The U.N. Broadband Commission set goals “that countries around the world should strive to meet” by 2015 to ensure their populations fully participate in “tomorrow’s emerging knowledge societies,” the ITU said. One goal is that each country should have a national broadband plan or strategy or include broadband in their universal service program, it said. A second goal is for “adequate regulation and market forces” to ensure that entry level broadband is affordable, it said. At least 40 percent of households in developing countries should have Internet access, it said. Internet penetration should reach 60 percent worldwide, 50 percent in developing countries and 15 percent in least-developed countries, it said. ITU will measure each country’s progress and produce an annual broadband report with rankings of nations worldwide for broadband policy, affordability and uptake, it said.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service reports that the Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS) held its 19th Session in Cairns, Australia on October 17-21, 2011. Among other things, the CCFICS declined to begin new work on export certification attestations, which the U.S. thought was unnecessary, and further worked on a proposal favored by the U.S. to develop Principles and Guidelines for National Food Control Systems.
The White House has posted a notice and a message to Congress regarding the President's decision to continue for another year, until October 21, 2012, the national emergency declared on October 21, 1995 and the measures adopted to deal with that emergency with respect to significant narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia. Federal Register notice (10/20/11) available here.
International harmonization of spectrum is critical, but difficult to achieve, and the U.S. so far has only a “mixed record” aligning its allocations with those in the rest of the world, said FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday in a keynote speech at The Americas Spectrum Management Conference. Knapp cited in particular spectrum allocated to PCS, a different use than in most of the world. Knapp also said the outlook for widespread use of TV white spaces spectrum remains positive.
Big box CE superstores’ one-time mantra of offering the broadest product selection gravitated to online sales from brick-and-mortar storefronts, marking the biggest shift in the retail landscape the last 10 years, said industry executives canvassed by Consumer Electronics Daily.
The FCC’s Universal Service Fund reform plan, of which many still await details, could hurt rural and tribal operators and investment in rural broadband, speakers said at a Broadband Breakfast Club panel Tuesday. Meanwhile, many broadband projects funded by the Rural Utilities Service are on track, said Undersecretary of Rural Development Dallas Tonsager.
There’s the equivalent of a mini-DTV transition occurring through Nov. 9 by radio and TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors seeking to get the word out about a first-of-its-kind emergency message test set for 2 p.m. Eastern that day. Some executives, who along with the FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency are ramping up public outreach (CD Oct 14 p15) about the nationwide emergency alert system test, compared those EAS efforts to what occurred before the 2009 DTV transition. The extent of work among the FCC, FEMA, other government agencies and broadcasters and MVPDs resembles other cooperative efforts before the full-power analog broadcast cutoff, executives and government officials told us.
House Democrats will likely offer an amendment to reallocate the 700 MHz D-block when the House Communications Subcommittee marks up spectrum legislation, said Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Eshoo and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., co-chairs of the Congressional E-911 Caucus, also advocated their next-generation 911 bill (HR-2629) during a visit Friday morning to Washington’s 911 call center. The legislators hope their bill to fund NG911 will be included in the comprehensive spectrum bill, Eshoo said.
FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan asked AT&T for more documents on whether AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile would mean a net gain of jobs in the U.S. Kaplan said in a letter dated Thursday, that the bureau asked the question in a May 27 information request. “AT&T to date has produced almost nothing in response,” Kaplan wrote (http://xrl.us/bmf3ot).
On October 12, 2011, the Senate failed to closed debate on a “motion to proceed” to consideration of the President’s jobs bill1 (which effectively blocked further consideration of the bill at that time). Prior to the Senate's consideration of the bill, 24 associations sent a letter to House and Senate leaders expressing opposition to the Buy American provisions in the President's jobs bill.