Spectrum is the “central issue” for smart automotive technologies, said Leo McCloskey, Intelligent Transportation Society of America senior vice president. “If you look at the progress of technology from where we are today to where we want to be, I think everyone in the room would put a show of hands up that if they could go and in jump in a vehicle that was driven by a robot and safely get to their destination, they'd gladly not drive the car, especially in D.C.,” he said at a Politico event. ITS America has raised concerns about an FCC proposal to use the 5850-5925 MHz band, already allocated for a Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) backbone, for Wi-Fi on a secondary basis (CD Jan 16 p1). “If the spectrum should disappear in such a way that precludes us, or hampers us in getting to autonomous transportation, which requires a lot of connectivity … we're being shortsighted,” McCloskey said Thursday. But Information Technology & Innovation Foundation President Rob Atkinson said that when the DSRC spectrum was allocated by the FCC in 1999, the world was a very different place. “The world back then was people got slices of spectrum for single purpose uses,” he said. But today spectrum is viewed as “a generalized pool and you get specialization in the application,” he said. “When you think about most interesting applications, they are going to run on the LTE platform or sharing that with some kind of Wi-Fi platform.”
A workshop to be convened by NTIA Friday on lessons learned from developing a process for sharing the 1755 MHz band will hopefully “produce ideas for even greater collaboration that can be incorporated into ongoing work across the Federal agencies,” said White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Tom Power Thursday in a blog post. “Balancing the growing needs of both commercial and Federal spectrum users presents opportunities for increased efficiency and economic growth, but also poses challenges,” Power wrote (http://1.usa.gov/18odb53). “Commercial wireless providers must learn how to operate their systems in spectrum bands that will be shared by Federal agencies using that same spectrum for operations such as conducting military training exercises, maintaining air safety, or tracking criminal activity."
Carriers that have already adopted IP technology, but that will continue to be required to interconnect with others that are still transitioning, should not “be penalized” by being “forced to bear excessive interconnect costs” to connect to TDM circuits, YMax told the FCC (http://bit.ly/1byJLvV). It’s “crucial” the commission “continue to regulate inter-carrier interconnection terms,” and work with states to ensure disputes can be arbitrated quickly, the VoIP provider said in a letter to the commission.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on a proposal to license TV incentive auction spectrum in smaller blocks than Economic Area licenses, which was proposed by the Competitive Carriers Association. CCA proposed use of Partial Economic Area licenses, bigger than Cellular Market Area licenses, but smaller than EAs. “Although a number of commenters support the Commission’s proposal to license the 600 MHz band on an EA basis, some commenters argue that EA licenses are too large for small and rural operators to obtain at auction or deploy,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/IRKmC0). “Larger carriers express concern that it is more difficult to acquire a national or regional footprint using smaller geographic area licenses.” There are 734 U.S. CMAs, with much smaller geographic areas than the 176 EAs. Comments are due Jan. 9, replies Jan. 23.
Prometheus Radio Project urged the FCC to delay opening an FM translator filing window for AM stations until all LPFM applications have been resolved. Limited signal coverage remains a significant threat to the success of the low-power FM service, said the LPFM advocate in an ex parte filing in docket 99-25 (http://bit.ly/1kDklm5). Raising the maximum effective radiated power from 100 watts to 250 watts for LPFMs and holding an FM translator window exclusively for LPFM licensees “would significantly unburden LPFM stations while remaining faithful to the word and intention of the Local Community Radio Act,” it said. The filing recounted meetings with Peter Doyle, Media Bureau Audio Division chief, and staff from the offices of commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel.
The Mobile App Security Working Group, a nonprofit association of mobility, security and enterprise stakeholders, formed to “simplify and accelerate the deployment of secure mobile apps in all kinds of environments, on all kinds of devices,” said smart device security firm Mocana Thursday. That company, McAfee, FireEye, SAP and Wind River are among the group’s charter members. “It is absolutely necessary for the industry to come together and establish a strong common foundation for mobile app security,” said Chenxi Wang, McAfee vice president-market intelligence, in a Mocana news release. The group hopes to begin its work by creating a set of “common metrics that enterprise users and IT administrators can employ to compare the security postures of different mobile apps, independent of platform, developer or security vendor,” Mocana said.
Broadband customer premise equipment (CPE) shipments are expected to surpass 147 million at the end of 2013, said ABI Research Thursday (http://bit.ly/1hP9tVi). CPE shipments are expected to grow to 150 million in 2014, said the industry research firm. These devices include modems, wired routers and gateways, it said. In 2014, DOCSIS 3.0 CPE devices will account for more than 89 percent of cable CPE shipments at 50 million, but total DSL CPE shipments are likely to be around 2 percent lower than total shipments in 2012 due to slower subscriber net additions in DSL broadband service, said ABI. Higher speed VDSL shipments are growing stronger, and ABI said it expects these shipments to account for more than 25 percent of DSL CPE device shipments in 2014. ZTE topped the broadband CPE shipments list in Q3 with a 13 percent market share, said ABI. Arris jumped to second place in the market share after acquiring from Google Motorola’s Home Division in April, and combined shipments of Arris and Motorola now represent 12 percent of the market compared to Huawei’s 11 percent market share, said ABI.
Raytheon completed the integration of its second Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which will fly on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) spacecraft from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The integrated sensor is now entering testing, on track for delivery in 2015,” Raytheon said in a press release (http://bit.ly/18G7RrK). The second VIIRS is scheduled to launch on board the JPSS-1 satellite mission in 2017, Raytheon said.
Almost 90 percent of participants in a Commtouch webinar said their organizations had an IP address appear on a blacklist during the past 12 months, said the Internet security technology provider. The Dec. 4 poll, conducted during the webinar, found that outbound spam was the most common reason an IP address ended up on a blacklist. Blacklisting can have a significant business impact, up to and including damage to a business’s reputation, Commtouch said. Nearly half of the respondents said their organization’s operations department was able to get an IP address removed from a blacklist through phone calls and emails, while another 38 percent said they “make it up as we go along.” Another 13 percent use automated processes to request removal from a blacklist, Commtouch said (http://bit.ly/1iZIvvO).
The Georgia Public Service Commission should reverse a $5 fee imposed on about 785,000 state residents on the federal Lifeline program in late October (CD Oct 18 p18), consumer advocacy groups urged the PSC in a joint statement Thursday (http://bit.ly/condemningGAPSC). Consumer Action, the Community Action Partnership, League of United Latin American Citizens, Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition, National Consumers League and National Grange urged the PSC to “reverse this punitive, anti-consumer fee.” The new fee “flies in the face of the goals” of the Lifeline program, which was created to ensure that “qualifying Americans have the opportunities and security that phone service brings,” said the groups. The federal Lifeline program doesn’t use funds from the states, and any possible savings “from squeezing low-income consumers out of the program” wouldn’t impact state-level taxpayers, it said. No other state charges its Lifeline consumers this fee, and the monthly fee “of this sort” was rejected by the FCC when it was considered, said the groups. There’s no factual basis or evidence that this kind of fee will result in reduced fraud or less abuse of the program, or that it will result in better sales practice conduct on behalf of the Lifeline providers, said the letter. It said the National Lifeline Accountability Database is going online in five states this month to help carriers identify and resolve duplicate claims for Lifeline-supported service, and Georgia will begin participating in the database in January. The coalition urged other states to not follow Georgia in “attacking the pocketbooks of low-income Americans in this misguided fashion.” The Georgia PSC didn’t respond to request for comment.