be affected much including raising money from investors if the FCC adopts them, analysts said on an FCBA panel Monday. But it would be much different if the commission put broadband service under Title II of the Communications Act, one said. “I think from an investment standpoint, it would totally freak people out … which is not what the FCC is looking for right now,” said Rebecca Arbogast, Stifel Nicolas analyst.
Shure asked the FCC to extend the comment deadline for a rulemaking about wireless microphones to March 1 from Monday. And dozens of additional users of the mics asked the commission to keep their interests in mind as it requires most wireless mics to stop using the 700 MHz band by June 12.
TV makers are urging the EPA to clarify quickly whether they would be required, as part of the revised Energy Star specification, to let consumers know that activating the download acquisition mode (DAM) feature in the TV would increase the power consumed by the devices. The issue was raised on a conference call last week to discuss a DAM test procedure (GED Feb 12 p1) developed by Rovi Corp. DAM refers to the power used when the TV is downloading channel listing information for the electronic program guide when the device is “not producing a sound or picture."
Action on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s top IP protection priorities in Congress can happen this session, despite the partisan gridlock that has stalled action on marquee legislation, the chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center leaders said. The goals include passing the Customs Facilitation and Enforcement Reauthorization Act, introduced in July, sustaining funding for IP protection measures and enacting legislation to improve the U.S. Trade Representative’s ability to deal with foreign countries that fail to guard against counterfeiting and digital theft.
Action on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s top IP protection priorities in Congress can happen this session, despite the partisan gridlock that has stalled action on marquee legislation, the chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center leaders said. The goals include passing the Customs Facilitation and Enforcement Reauthorization Act, introduced in July, sustaining funding for IP protection measures and enacting legislation to improve the U.S. Trade Representative’s ability to deal with foreign countries that fail to guard against counterfeiting and digital theft.
Other countries are taking cybersecurity more seriously than the U.S., judging by recent mandates in Europe, a former Obama administration official said Tuesday. Melissa Hathaway, who led the Cyberspace Policy Review that culminated in President Obama’s promise not to “dictate” standards for industry (WID June 1 p1), sounded a note of frustration over slow progress in fleshing out the recommendations in her report. “I feel like we have lost the sense of urgency” that held sway in the wake of the report, she told the Internet Security Alliance in Washington, which gave Hathaway an award.
Questions are emerging about the per-household costs embedded in some stimulus grants by the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service. Questions also are surfacing about the advantage that incumbents seem to hold over new market entrants, especially with the NTIA’s emphasis on middle-mile projects. Both agencies are seeking applicants to receive in a second funding round the rest of the $7.2 billion set aside in stimulus law for broadband projects. Most round one awards have yet to be announced.