SAN FRANCISCO -- Fiber deployment to customers is edging up due to market forces, and could expand more rapidly if government authorities would lower obstacles, said Comptel Plus panelists. Fiber to the Home Council President Heather Gold said the percentage of homes passed by fiber is only about 25 percent, but should approach 70 percent within five years.
Witnesses from the FTC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will raise concerns with a legislative staff discussion draft that includes multiple proposals intended to improve motor vehicle safety processes and issues like cybersecurity. Their issues will be raised during a House Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, according to prepared testimony. NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind and FTC Privacy and Identity Protection Division Associate Director Maneesha Mithal will testify during a first panel beginning at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Witnesses from the FTC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will raise concerns with a legislative staff discussion draft that includes multiple proposals intended to improve motor vehicle safety processes and issues like cybersecurity. Their issues will be raised during a House Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, according to prepared testimony. NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind and FTC Privacy and Identity Protection Division Associate Director Maneesha Mithal will testify during a first panel beginning at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
The U.S. is extending a national emergency on narcotics trafficking from Colombia, President Barack Obama told House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in an Oct. 19 letter (here). That national emergency will stay in effect through Oct. 21, 2016, said the letter, released by the White House. “The actions of significant narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” said Obama. The Treasury Department has steadily dropped Colombian individuals and entities, accused of involvement in trafficking, from the Specially Designated Nationals list over recent months (see 1510160013).
Some of the transparency issues that the music industry currently faces can be solved via a neutral nongovernmental organization (NGO), but intervention by Congress and federal agencies may be necessary to solve the rest, said Berklee College of Music associate professor Allen Bargfrede during an interview Thursday for a future episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Bargfrede, executive director of the Berklee-sponsored Rethink Music project, led the writing of a July Rethink report that recommended that a nonprofit or other neutral consortium lead the development and administration of a decentralized, distributed music rights database in the absence of progress on government and industry-led efforts to create similar databases.
Some of the transparency issues that the music industry currently faces can be solved via a neutral nongovernmental organization (NGO), but intervention by Congress and federal agencies may be necessary to solve the rest, said Berklee College of Music associate professor Allen Bargfrede during an interview Thursday for a future episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Bargfrede, executive director of the Berklee-sponsored Rethink Music project, led the writing of a July Rethink report that recommended that a nonprofit or other neutral consortium lead the development and administration of a decentralized, distributed music rights database in the absence of progress on government and industry-led efforts to create similar databases.
The U.S. submitted a proposal for the World Radiocommunication Conference next month to allow flexible use of the lower UHF band, said Decker Anstrom, U.S. ambassador to the WRC. The proposal has the support of eight other nations, he said Wednesday. Other multinational proposals for the band are also expected, Anstrom said. NAB slammed the U.S. proposal.
The U.S. submitted a proposal for the World Radiocommunication Conference next month to allow flexible use of the lower UHF band, said Decker Anstrom, U.S. ambassador to the WRC. The proposal has the support of eight other nations, he said Wednesday. Other multinational proposals for the band are also expected, Anstrom said. NAB slammed the U.S. proposal.
The U.S. submitted a proposal for the World Radiocommunication Conference next month to allow flexible use of the lower UHF band, said Decker Anstrom, U.S. ambassador to the WRC. The proposal has the support of eight other nations, he said Wednesday. Other multinational proposals for the band are also expected, Anstrom said. NAB slammed the U.S. proposal.
Doubts about whether smaller carriers will compete in the TV incentive auction are on the rise at precisely the same time that expectations for what the larger players might actually spend are falling, analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson told us in an email. Questions emerged at last week’s Competitive Carriers Association conference over whether small carriers will jump in in a big way during the auction, slated to start March 29 (see 1510090022). “We’re still a long ways out from March, but I think it is fair to say that skepticism seems to be mounting about just how much the auction might raise,” Moffett said. “Sprint’s decision not to participate, coupled with cautious comments from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, have led equity investors to lower their sights a little bit. All this may be posturing, but there are reasons to think that large carriers may be more restrained" than they were in the AWS-3 auction. The small license sizes for sale in the incentive auction “allow regional and rural carriers to focus their very limited resources on acquiring low-band spectrum that better fits their service areas,” countered Michael Calabrese, director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project. “As a result, selling other spectrum in secondary markets to raise funds to participate in the incentive auction is a strategy some non-national carriers can use to right-size their spectrum holdings and get more bang for the buck.”