GENEVA -- Experts couldn’t agree on updating ITU rules on such telecom wholesalers, payment exchanges, cybersecurity, spam and other recent developments at a meeting that ended July 1, participants said. Scheduling conflicts mean the group won’t meet again until June 2009. The review is aimed at laying groundwork for a 2011 treaty conference to revise the International Telecommunication Regulations.
GENEVA -- Experts couldn’t agree on updating ITU rules on such telecom wholesalers, payment exchanges, cybersecurity, spam and other recent developments at a meeting that ended July 1, participants said. Scheduling conflicts mean the group won’t meet again until June 2009. The review is aimed at laying groundwork for a 2011 treaty conference to revise the International Telecommunication Regulations.
It’s time to work on IPv6 transition “step two” after June 30, the deadline for passing IPv6 packets on all U.S. federal agencies’ backbone networks, officials said Thursday at an IPv6 briefing hosted by the Homeland Defense Journal. Maximizing IPv6’s advantages means continuing the transition guidance and identifying the transition strategies, they said.
It’s time to work on IPv6 transition “step two” after June 30, the deadline for passing IPv6 packets on all U.S. federal agencies’ backbone networks, officials said Thursday at an IPv6 briefing hosted by the Homeland Defense Journal. o Maximizing IPv6’s advantages means continuing the transition guidance and identifying the transition strategies, they said.
The Food and Drug Administration has released a new version of its Regulatory Procedures Manual, a reference manual for FDA personnel containing information on internal procedures to be used in processing domestic and import regulatory and enforcement matters.
APCO and other public safety groups blasted Verizon Wireless and AT&T arguments that the FCC should launch a request for proposals seeking alternatives for building a public safety wireless broadband network and abandon its public-private partnership proposal, in reply comments on the future of the 700 MHz D-block. Meanwhile, Cyren Call defended its performance as the advisor to the PSST.
EU lawmakers late Monday endorsed creation of a new telecommunications authority to ensure consistent regulation but said its funding mechanism remains unsettled. Members of the European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy, and Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committees also called for a more pan-EU approach to spectrum management, better investment incentives for next-generation networks and net neutrality. Amendments to European Commission (EC) plans to reform e-communications rules, however, sparked criticism by incumbent and alternative providers.
Broadcasters and advocates for U.S. inhabitants who don’t speak English are likely to get more time from the FCC to work out a way to send emergency alerts and information in multiple languages, said industry and agency officials. In June both sides asked the FCC to put off a promised order on the alerts while they start an alert test and continue talks begun more than a year ago. Last year, commissioners delayed action on a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council request that they order broadcasters to provide emergency information in varied languages if non-English language broadcasters stop transmitting. Commissioners were prepared to issue an order in six months, during which time the council, its allies and broadcasters were to devise a solution (CD July 13 p5). That period ended June 17, six months after the order ran in the Federal Register, but the FCC faces no statutory deadline to act, said a commission spokesman.
A long-awaited FCC vote on the XM-Sirius merger won’t be completed this week and it may take several weeks for all the commissioners to vote, we've learned. FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate has left on a trip to Africa without voting on the merger, and several issues are unresolved. Tate has emerged as a swing vote on the merger. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin three weeks ago circulated among his fellow commissioners a draft order to allow the merger. Sirius and XM agreed to merge a year ago February.
On June 26, 2008, the Senate passed its version of H.R. 802, the Maritime Pollution Prevention Act, which would require the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency to prescribe regulations to implement vessel air emission standards and requirements that are outlined under Annex VI to the MARPOL Convention. The House passed its version of H.R. 802 on March 26, 2007. (Senate Commerce Committee press release, dated 06/27/08, available at http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=82f3560a-d664-42ec-82af-87a9d0ab0fec&Month=6&Year=2008.)