GENEVA -- The growing dominance of IP-based networks means that the agenda will expand for the upcoming Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference in Korea, officials said. In addition to basic Internet issues (WID Aug 27 p1), Internet traffic exchange, World Trade Organization agreements on electronic products and identity management will be aired.
GENEVA -- The growing dominance of IP-based networks means that the agenda will expand for the upcoming Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference in Korea, officials said. In addition to basic Internet issues, Internet traffic exchange, World Trade Organization agreements on electronic products and identity management will be aired.
GENEVA -- The growing dominance of IP-based networks means the agenda will expand for the upcoming Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference in Korea, officials said. In addition to basic Internet issues, Internet traffic exchange, World Trade Organization agreements on electronic products and identity management will also be aired.
New Internet capabilities and services are at the heart of preparations for a 2008 OECD ministerial conference in Seoul, South Korea. It aims to update policy tools to meet new challenges in the Internet economy and to deal with convergence and the regulatory environment. Private organizations are mobilizing to influence the agenda.
The Los Angeles Times reports that counterfeit imports are flooding the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, the busiest in the U.S. and a focal point of enforcement efforts by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which states that counterfeiting and piracy in the Los Angeles area cost businesses $5.2 billion and is responsible for the loss of 106,000 jobs. (LATimes, dated 08/22/07, available at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports22aug22,1,2616784.story?ctrack=1&cset=true)
A European Commission plan for a one-stop shop for mobile satellite service licenses is good news for Europe’s satellite industry but may not matter much, Phil Kendall, Strategy Analytics’ global wireless practice director, said Wednesday. Under the proposal, which aims to boost high speed data communications, the EC, with member nations, would pick licensees to operate in the 2 GHz band across Europe. But mobile phones’ predominance and the European satellite sector’s woes, make the plan’s success iffy, Kendall said.
Canadian Prime Minister Harper, Mexican President Caldern, and U.S. President Bush have issued a joint statement regarding five priority areas for North American cooperation for the next year as part of the latest summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).
Businesses with operations in and out of the 14 states that have E-911 requirements for corporate communications are adopting the emergency capabilities companywide, to avoid accusations of discrimination in states without E-911 rules, an executive with a software vendor said Tuesday. Companies usually meet the requirements first in states mandating them, later moving to the rest, said Nick Maier, a senior vice president at RedSky Technologies. The FCC has left to states any E-911 requirements on intracompany networks, he said at VoiceCon in San Francisco. Virginia is the latest state to enact a law, Maier said. PBX and multiline telephone systems installed there after 2008 must provide automatic number and location information to the local public-service answering point, he said. Businesses anywhere can adopt IP telephony and unified communications confident that E-911 will work, Maier said, but Session Internet Protocol (SIP) communications presents challenges. It typically works peer- to-peer, with no call server in the middle and multiple users sharing a uniform resource identifier. But “location can be embedded with the call, which will streamline the 911 process,” Maier said. Technology still is being developed to enable a national routing system to translate between conventional phone numbers and “SIP-name-at-domain type designations,” Maier said. RedSky charges a company with 1,000 employees about $40,000 to license its E-911 software; one with 10,000 workers pays about $150,000, he said. Maintenance runs 18 percent of the license fee yearly, Maier said. Customers also must pay a telco about 7 cents monthly per user for record storage, he said. Alternatively, the capability is available as a service for about 50 cents an end point monthly, Maier said. He said coverage of nomadic users runs $1 a month each.
By naming a board to oversee the public safety licensee to be created in the 700 MHz band the FCC will “strengthen the link” between the public and first responders, the National Emergency Number Association said Monday. NENA is one of 11 members of the board announced by the FCC in a 321- page July 31 order outlining band plan and service rules for the 700 MHz spectrum becoming available in 2009 when broadcasters leave it. Nine board members will represent public safety and government groups: The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the International City/County Management Association, the National Governor’s Association, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, the National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Officials and NENA. The other two will be chosen by the FCC’s Public Safety Bureau and the Wireless Bureau. The FCC order said makeup of the board, which will have voting power over the public safety licensee’s decisions, “ensures that local public safety agencies and governments will continue to have a voice in the use of the 700 MHz public safety broadband spectrum, as the overwhelming number of first responders are local government employees or volunteers.” The public safety licensee will operate in partnership with the licensee getting one of the commercial spectrum blocks to be auctioned next year. (See separate item in this issue.) - - EH
Everyone seems to agree that the FCC should allow vehicle-mounted earth stations (VMES) for satellite communications, according to comments filed last week. But there’s dispute over the extent to which VMES and current Ku- band users should have to protect one another. General Dynamics filed a petition for rulemaking on VMES in 2006, saying it would be valuable for military and emergency communications.