An Iranian national, Seyed Amin Ghorashi Sarvestani, was sentenced Aug. 14 for conspiring to export goods, including satellite technology and hardware, from the U.S. to Iran, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York said in a press release. Ghorashi was an owner, managing director and director of two related companies based in the United Arab Emirates, where he “worked with others to export electronic equipment used for satellite communications and data transfer, as well as other goods” from the U.S. to Iran. According to the press release, the exports violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Statements during the plea proceeding indicated the exports were completed without required approval from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
California residents shouldn’t opt out of getting AMBER alerts on their cellphones, said Bob Hoever, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children special programs director, in an interview Wednesday. Officials sent out an AMBER alert through cellphones for the first time Aug. 5 (CD Aug 8 p12). When the customers got multiple messages, late messages, messages which later disappeared from their phones or alerts lacking specific information, people wanted to opt out of the service, said Hoever. “Unfortunately, people did not understand what these messages meant and their purpose,” he said. “It’s critically important the public does understand, and we get their eyes and ears if there’s a dangerous situation to help find and rescue that child.” The AMBER alert program relies heavily on public participation, with 676 children rescued to date from the program, said Hoever. Opting out of the system could mean opting out of all emergency alerts for some carriers, which “could be a matter of life or death,” said California Assembly Speaker John Perez during a news conference Monday (http://bit.ly/14EHVKU). The Assembly is in discussions to start an educational campaign with the California Emergency Management Agency to allow the Assembly to fund outreach efforts through savings in its operating budget, said Perez. The Assembly will hold a special hearing this fall to examine additional ways the wireless alert system can “work better in California” and ways the Legislature can “facilitate that happening,” said Perez.
The Communications and Technology Task Force unanimously approved a resolution to oppose intermediary liability for Internet providers under the Communications Decency Act. The resolution was in response to a National Association of Attorneys General letter asking Congress to change Section 230 of the CDA to open Internet providers to possible liability, said John Stephenson, task force director. The resolution next goes to the American Legislative Exchange Council board. The task force plans to discuss interconnection agreements more in the upcoming months through presentations and panel discussions, said Stephenson in an interview. The resolution was approved at last week’s ALEC conference in Chicago.
The Communications and Technology Task Force unanimously approved a resolution to oppose intermediary liability for Internet providers under the Communications Decency Act. The resolution was in response to a National Association of Attorneys General letter asking Congress to change Section 230 of the CDA to open Internet providers to possible liability, said John Stephenson, task force director. The resolution next goes to the American Legislative Exchange Council board. The task force plans to discuss interconnection agreements more in the upcoming months through presentations and panel discussions, said Stephenson in an interview. The resolution was approved at last week’s ALEC conference in Chicago.
Major cities in California have seen a significant decrease in the number of wireless 911 calls with Phase II location information to public safety answering points (PSAP), CalNENA President Danita Crombach wrote the FCC (http://bit.ly/16fN2Dy). The Public Safety Network on the association’s behalf collected data from Bakersfield, Pasadena, San Francisco, San Joe and Ventura County to determine how often carriers managed to get Phase II location information, and they included this information in the report to the FCC (http://bit.ly/1eHfFIU). Phase I data includes only the location of the cell site with a phone number, but the geographic area can be huge, Crombach wrote Monday. In San Francisco, “as many as 80 percent of mobile calls are coming as Phase I only and the rest are Phase II,” said Lisa Hoffmann, San Francisco Department of Emergency Management deputy director, in an interview Tuesday.
Set to face a raft of legislative challenges unrelated to trade after reconvening on Capitol Hill in mid-September, congressional lawmakers appear positioned to push combined "omnibus" trade legislation, made up of a number of trade bills. That trade package prospect is increasingly likely due to heightened pressure resulting from recent legislative failures on trade bills, looming trade deal negotiation conclusions and Senate floor time constraints that restrict movement on individual bills, said observers.
Participants in any time-division multiplexing (TDM) to IP trial, as proposed by the FCC in May, should be required to comply with National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, to prevent problems for alarm networks, the Alarm Industry Communications Committee said in a filing at the FCC. “AICC urges the Commission to require trial participants to meet a number of specified criteria ... to ensure the protection of alarm service customers before a trial is authorized,” the group said (http://bit.ly/1bcEdcX). “Customers and alarm providers must be notified before any trial is authorized. After authorization, the trial participant must notify customers and alarm companies well in advance of the discontinuance of TDM-based services. Finally, a trial must be reversible if it is not successful.” AICC members “protect over 30 million residential, business and sensitive facilities and their occupants from fire, burglaries, sabotage and other emergencies,” the filing said.
Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next chairman of the FCC, has been breakfasting and lunching and otherwise meeting with numerous industry executives in recent months as he puts together a team to run the commission. Wheeler is widely expected to bring with him longtime telecom lawyer and former State Department official Phil Verveer, most likely as his general counsel. But filling other slots could prove more difficult, especially given the Obama administration’s tough ethics rules, industry and FCC officials said.
High quality standards for closed captions are “critical” to making video accessible as mandated in the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA), said representatives of several consumer groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing in a meeting last week with FCC staff and industry representatives, according to an ex parte filing. “We urge the Commission to set minimum technical and non-technical standards for captions that include completeness, accuracy, readability, and synchronicity with the audio portion of the captioned program -- areas where problems remain widespread,” said the filing from Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf and the Hearing Loss Association of America. The lack of quality standards for captions “incentivizes video programmers to seek out the cheapest possible captioning services without regard to quality,” said the consumer groups. This in turn hurts the market for well-trained captioners, the groups said. The commission should reexamine the exemptions to caption requirements it currently allows, and “ease the burden of the captioning complaint process for consumers,” the groups said. They also said the FCC should reexamine allowing Electronic Newsroom Technique, which the consumer groups said “often denies viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing access to critical information from unscripted breaking news, weather, and emergency reporting."
Response to Verizon’s petition to discontinue copper service on Fire Island, N.Y., highlighted a longstanding divide between incumbents and competitive providers. ILECs unanimously supported the request, which they said was a reasonable and cost-effective way to replace an obsolete technology damaged by Superstorm Sandy. CLECs worried that if the FCC grants the request, it could prejudge issues involved in the overall IP transition and put the competitive providers at a disadvantage. State public utility commissions and consumer advocates raised questions about the suitability of Verizon’s planned Voice Link fixed wireless service as a replacement for its traditional copper landline.