Sorenson began rolling out a change in its Telecommunications Relay Services that it says will prevent unregistered softphones from dialing 911, the company told the FCC Monday (http://bit.ly/1jJ2g8C). A softphone is computer software that allows VoIP calls. The ability to dial 911 will be activated as soon as the user registers the softphone, Sorenson said.
The FCC cap on inmate calling service rates, intended to make it easier for prisoners to stay in contact with families, will likely lead to the elimination of phone privileges in a North Carolina jail, Forsyth County Sheriff William Schatzman told the commission Monday (http://bit.ly/1dmazCF). The new rules make “no provision for local detention facilities to recover inherent costs associated with providing inmate calling services,” such as monitoring calls for security purposes or blocking numbers for “citizen safety concerns,” he said. “Our detention facility must be allowed to recover our costs for this service or there may soon come a time where we are no longer able to provide any inmate calling service here."
Tribune Broadcasting requested a license for a Ku-band transportable transmit-only earth station. The facilities will be uesd to provide news and event coverage “via digital video and audio carriers to WTIC-TV, Hartford, Conn., and WCCT-TV, Waterbury, Conn.,” it said in an application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/1iTnpiv). WXMI Grand Rapids, Mich., also applied for a Ku-band transmit-only earth station (http://bit.ly/1e3njCM).
CEA hailed the Federal Spectrum Incentive Act (HR-3674) as “an innovative approach to federal spectrum management and reallocation.” The bill, introduced Monday (CD Dec 10 p3), would give government agencies financial incentives to give up or share their spectrum. It would create a federal spectrum incentive auction fund, which would allow some agencies to get auction revenue from the spectrum they have given up and potentially use those funds to offset sequestration losses. “Effective and efficient use of spectrum, both commercial and federal, is vital to ensuring that our nation has enough supply to keep up with demand,” said Veronica O'Connell, CEA vice president-congressional affairs, in a Tuesday statement. “By providing the right mix of incentives, we hope it will encourage federal users to seriously consider terminating or sharing existing spectrum assignments.” CEA hopes the bill will have “strong bipartisan support” during its Wednesday markup and urges “quick consideration” by the full House, O'Connell said.
Data stored in cloud services need stronger protection against government surveillance, the European Parliament said in a nonbinding resolution approved Tuesday. The adopted text wasn’t available at our deadline. The resolution stressed that EU rules apply to all cloud computing services operating in the EU, even if a client in a third country directs otherwise, Parliament said in a news release. Lawmakers acknowledged that the cloud opens opportunities for new jobs, lower costs and less red tape, but said the EU needs safeguards to counteract foreign laws that might lead to massive, illegal transfers of their data, it said. Members asked the European Commission to ensure that consumers get better information about cloud services, saying that users of services that fall under non-EU law should be given “clear and distinguishable warnings” that foreign intelligence agencies may survey their personal data. Parliament members (MEPs) also asked the EC to make sure that consumer devices don’t make use of cloud services by default and aren’t restricted to specific cloud providers. They also want a minimum level of consumer rights relating to privacy, data storage in non-EU countries and liability for data losses. While the market should be open to all law-abiding providers, the more server farms there are in Europe, the better for European companies and the more sovereignty the EU has over those servers, MEPs said. BSA/The Software Alliance said it has “mixed views” on the resolution. While lawmakers recognized the significant potential of cloud computing, they approved “worrying and contradictory proposals that could undermine Europe’s participation in the global cloud network,” it said. Saddling European services with market-specific rules relating to procurement, standards and content stored in the cloud must be considered in a global context or they'll limit the economies of scale cloud computing is designed to deliver, said Government Relations Director-Europe, Middle East and Africa Thomas Boué.
January’s FCC item on IP transition trials will be “essentially a procedural order” that says the commission sees “value” in moving forward with trials, said Patrick Halley, acting director of the agency’s Office of Legislative Affairs, at a Technological Advisory Committee meeting Monday. Chairman Tom Wheeler has made clear that in his view, “these are not technical trials,” Halley said: The agency and companies involved understand the technical issues. They are also not “legal trials,” Halley said: These are “end-user impact trials” to ensure important values are maintained. The agency will seek comment on details of the trials, likely with an initial deadline, but also likely with “multiple proposals” for comments to be accepted on a rolling basis, Halley said. The record is “full” on issues like IP interconnection, last-mile issues and issues of copper retirement, with multiple dockets and pleadings in the record, he said. So what Wheeler is looking for is a “framework around which we will decide all these issues, but not within the context of a trial,” Halley said. “We are open to any sort of trial proposals that make sense to help us make this transition happen as smoothly as possible.”
A satellite jointly owned by China and Brazil was lost after it was launched Monday on a Chinese rocket. CBERS-3 was intended to help generate images in Brazil of agricultural zoning, natural disaster monitoring and other applications, said Brazil’s space agency in a news release (http://bit.ly/1d5t6T9). The launch vehicle, Long March 4B, malfunctioned, and the satellite wasn’t placed into orbit, it said. “Preliminary evaluations suggest that the CBERS-3 has returned to the planet.” The causes of the problem are being evaluated by Chinese engineers, the agency said.
The Anti-Spoofing Act proposes amending the Communications Act to “expand and clarify the prohibition on provision of inaccurate caller identification information,” according to its text. Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., introduced HR-3670 last week, and it was referred to the House Commerce Committee. She has two House Commerce co-sponsors: Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Leonard Lance, R-N.J. Meng is not a member of House Commerce.
More than 1.7 billion devices that can access over-the-top (OTT) content such as Netflix or Hulu will ship by the end of 2013, a 20 percent increase over 2012, said IHS in a press release Monday (http://bit.ly/1bSbjCz). The 1.7 billion OTT devices is “enough OTT systems to accommodate almost one out of every four people on the planet,” said IHS. But the market is projected to grow another 20 percent next year, reaching 2.67 billion by 2017, it said. Most OTT devices are either PCs or smartphones, accounting together for 836 million of 2012’s 1.43 billion OTT boxes, IHS said. Around 480 million non-PC, non-smartphone devices will ship in 2013, a 30 percent increase over 2012, the release said. Handheld game platforms are the only OTT device not growing in sales, IHS said. “Like other single-tasking systems, the space is under attack from more broadly based general-purpose equipment, primarily smartphones and tablets,” said IHS. Digital media adapters are suffering from the same affliction, it said, and make up less than 1 percent of the total OTT market in 2013. However, as the market grows, OTT devices might face technical challenges, IHS said. New media coding standards have stiffer computational requirements than previous ones, and strain mobile devices’ battery power. “Such challenges present rich opportunities for semiconductor suppliers as new standards and technologies continue to expand the market,” it said.
Dish Network urged the FCC to prohibit coordinated negotiations among non-commonly owned stations, adopt a carriage dispute resolution mechanism and permit interim carriage to avoid blackouts during impasses. The commission has “broad statutory authority to implement such reforms to protect consumers and better reflect market conditions,” it said in an ex parte filing in dockets 13-225, 13-185 and 10-71 (http://bit.ly/1bSaLMU). Dish also supported auctions of 600 MHz spectrum and AWS-3 spectrum, it said. Consumers benefit from a competitive wireless landscape, and in order to preserve those benefits, “the commission must ensure that the two dominant wireless incumbents are not permitted to lock competitive carriers out of acquiring low-band spectrum,” it said.