CEA President Gary Shapiro used a “super panel” on the future of TV at the ATSC Broadcast TV Conference Thursday to challenge NAB President Gordon Smith to declare that NAB plans to seek no “further delays or modifications” in the FCC incentive auction schedule. Smith responded that there wouldn’t be any delays, repeating what he said at the NAB Show that broadcasters want the auction to go forward.
FirstNet likely won’t be big enough to provide coverage in some of the most remote parts of the U.S., FirstNet acting Executive Director TJ Kennedy conceded Wednesday, during a taping of C-SPAN’s The Communicators scheduled for later broadcast. Kennedy also said the network has “good momentum” at this point.
FirstNet likely won’t be big enough to provide coverage in some of the most remote parts of the U.S., FirstNet acting Executive Director TJ Kennedy conceded Wednesday, during a taping of C-SPAN’s The Communicators scheduled for later broadcast. Kennedy also said the network has “good momentum” at this point.
Senate Democrats are now pushing hard to merge all four trade bills together before the chamber moves further into the legislative process for any of the bills, and many Republicans are signaling some openness to the new approach. Still, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, one of the key architects of Trade Promotion Authority, hit back strongly against the single package idea on May 7 and it’s so far unclear what strategy Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will take.
Comcast names Ana Salas Siegel, ex-21st Century Fox, general counsel, NBCUniversal’s Hispanic Enterprises and Content, effective June 1 ... National Emergency Number Association hires Christopher Blake Carver, ex-New York City Fire Department, as PSAP (public safety answering point) operations director ... Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy hires Ralph Everett, ex-Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, as senior industry and innovation fellow working on USF, broadband and other technology issues ... F5 Networks hires Kristen Roby Dimlow, ex-Microsoft, to lead global human resources organization as executive vice president ... LogRhythm, cybersecurity company, hires James Carder, ex-Mayo Clinic, as chief information security officer and vice president, LogRhythm Labs ... USTelecom names Robert Hunt, GVTC, board chairman, succeeding CenturyLink Executive Vice President Steve Davis, who retired and is being succeeded on the board by the telco's John Jones, who succeeded Davis at the company (see 1504020030).
The Senate Homeland Security Committee cleared an amended version of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act (S-1180) during a markup Wednesday. Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., introduced the bill earlier this week. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a Homeland Security Committee member, is its one co-sponsor. Johnson posted a copy of the 17-page bill text on the committee website. The legislation, which would direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to revamp the integrated public alert and warning system, “will support our national security,” Johnson said in prepared remarks for his opening statement Wednesday, saying the bill “authorizes a ‘next generation’ system that enables the president to quickly alert the public during a national emergency.” McCaskill said “this legislation would result in more families and businesses across the country receiving lifesaving information quickly and effectively, and ensure our government has the flexibility it needs to evolve with future changes in technology,” in a statement, noting its backing from NAB. The legislation would create an Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Subcommittee that would include the FCC chairman. Two pieces of companion legislation, both with the same name but introduced by different committee lawmakers (HR-1738 and HR-1472), have been introduced in the House. The Broadcast Warning Working Group said the Senate legislation “will further modernize the public alert warning system of the United States to ensure that warnings about natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other disasters or threats are disseminated quickly and effectively.” The Warning, Alert and Response Network Act "that authorized creation of the Wireless Emergency Alert system harnessed the creativity of the wireless industry and leveraged ... the ubiquity of the mobile platform to augment the existing emergency alerting system," CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said. "The program is working as Congress intended. CTIA is pleased that Senators Johnson and McCaskill recognize this success and seek to modernize IPAWS without conferring upon FEMA or DHS authority to regulate wireless carriers or altering a WEA system that is working effectively for Americans."
The House Armed Services Committee “is aware that the Department of Defense has been examining ways to better utilize the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in the future,” it said in its committee report, released Wednesday and dated Tuesday, for the National Defense Reauthorization Act for FY 2016. It pointed to “the significant effort that the Department of Defense has made to improve its responsiveness to changes in the technological and regulatory environment.” The committee expects DOD to release an Electromagnetic Spectrum Roadmap and Action Plan “in the coming months, which would implement the goals and objectives of the EMS Strategy, and address everything from systems acquisitions to operations to spectrum management policy,” the report said. It expressed interest in seeing the results, “including how it will leverage the government-industry-academia partnership of the National Spectrum Consortium to bring together stakeholders, and the S&T [science and technology] Roadmap, which is developing a technology roadmap for ensuring a spectrally efficient and dynamic system in the future.” The committee report, hundreds of pages long, also said the commander of the Navy’s 7th fleet “is testing a broadband system that provides cellular-based, fourth generation long-term evolution (4G LTE) and broadband satellite communications to Navy ships,” which “could potentially improve the communications capabilities of naval platforms and promote information sharing and real-time collaboration in an emergency situation.” It urged the Navy to continue these efforts.
The House Armed Services Committee “is aware that the Department of Defense has been examining ways to better utilize the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in the future,” it said in its committee report, released Wednesday and dated Tuesday, for the National Defense Reauthorization Act for FY 2016. It pointed to “the significant effort that the Department of Defense has made to improve its responsiveness to changes in the technological and regulatory environment.” The committee expects DOD to release an Electromagnetic Spectrum Roadmap and Action Plan “in the coming months, which would implement the goals and objectives of the EMS Strategy, and address everything from systems acquisitions to operations to spectrum management policy,” the report said. It expressed interest in seeing the results, “including how it will leverage the government-industry-academia partnership of the National Spectrum Consortium to bring together stakeholders, and the S&T [science and technology] Roadmap, which is developing a technology roadmap for ensuring a spectrally efficient and dynamic system in the future.” The committee report, hundreds of pages long, also said the commander of the Navy’s 7th fleet “is testing a broadband system that provides cellular-based, fourth generation long-term evolution (4G LTE) and broadband satellite communications to Navy ships,” which “could potentially improve the communications capabilities of naval platforms and promote information sharing and real-time collaboration in an emergency situation.” It urged the Navy to continue these efforts.
The $21 million it costs to keep 28 field offices open with 108 employees using “out-of-date equipment” is too expensive and field office staffers have too little work to do, said William Davenport, deputy chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau, telling the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council Wednesday why the agency is considering a controversial proposal to make sharp cuts in the number of field offices and agents in the field (see 1503110054). The cost of the field offices also increases each year, he said.
Making sure that as technology transitions -- from 911 to next-generation 911 -- emergency response technology is kept up to date is one of the FCC's highest priority goals with respect to public safety communications, said David Furth, deputy chief, FCC Public Safety Bureau, Monday at an APCO broadband conference. “That transition is happening, it is accelerating, and there is no way to stop it,” he said. “The only issue is, how do we ensure that when it comes to 911 and to public safety that the technologies that are replacing the technologies of yesterday are the same or better [in call] volume reliability as the legacy technology?”