China has a growing presence in telecom standards bodies like the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, but experts said during a USTelecom webinar Thursday that the U.S. still has significant influence. Experts agreed the election of American Doreen Bogdan-Martin as ITU secretary-general is important to the development of industry-led standards (see 2205110039). The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) is scheduled to vote at a May 24 meeting on a draft letter to the president on standards.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she supports including an outbound investment screening provision in the final version of Congress’ China competition bill (see 2202030062), and said more guardrails are needed to stop China from finding technology transfer loopholes. While Raimondo didn’t explicitly endorse the bipartisan National Critical Capabilities Defense Act, which would create a committee to review outbound investments, she said the U.S. could use more regulatory power.
President Joe Biden extended for a year the national emergency declaration in then-President Donald Trump’s May 2019 executive order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to protect U.S. information and communications technology supply chains against interference by foreign adversaries, says a notice for Friday’s Federal Register. The order was due to expire Sunday. Bad actors’ “unrestricted access” to ICT “augments the ability” of foreign adversaries to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the U.S. supply chain, “with potentially catastrophic effects,” said the notice. The “unusual and extraordinary threat” continues to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the U.S., it said. For this reason, the national emergency declaration “must continue,” it said.
FirstNet and AT&T took part in a recent exercise hosted by the California National Guard and California Office of Emergency Services Fire Rescue Branch to test response to an earthquake in Sonoma, AT&T said Thursday. “A key component of creating a unity across such varied groups is communications,” said Phil White, lead exercise planner: “By providing participants with FirstNet enabled devices, the agencies were able to experience the importance of seamless connections.”
President Joe Biden extended for a year the national emergency declaration in then-President Donald Trump’s May 2019 executive order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to protect U.S. information and communications technology supply chains against interference by foreign adversaries, says a notice for Friday’s Federal Register. The order was due to expire Sunday. Bad actors’ “unrestricted access” to ICT “augments the ability” of foreign adversaries to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the U.S. supply chain, “with potentially catastrophic effects,” said the notice. The “unusual and extraordinary threat” continues to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the U.S., it said. For this reason, the national emergency declaration “must continue,” it said.
Preparing for and responding to disasters is “truly a partnership” among different levels of government and industry, said FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Debra Jordan at an FCBA virtual event Wednesday. The FCC works hard “at building relationships at the state, the regional and the national level, so when there's a disaster we can ... partner and immediately begin jumping on the task [at] hand, and hopefully have a level of trust going into this." The commission plans to do outreach this summer on how states and others can access its disaster information reporting system (DIRS) and network outage reporting system (D) databases, said Jordan. The FCC adopted a framework last year to provide access to state, federal and tribal nations, with information sharing rules taking effect in September, she said. “We will have an application process that will grant agencies access to this information after certifying to requirements for maintaining the confidentiality of the data, as well as the security of the databases.” Jordan urged more collaboration on wireless emergency alert testing to address lingering issues with geofencing and delivery. The FCC used to respond mainly to hurricanes, but climate change is bringing more wildfires, tornadoes and severe winter storms, noted the bureau chief. Communications industry compliance is “high” but “not where we want it to be” with the California Public Utilities Commission’s 72-hour backup power requirements for wireline and wireless facilities, said CPUC Communications Division Director Robert Osborn. “It's not 100%.” The COVID-19 pandemic made it tougher for staff to visit sites to confirm backup power is present, but the agency is hoping to do more soon, he said. Distinguishing between traditional and IP-based networks on resiliency is a “thing of the past,” said Osborn. “We really just need to focus on the communication grid as a critical infrastructure.” Since the CPUC efforts, “we’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the resiliency of our networks,” said California Office of Emergency Services 911 Branch Manager Budge Currier. “They’re surviving a little bit better during disasters.”
China has a growing presence in telecom standards bodies like the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, but experts said the U.S. still has significant influence, during a USTelecom webinar Thursday. Experts agreed the election of American Doreen Bogdan-Martin as ITU secretary-general is important to the development of industry-led standards (see 2205110039). The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) is scheduled to vote at a May 24 meeting on a draft letter to the president on standards.
The FCC should promote increased use of IP-based emergency alerts rather than overhauling the legacy emergency alert system to increase accessibility, said NAB, NPR and alerting equipment manufacturer Digital Alert Systems in reply comments posted in docket 15-94 Wednesday. Common alerting protocol messages have “superior accessibility capabilities,” NAB said. While pushing CAP, the FCC should preserve the legacy EAS system “as a redundant, more resilient pathway when internet connectivity is disrupted.” Digital Alert Systems (DAS) said it doesn’t agree with some commenters that adding some additional text or embedded ancillary data to alerts would substantially increase the length of time a message plays. “We feel that such representations may overstate any potential issues,” said DAS. “One must consider the actual length or time an ancillary data frame might require, which may be a scant few seconds in practice, against the real-world spoken length of EAS messages.” Media that have a limited ability to display visual information -- such as many car radios -- may be able to increase alerting accessibility using symbology, DAS said. NPR and DAS said the FCC should let broadcasters adopt new technology to increase alert accessibility on a voluntary basis. The FCC should convene a multistakeholder initiative to “consider voluntary avenues for improving emergency alerting and informing in the United States,” said the Advanced Television Systems Committee and the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance in joint comments. As alerts exist now, deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals “often have to cobble information together through several different sources to learn vital information” in emergencies, said the National Disability Rights Network.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated a declaratory ruling among commissioners that would let E-rate program funding be used to buy Wi-Fi for school buses, said a news release Wednesday. Rosenworcel announced the proposal at a National Coalition for Technology in Education & Training meeting. The proposal would "clarify that use of WiFi or similar access point technologies on school buses serves an educational purpose and the provision of such service is therefore eligible for E-rate funding," the news release said. It would also direct the Wireline Bureau to "include funding WiFi on buses in establishing E-rate eligible services for the upcoming funding year." The FCC allowed Emergency Connectivity Fund applicants to seek funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2108240064). “Wiring our school buses is a practical step we can take that is consistent with the history of the E-rate program," Rosenworcel said.
President Joe Biden extended by one year national emergencies that authorize certain sanctions related to Yemen, the Central African Republic, Iraq and Syria, the White House said May 9. Respectively, the extensions are through May 16, May 12, May 22 and May 11, 2023.