The President has issued a message to Congress stating that he has determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to Iran in order to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran. Therefore, the national emergency with respect to Iran that was declared on March 15, 1995, is to continue in effect beyond November 14, 2011.
On November 4, 2011, the following trade-related bills were introduced:
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff cancelled a meeting with industry that was supposed to have been convened to discuss the pending broadband outage reporting order (CD Nov 7 p2), commission and telecom officials told us Monday. Nearly 30 executives from industry -- including executives from USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA and the VON Coalition -- were to have sat down with Genachowski’s special assistant, Josh Gottheimer, Tuesday to lay out their concerns about the order. It was canceled because of a “scheduling conflict,” Gottheimer said in an email Monday.
Information sharing among nations, collective defense and other approaches to deterrence are steps that the U.S. and other countries can take to strengthen defenses in cyberspace, U.S. and foreign government officials and information technology security experts said Monday at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The U.S., EU, Australia and other countries have moved forward on improving cybersecurity, said William Lynn, former U.S. deputy secretary of defense. “But I think much remains to be done,” he said. “In my view, we're not moving fast enough to address the weaknesses given the pace of the threat.” No country can safeguard the Internet alone, said Mart Laar, Estonian minister of defense: “Attackers in cyberspace cross borders and so should we."
A “negligible” amount of Skype customers expect to be able to make emergency calls from their accounts, the company told the FCC in reply comments on docket 11-117. Skype hired research company Penn Schoen Berland to do an online survey of 1,001 paying Skype customers about their attitude to the service, the company said. It found that “less than 5” percent of Skype customers “indicate they would be likely to use Skype to place an emergency call,” the company said.
The U.S. government shortened the length of Wednesday’s emergency alert system nationwide test to 30 seconds from more than three minutes, a public noticed released by the FCC Thursday said. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, shortening the duration of the test will achieve its two goals of testing the system while minimizing the potential disruption and chance for creating concern among the public. That’s something broadcasters and pay-TV providers have been working to remedy, along with the government (CD Oct 28 p12). FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate on Friday asked EAS stakeholders for help educating the public about the exercise.
Gameloft’s revenue for Q3 ended Sept. 30 grew 17 percent from last year to 40.6 million euros ($54.6 million at $1 = 0.74 euros), due to sales in emerging countries and the success of its games on smartphones and tablets, it said Thursday. Sales on those devices soared 60 percent from Q3 last year and represented 34 percent of its total sales. Europe accounted for 29 percent of Gameloft’s Q3 sales, while North America contributed 28 percent and the rest of the world 43 percent. The “dynamism” of the smartphone and tablet market is due to the success of Apple and Android devices, and “should continue sustaining” Gameloft’s growth in the coming quarters, Gameloft said. The release of new game platforms, including smart TVs and next-generation set-top boxes, “should provide … strong growth opportunities” in the future, it said. Gameloft expects “continued top-line and bottom-line growth” this year, it said. Recent Gameloft titles that have performed especially well include Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation, The Adventures of Tintin and Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front Free+, which it said “should allow solid sequential growth” in Q4 from Q3 this year.
Gameloft’s revenue for Q3 ended Sept. 30 grew 17 percent from last year to 40.6 million euros ($54.6 million at $1 = 0.74 euros), due to sales in emerging countries and the success of its games on smartphones and tablets, it said Thursday. Sales on those devices soared 60 percent from Q3 last year and represented 34 percent of its total sales. Europe accounted for 29 percent of Gameloft’s Q3 sales, while North America contributed 28 percent and the rest of the world 43 percent. The “dynamism” of the smartphone and tablet market is due to the success of Apple and Android devices, and “should continue sustaining” Gameloft’s growth in the coming quarters, Gameloft said. The release of new game platforms, including smart TVs and next-generation set-top boxes, “should provide … strong growth opportunities” in the future, it said. Gameloft expects “continued top-line and bottom-line growth” this year, it said. Recent Gameloft titles that have performed especially well include Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation, The Adventures of Tintin and Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front Free+, which it said “should allow solid sequential growth” in Q4 from Q3 this year.
The Department of Defense1 has issued an interim final rule, effective November 2, 2011, that amends the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to expand on the requirements of section 106 of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA) by adding a “representation” requirement.
FCC rules should be based on the assumption that the public will expect that any outbound-only VoIP service is capable of reaching 911, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials said in reply comments filed at the FCC in response to a July 13 FCC notice of proposed rulemaking. “Even if a VoIP service subscriber uses a particular service without an expectation of making domestic outbound calls (let alone calling 911), to the extent a phone-like device is capable of doing so, others (such as a family member, friend, visitor, customer, or employee of a subscriber) may use that device in an emergency situation with a clear expectation that they will be able reach 911,” APCO said (http://xrl.us/bmho3t). “A subscriber might also obtain a VoIP service with the intention of using it in narrow circumstances (e.g., international calls), and then begin to use it more broadly over time, creating new expectations of its capabilities by the time an emergency occurs.” APCO conceded “there may be some basis for creating FCC-recognized consensus guidelines and standard of care best practices for situations that clearly do (or do not) create reasonable expectations of 911 capability” but those cases should be seen as an exception, APCO said. The National Emergency Number Association largely agreed with APCO in its reply comments. “Since the Commission adopted its existing definition of interconnected VoIP service in 2005, the consumer market for such service has changed dramatically,” NENA said (http://xrl.us/bmho4b). “While it was initially only facilities-based VoIP providers who marketed their services as true replacements for home telephone service, non-facilities-based providers now aggressively market their services to residential subscribers, emphasizing low cost and ease of use as key selling points. Indeed, even services that have not marketed themselves as replacements for POTS [plain old telephone service] are increasingly offering products that emulate the residential POTS experience.” The FCC previously imposed location-accuracy requirements on VoIP providers that originate and terminate calls on the public switched telephone network and is now examining whether similar requirements should apply to increasingly popular VoIP services like SkypeOut that allow outbound only calls. The commission sought comment in an NPRM approved at its July 12 meeting (CD July 13 p7).