Wireless carriers are taking steps to make their phones more usable by the blind, deaf-blind and persons with low vision without prescriptive regulatory mandates, CTIA said in comments filed at the FCC in response to a request for comments by the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. TIA, AT&T and Sprint Nextel also highlighted the progress of mobile operators in developing phones for customers with vision problems.
Google is a “serial offender” that is violating copyright law, other companies’ patents and the privacy of the public, Precursor CEO Scott Cleland, a longtime critic of the company, said Thursday in a hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy. But much of the focus of the hearing was on the broader issue of whether recent developments like Apple’s launch of its own mobile advertising network, iAd, after it bought mobile ad network Quattro Wireless, are moving too fast for antitrust law to keep up.
TIA is turning to active messaging with key Washington players to fend off the FCC’s broadband reclassification proposal. Board members had multiple meetings with members of the Congress and the FCC this week, they said in a media briefing Thursday. TIA, representing equipment vendors and suppliers, is hopeful that Congress can come up with a solution this year, President Grant Seiffert told us.
The FCC is asking more academics for more help on a wider array of issues under Chairman Julius Genachowski than under predecessors, though the relationship between the agency and academia is inconsistent, said many professors we asked. Systematic and wide-ranging efforts were made in summer 2009, after Genachowski took over in late June, some researchers said. Outreach continues, but not in any way that appears coordinated, and deadlines to contribute to the development of some policies were too short to accommodate academics, they said. There was ample time to respond and there’s “mutual benefit” to the agency and academia when they work together, said FCC Chief Deputy Economist Jonathan Levy.
Senate negotiators are looking to a lame duck session instead of September to pass an omnibus cybersecurity bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told us Wednesday. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is undecided about attaching cyber measures to the fiscal 2011 Defense Department appropriations bill, said an analyst, though Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., is considering it.
The telephone and cable industries “endorse” Universal Service Fund legislation by Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., USTelecom and NCTA executives said in written testimony for a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. HR-5828 “balances many competing interests to modernize universal service and to bring robust broadband to areas of rural America where today’s business case would not support such deployment,” said USTelecom President Walter McCormick.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law approved Wednesday the Cell Tax Fairness Act, HR-1521, by voice vote, with only one objection, from a member concerned about the effect on local and state government. The measure would place a five-year moratorium on new state and local taxes and fees imposed only on wireless services.
"Controlling the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS] is essential to winning wars and protecting our service members,” said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. Better spectrum policy is critical to national security, economy and U.S. competitiveness, said other panelists at a Center for Strategic & International Studies conference Wednesday.
The TV white spaces will play a key role in communications once devices are made available, most likely next year, said speakers at a New America Foundation panel Wednesday. The discussion comes with several fine points in the FCC’s white spaces order, scheduled for a vote at the Sept. 23 commission meeting, still potentially in play. The order finalizes the proceeding, after the FCC approved the use of the white spaces for accessing the Internet in November 2008. The agency is expected to cut off further lobbying when it releases the sunshine agenda on next week’s meeting Thursday.
The FCC denied Globalstar’s extension request for a deadline to reach compliance with the agency’s ancillary terrestrial component rules, in a decision late Tuesday by the International and Wireless bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology. The denial prevents the company from offering terrestrial services until it regains compliance with the ATC rules. Satellite industry executives found the order surprising, considering recent moves the agency has made to make the MSS/ATC spectrum more usable for mobile terrestrial broadband services. Some consider the move a demonstration of the commission’s commitment to enforce buildout requirements as the agency seeks to increase development in the band (CD July 16 p1).