Chief executives of major U.S. carriers said telecom is insulated from the credit crisis. Analysts disagreed, cutting their estimates on carriers’ Q3 earnings. Meanwhile, growth came in flat-rate markets, VoIP and other converged business, as more consumers dropped landlines, analysts said.
AT&T Wireless promotes Glenn Lurie to president- emerging devices… Verizon Wireless promotes Mark Harris to vice president-national government sales and operations… Changes at Univision Radio National Sales: Chris Munoz, ex- Univision, becomes executive vice president/general manager; Peter Kakoyiannis promoted to senior vice president-national sales… William Roskin, ex-Viacom, joins Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia board… Cinnamon Rogers left NCTA for Time Warner, where she started Monday as vice president for global public policy.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday that he’s asking commissioners to approve an order allowing use of unlicensed, mobile devices in the TV white spaces at what’s shaping up as a hugely important meeting Nov. 4. Martin told reporters that white-spaces devices probably will hit the market about a year after the FCC sets rules. He also asked commissioners to approve two major wireless mergers: A Verizon Wireless acquisition of Alltel and a proposed WiMAX partnership between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire. Martin didn’t schedule a vote on the AWS-3 auction to license spectrum for a free national broadband network.
APCO and the National Emergency Number Association defended agreements they made with AT&T and Verizon Wireless on E-911 location accuracy rules against New York City Police Department complaints that the groups erred when they backed away from the tougher rules the FCC approved last year. “NYPD asks us to clarify why we departed from our earlier proposal for a [public safety answering point] area of compliance measurement,” the groups said in an FCC filing. “The present compromise of county level may appear to NYPD as a retreat, but we respectfully submit it is a significant advance from the total disagreement that persisted earlier, and does not represent a substantial change from PSAP-level compliance.”
The 4th annual Techno Forensics Conference will look at critical infrastructure vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, similar to those seen in the Georgia-Russia conflict. The conference will include the Georgian ambassador and Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., chairman of the subcommittee on emerging threats, cyber security and science and technology of the Homeland Security committee. Other speakers include hacker Johnny Long, former KGB Major General and Chief of Foreign Counterintelligence Oleg Kalugin, and Inno Erorha, founder of NetSecurity Corporation. The conference is Oct. 27-29 at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology at our deadline released a report on AWS-3 interference tests conducted at the Boeing Lab in Seattle, witnessed in part by OET engineers. Industry officials said the release of the report likely means FCC Chairman Kevin Martin plans to ask commissioners to vote on AWS-3 rules as early as the Nov. 4 meeting. Industry officials were still evaluating the conclusions drawn. OET said in two key conclusions that for a desired signal level of -95 dBm or greater, an AWS-3 UMTS handset, under static conditions, “can safely operate with maximum [equivalent isotropic radiated power] of about 23 dBm/MHz without causing disruption of service to nearby AWS-1 handsets.” A WiMAX AWS-3 handset “can safely operate with an EIRP of about 33 dBm/MHz without causing disruption.” But OET noted that test conditions were not ideal since no AWS-3 handsets are yet available. Still, OET noted, interference generators of the type used in tests generally result in higher out-of-band energy levels “than would typically be produced using an actual handset.” In a Friday letter to the FCC, the National Emergency Number Association voiced public safety concerns over the risk of interference to AWS-1 incumbents posed by a free broadband service in the AWS-3 band. The letter was sent before release of OET test results. T-Mobile and others predict that AWS-3 operations will cause significant interference to AWS-1 handsets, NENA noted. “If these claims are accurate, this interference could prevent some 911 calls from being set up and delivered, as well as increasing the incidence of dropped and degraded calls,” NENA CEO Brian Fontes said. “Wireless consumers cannot be in a position in which the most important calls they make, 9-1-1 calls, are disrupted or blocked. Therefore, we encourage the Commission to take into consideration the potential impact on 911 service for consumers and public safety operations as you consider your technical rules in the AWS-3 proceeding.” “We will read the report in detail to determine if they have correctly evaluated the extensive record from multiple parties that have expressed concern about interference,” T-Mobile said in a statement. “Given the importance and complexity of these technical issues, the FCC needs to provide for sufficient time for comment on their report before any FCC action on these rules.”
Broadband access is an issue in many House and Senate races this year, especially in rural areas. Candidates are responding to growing frustration from businesses and constituents that can’t get high-speed Internet service. Some longstanding businesses are failing because slow connection speeds shut them out of online commerce. Rural hospitals yearn for fast connections that could allow instant consultations with other medical experts in emergencies.
Broadband access is an issue in many House and Senate races this year, especially in rural areas. Candidates are responding to growing frustration from businesses and constituents that can’t get high-speed Internet service. Some longstanding businesses are failing because slow connection speeds shut them out of online commerce. Rural hospitals yearn for fast connections that could allow instant consultations with other medical experts in emergencies.
The Ohio Public Utilities Commission settled several disputed issues it arbitrated in the E-911 interconnection negotiations between competitive E-911 provider Intrado Communications and Cincinnati Bell. The PUC rejected Intrado-proposed language describing its emergency communications services as “telephone exchange service.” The PUC said that language might be seen as entitling Intrado to more privileges than its certificate provides. The PUC settled a dispute over meet points by designating the point of interconnection as the selective router of the E-911 provider. It said each party is responsible for its costs to reach that point. It also said Cincinnati Bell isn’t obligated to provide direct end-office trunking to deliver 911 calls from its end users to Intrado-served public safety answering points. It rejected Intrado language requiring compliance with National Emergency Number Association and National Reliability and Interoperability Council interconnection trunking recommendations, and rejected Cincinnati Bell language defining Intrado’s trunk-side ports as transport and termination facilities. It said the trunk- side ports are only interconnection facilities. It also directed that the companies charge each other for trunk port purchases at identical rates, based on the rate proposed by Intrado. The PUC gave the companies until Nov. 7 to file an interconnection agreement incorporating the arbitration decisions.
Any Internet link might rain doom on computer users, cybersecurity officials said Thursday. “Clicking links is actually a very dangerous exercise,” Mischel Kwon, director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team at the Department of Homeland Security, said on the webcast. “It’s important to understand, most of us have been victims of phishing before and just don’t know it,” Kwon said. Officials of DHS, the IRS and the National Cyber Security Alliance gathered during National Cyber Security Awareness Month to push the message that individuals must be more aware of cyber security and pay more attention to their security.