Nexon America is “keeping an eye on” platforms including the iPhone and consoles, but “our focus right now is on PC online games,” CEO Daniel Kim told us at the Design Innovate Communicate Entertain (D.I.C.E.) Summit in Las Vegas last week. “The infrastructure isn’t quite there” on the other platforms to support the company’s strategy of free play plus micro-transactions, he said.
A proposed Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) would be housed at the FCC in the Public Safety Bureau and would come under a Public Safety Advisory Board, according to a concept paper posted on the FCC website. Meanwhile, public safety groups and companies that serve them said they liked what they heard at Thursday’s FCC meeting about public safety recommendations coming in the National Broadband Plan -- especially a recommendation on the need for a next-generation 911 network.
The FCC continues to see progress in restoring Haiti’s communications infrastructure, but there’s much more to be done, commission officials said at Thursday’s meeting. Over a month after a major earthquake hit the island nation, mobile networks are almost 100 percent operational and emergency service lines are working, but wireline and cable networks are completely down, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. An assessment team was in to the country Jan. 25-31. “We coordinated with many international organizations and non-government organizations,” said International Bureau Chief Mindel De La Torre. The teams were a “matchmaker” and worked to identify the needs and the resources to meet those needs, she said. The Public Safety Bureau also deployed a team to monitor spectrum. The efforts underscore “the importance of systems being in place on an agency basis and having leadership teams in place to be ready to take the steps necessary in times of crisis,” Genachowski said. This isn’t a hundred-yard dash, “but a long, hard task of endurance that we're going to have to slog out on the field,” Commissioner Michael Copps said.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has recently released its fiscal year 2011 budget request, which includes $400 million in additional funding1 for regulatory enforcement, import surveillance, defect investigations, information technology modernization, etc.
The FCC should write a bold National Broadband Plan with a clear vision and policies that can ensure wider broadband access, adoption and competition, public-interest groups said Wednesday during a briefing on Capitol Hill. Speakers from the Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Consumers Union and other organizations praised FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s goal of offering 100 million homes 100 Mbps Internet access by 2020, to give the U.S. the world’s largest market of ultra-broadband users.
Lack of capacity and resources for recycling e-waste is hampering efforts in most African countries, said Environmental Technologies Analyst Derrick Chikanga of Frost & Sullivan. Unable to recycle all computer components, for instance, they must send hazardous materials from not only African computers but those shipped in from Europe to places like Malaysia for handling, he said. Nevertheless, the recycling market is starting to develop, with South Africa taking the lead, Chikanga and others said.
FCC officials went back to work along with the rest of the federal government Friday, after a four-day storm-related federal government shutdown. Officials we spoke with said it was business as usual Friday at the FCC for the most part, though commuting was a struggle in Washington. Commissioner legal advisors got an update on the National Broadband Plan slated to be finalized March 17. FCC officials said work on the plan has proceeded throughout the week. “Most people seem to be back -- some in the broadband team didn’t miss a day,” with several officials car pooling in an SUV as most of Washington was shut down, an official said. “Things look pretty normal around here today,” said another. Judging from staffing at the Media Bureau and some commissioners’ offices, about half of FCC staffers showed up at the office Friday, a third agency official said. Others are telecommuting and some staffers besides those drafting the broadband plan worked during the government shutdown, the official said. Those working on the state of media project were planning workshops on the subject with a public notice to announce it, the person said. It’s unclear if the commission will issue a public notice clarifying that all comment deadlines were delayed four business days because of the closure, the person said. But most communications lawyers will understand that’s the case, the staffer said. Some sidewalks near the commission’s headquarters were a “disaster” including those outside the L ‘Enfant Plaza Metro stop, the official said. An announcement is expected shortly on a new date for a public forum on an emergency response interoperability center, which was scheduled for Wednesday, but postponed, a Public Safety Bureau spokesman said. Meanwhile, filings at the FCC have piled up like the snow that covers Washington. The commission posted online Friday more than 500 comments and ex parte filings received there through the earlier part of the week.
Comments on additions to a draft channel naming standard were sought by the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. The proposed standard channel nomenclature for public safety interoperability channels provides a standardized naming format for each FCC designated interoperability channel in public safety radio services, APCO and NPSTC said. “It is necessary to develop and employ a common set of channel names so that all responders to an incident know which channel to tune their radios to, as well as the band and primary use for the channel,” APCO Executive Director George Rice said. “The public safety community uses spectrum allocated by the FCC in multiple bands that is replete with interoperability channels.” NPSTC Chair Ralph Haller believes “common interoperability channel names will help to assure that any organization responding to an emergency will be able to establish contact immediately when arriving on scene,” he said.
The business of the FCC is limping along even with the federal government closed Monday, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. Thursday’s meeting has been delayed until 3 p.m. Feb. 18. The commission on Tuesday also postponed Wednesday afternoon’s scheduled Emergency Response Interoperability Center forum. The FCC probably will extend some filing deadlines a few days by public notice. Under FCC rules, anything due when the government is closed is generally due the next business day.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control has issued a final rule, effective February 3, 2010, to amend its regulations for Executive Order 13405, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Belarus," under which sanctions have been in place since June 16, 2006.