A group of Arab and other countries are pushing to extend ITU work on ways to apportion revenue for providing international telecommunication services into the Internet. The U.S. and Europe want the work stopped. Arab countries want ITU to put on seminars to highlight the problems they're encountering. The proposals were made during a quadrennial ITU policy setting conference.
The Open Internet Coalition (OIC) said the time has come for the FCC to finalize net neutrality rules and provide certainty for industry. OIC was one of the main parties during failed negotiations on net neutrality rules hosted by the FCC. The comments came in response to a Sept. 1 FCC public notice seeking input on “two underdeveloped” issues -- application of the rules to mobile wireless and the impact of emerging specialized services offered by carriers.
A group of Arab and other countries are pushing to extend ITU work on ways to apportion revenue for providing international telecommunication services into the Internet. The U.S. and Europe want the work stopped. Arab countries want ITU to put on seminars to highlight the problems they're encountering. The proposals were made during a quadrennial ITU policy setting conference.
On October 4, 2010, H.R. 3619, the Coast Guard Authorization1 Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 was presented to the President, after being passed by Congress.
President Barack Obama signed communications accessibility legislation at a bill-signing ceremony Friday (CD Oct 8 p4). The bill includes provisions requiring manufacturers to make devices more accessible to the handicapped and mandating closed captioning in Internet video. “We've moved from Braille to broadband, from tracing words in palms to navigating a Palm Pilot,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The law “is the most significant disability law in two decades” and includes recommendations from the National Broadband Plan, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Most importantly, the new law will ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind and can share fully in the economic and social benefits of broadband.” CTIA, Verizon and advocates for people with disabilities issued laudatory statements. “It opens the door to the digital age, and gives Americans with visual or hearing impairments equal access to smart phones, emergency broadcast information, the menus and controls on televisions and cable TV guides, and much more,” said Paul Schroeder, a vice president at the American Foundation for the Blind.
President Barack Obama signed communications accessibility legislation (CED Sept 30 p7) into law at a White House ceremony Friday. The bill includes provisions requiring manufacturers to make devices more accessible to the disabled and mandating closed captioning in Internet video. “We've moved from Braille to broadband, from tracing words in palms to navigating a Palm Pilot,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The law “is the most significant disability law in two decades” and includes recommendations from the National Broadband Plan, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Most importantly, the new law will ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind and can share fully in the economic and social benefits of broadband,” he said. CTIA, Verizon and advocates for people with disabilities issued laudatory statements. “It opens the door to the digital age, and gives Americans with visual or hearing impairments equal access to smart phones, emergency broadcast information, the menus and controls on televisions and cable TV guides, and much more,” said Paul Schroeder, a vice president at the American Foundation for the Blind.
President Barack Obama signed communications accessibility legislation at a bill-signing ceremony Friday (WID Oct 8 p2). The bill includes provisions requiring manufacturers to make devices more accessible to the handicapped and mandating closed captioning in Internet video. “We've moved from Braille to broadband, from tracing words in palms to navigating a Palm Pilot,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The law “is the most significant disability law in two decades” and includes recommendations from the National Broadband Plan, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Most importantly, the new law will ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind and can share fully in the economic and social benefits of broadband.” CTIA, Verizon and advocates for people with disabilities issued laudatory statements. “It opens the door to the digital age, and gives Americans with visual or hearing impairments equal access to smart phones, emergency broadcast information, the menus and controls on televisions and cable TV guides, and much more,” said Paul Schroeder, a vice president at the American Foundation for the Blind.
White spaces spectrum can be a “valuable option” for smart grid communications, said Phoebe Yang, senior adviser on broadband at the FCC, addressing an IEEE conference on smart grid communications in Gaithersburg, Md. Google and Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative successfully conducted a smart grid trial using white spaces spectrum in an area with “challenging terrain” encompassing rural California and Nevada mountains, where “other wireless approaches did not satisfy performance requirements,” Yang said. Although the FCC recognizes that white spaces spectrum isn’t the only smart grid “solution,” the agency is “confident that white spaces is good for the smart grid,” Yang said. The commission is “doing our part” to make commercial broadband networks more reliable and appropriate for smart grid communications, she said. “If utilities are gong to use commercial facilities for smart grid applications, they need to be assured the networks will work, especially in times of emergency.” Utility-owned networks will remain an important component of the smart grid, and the federal government should “continue to promote standards” through the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Energy and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, she said. One area that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is the role that “retail” broadband can play in smart grid deployments, Yang said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- State public utility commissions will be the bottleneck through which most smart grid technology investment will pass, industry executives and a California state commissioner said Tuesday. “When we talk about implementation of the grid, what we're really talking about are state policies, state roadmaps and state decisions,” said Mary Brown, Cisco director of technology and spectrum. “There is an awful lot of work to be done where the rubber meets the road at the state commissions,” she told a Federal Communications Bar Association seminar on emerging wireless issues at the CTIA show.
The Department of Energy hasn’t drawn any “hard conclusions” on whether utilities should build their own communications networks or rely on commercial networks for smart grid applications, following two smart grid proceedings, DOE General Counsel Scott Harris said Tuesday. The department is leaning toward the position that the utilities should be able to decide on what type of networks they need for smart grid, he told the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. Harris briefed the center on the department’s conclusions in proceedings on smart grid communications needs of utilities and data access and privacy issues related to smart meters.