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. That’s because FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate has left on a trip to Africa without voting on the merger, and several issues are unresolved, we're told.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is announcing a public meeting and reopening the comment period on its November 2005 advance notice of proposed rulemaking concerning measures to reduce the risks associated with the storage of explosives while they are in transportation.
The World Customs Organization, in conjunction with HM Revenue and Customs, will stage the Global Dialogue on Capacity Building conference in London on October 2, 2008. The theme of the conference is sustainable customs reform and development strategies. (Conference information available at http://www.wcoomd.org/cbglobal_dialogue_2008.htm)
Australia is reviewing its e-security policy to hone its defenses against online threats and make the Internet safer, government officials said. The review of programs, arrangements and agency capabilities will recommend changes. It will take up emerging issues such as those related to rollout of a national broadband network and an “increasingly hostile” online security environment disrespectful of historic boundaries, officials said. A report is expected this year.
Wireless carriers led by CTIA asked the FCC to keep a requirement that they forward all 911 calls to a public safety answering point, even if from a discarded cellphone no longer part of a service plan. That stance puts carriers at odds with public safety groups APCO and the National Emergency Number Association, which asked the FCC for a rule change.
TORONTO -- Striking it far richer than expected, Canada is poised to reap more than C$4 billion from a month-long sale of advanced wireless spectrum. That’s more than twice what government officials and most observers had estimated.
On June 23, 2008, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported S. 3181, a bill to make appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009. (Congressional Record, dated 06/23/08, available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r110:@FIELD(FLD003d)@FIELD(DDATE20080623)
On June 26, 2008, President Bush issued Proclamation 8271 lifting the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) sanctions with respect to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).
President Bush has issued a proclamation lifting the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) with respect to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and notified Congress of his intent to rescind North Korea's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. These actions were taken following North Korea's submission of a declaration of its nuclear programs, which will now be subject to verification.
Public safety has concerns about carrier reluctance to road test a warning system for sending emergency alerts to cellphones by sending test alerts. During meetings of the Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee, which drew up rules for a national alerting system, carriers and equipment makers said they opposed sending test messages to subscribers. TIA reiterated its concerns in a statement last week. Art Botterell,, manager, Community Warning System, with the Contra Costa County, Calif., Sheriff’s Office, and a member of the advisory committee, said carriers expressed anxiety about testing during meetings of the group. “Nobody really knows what the public reaction to cellular alerts will be, in particular, how many secondary phone calls will be stimulated, and, of course, how many of those will be to 911,” Botterell told us. “It makes sense to move carefully into this new territory and a lot of the necessary reliability testing can be done behind the scenes in the system without actually putting test alerts on the public’s cellphones,” he said. “But at some point we're going to need the ability to do at least limited public testing, or else the first time we use the system for a real emergency it'll be a gigantic social and technological experiment.” FCC sources said the testing issue has yet to receive substantial attention among commissioners. TIA wants to work with public safety to develop some way to test alerts to cellphones, Patrick Sullivan, its director of technical and governmental affairs, said Tuesday. “If there are proposals that are out there that don’t strain the networks and don’t confuse cellphone users, we'd like to hear about that,” he said. He said carriers believe tests can be conducted between the alert initiator and aggregator/gateway, but they have concerns about testing similar to that conducted by broadcasters. “This would be a brand new dynamic where the public probably would not be as educated about the likelihood of receiving test messages [from wireless carriers] as they are about broadcast messages,” Sullivan said.