AT&T is farther along in its fiber backhaul than previously believed, wrote Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche in an email Wednesday to investors. AT&T executives said in a meeting with Fritzsche during the CTIA conference in Las Vegas that it now has fiber to more than 75 percent of its 58,000 cell sites. That figure “significantly exceeds” those reported by Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile US, said Fritzsche. Wells Fargo also got “the sense [AT&T] is keeping its eyes open” for possible acquisitions outside the U.S., Fritzsche said. Europe remains the focus of AT&T’s international efforts, she said. “Even though the regulatory environment remains somewhat of a challenge, we sense [AT&T] sees value there as mobile data acceptance continues to grow."
The FCC dismissed requests by CBS and Harris Corp. for new fixed-satellite service earth stations because the companies’ applications lacked information, said letters Wednesday from the International Bureau. The requests can be made again. CBS’s applications for a new FSS receive-only station lacked a frequency coordination report, wrote Chief Paul Blais of the bureau’s Satellite Division Systems Analysis Branch (http://bit.ly/11cghob). Harris’s request for FSS stations has errors, he wrote (http://bit.ly/11YGoAL).
Technology groups hailed the Senate Judiciary Committee’s passage of an immigration bill with provisions that would make more H-1B visas available to foreign high-skilled workers. The committee approved the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Act (S-744) by a 13-5 vote Tuesday. The legislation includes a package of amendments offered by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that would encourage companies’ use of H-1B visas to attract and retain more high-skilled workers. CEA President Gary Shapiro said the committee’s passage of the Hatch/Schumer amendments “will provide a robust temporary visa program that will address the high-skilled worker shortage in the United States; creating more U.S. jobs and advancing innovation.” The Hatch/Schumer amendments will “benefit our economy, our country and our future by balancing our industry’s desire to hire homegrown talent with our need to bring the best and brightest to our nation,” said TechAmerica Senior Vice President-Federal Government Affairs Kevin Richards. Telecommunications Industry Association President Grant Seiffert said the committee’s vote is a “very important step” toward modernizing the U.S. high-skilled immigration system. But AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement following the vote the H-1B amendments are “unambiguous attacks on American workers. Hatch’s amendments change the bill so that high tech companies could functionally bring in H-1B visa holders without first making the jobs available to American workers. Hatch’s amendments would mean that American corporations could fire American workers in order to bring in H-1B visa holders at lower wages,” he said.
T-Mobile US has enough spectrum to last the next 3-4 years, but will “remain opportunistic when presented with an opportunity to acquire spectrum that will add to/complement its portfolio,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche reported two of the carrier’s executives said during a dinner the investment bank hosted Monday for investors. David Mayo, senior vice president-technology, and Nils Paellmann, vice president-investor relations, said the carrier prefers low-band spectrum between 600 MHz and 800 MHz, but would “not rule out wanting more AWS spectrum,” Fritzsche said in an email to investors. T-Mobile remains active with its rollout of fiber to its towers, with 35,000 of its 51,000 total cell sites now having fiber drawn to them, Fritzsche said. T-Mobile is also pleased with its porting trend since closing the MetroPCS merge deal, particularly its ability to capture customer share from AT&T, Fritzsche said.
The FCC formally published a final rule that implements provisions of Section 718 of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). The order, released by the commission April 29 (CD May 1 p6), requires “Internet browsers built into mobile phones to be accessible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired,” the FCC said in a Federal Register notice Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/168DDhK). In the Federal Register posting, the commission also reaffirmed previous rulings that “section 716 of the Act requires certain Internet browsers used for advanced communications services to be accessible to people with disabilities.” The final rule will be effective Oct. 8.
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) said it’s concerned that the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Federal Register notice on implementation of President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order is too broad and might stifle innovation by imposing requirements on all information technology companies. The notice “appears to suffer from a fundamental flaw that does not reflect the carefully crafted scope of the Executive Order: It sweeps all IT companies or their customers into the same regulatory basket as the most critical infrastructure systems,” SIIA said Wednesday in comments filed with the General Services Administration. The order was narrowly tailored to apply to “critical infrastructure” that, if incapacitated or destroyed, would have a debilitating effect on U.S. security, public health or safety, SIIA said. “Not all systems fall under this definition and thus not all systems and assets should be required to comply with this level of regulation,” the group said. SIIA encouraged GSA, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to “resist an approach that is overly-prescriptive. ... The result of this approach would be to stifle innovation and create an impediment to enhancing cybersecurity” (http://bit.ly/10TNrUM). The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) told GSA in comments that implementation of Obama’s order should keep in mind the success of public-private partnerships in addressing cybersecurity threats, as well as the importance of industry-driven adoption of best practices and standards. TIA also recommended the government enable better cyberthreat information sharing between the public and private sectors; the group also asked the government to increase information and communications technology research funding and address economic barriers that critical infrastructure owners and operators will encounter in securing cyberspace (http://bit.ly/13LpTG0). Comments are due to GSA by June 12 (http://1.usa.gov/14y0Wxf).
The Tennessee Regulatory Authority settled with several entities that allegedly violated the state’s do-not-call rules recently, it said Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/10TLAzi). The TRA settled with Global Media Management for $12,000 over five alleged incidents, with Storm Damage Specialists for $6,000 over nine incidents, with National Protection Service for $2,500 over four violations and with Armor Roofing for $2,000 over three incidents. The TRA said these do-not-call and do-not-fax laws amount to important consumer protections.
The electrical grid has grown increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks, and spending to secure that infrastructure will total $2.9 billion globally by the end of the year, ABI Research said Wednesday. The power sector’s restructuring and the emergence of the smart grid has “largely ignored the issue” of cybersecurity, but implementation of President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order and efforts within standardization bodies to tackle cybersecurity have raised awareness of the issue, ABI said. In turn, this has driven the market for critical infrastructure cybersecurity for companies like General Electric, Siemens and Honeywell, as other niche vendors, said the industry research firm (http://bit.ly/12MRrtu).
LUS Fiber, a municipal telecom network in Lafayette, La., rolled out several statistics and new plans Tuesday at a celebratory event. It issued updates both on its website and on its official Twitter account. The network will upgrade its peer-to-peer intranet speeds to 1 Gbps and now bring wireless service to the shopping center called Acadiana Mall, with more hotspots potentially to come, it said. LUS Fiber is now cash positive and “from FY2011-2012 LUS Fiber’s revenues grew over 41 percent while expenses only increased 6.5 percent,” said its website (http://bit.ly/12uGefv). It predicted future self-sufficiency, noting LUS Fiber will one day be able to “cover its operating expenses as well as depreciation and amortization, which could happen in 2014 or 2015.” The network said it has more than 14,000 customers.
Harris Corp. snagged an $8 million contract with Genesee County, N.Y. Harris will replace the county’s public safety radios with its P25 system and expand coverage to 95 percent of the region and kill many dead spots, the company said (http://bit.ly/13IhwYj).