Progeny has seen growing support for its E-911 location service following the release of indoor location accuracy tests by Working Group 3 of the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council, Progeny CEO Gary Parsons said during a meeting with Renee Gregory, aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Parsons also discussed tests by users of Part 15 devices, said an ex parte filing on the meeting. “Progeny observed that major participants in the wireless communications industry, including wireless carriers, GPS chipset manufacturers, and handset manufacturers, have also noted Progeny’s positive results in the CSRIC and Part 15 test processes,” the filing said (http://bit.ly/10KjIOB). “Several of these wireless industry leaders have expressed their intent to include Progeny’s software in the specifications for their next generation of wireless devices, making Progeny’s location service widely available to consumers. These same wireless industry participants, however, have expressed the need for regulatory certainty regarding Progeny’s ability to provide commercial service before they are willing to commit to Progeny’s service and incorporate Progeny’s technology into their upcoming chips and equipment specifications."
Registration for NARUC’s next meeting starts April 15 (http://bit.ly/XBCACQ). It takes place in Denver, July 21-24. The preliminary agenda lists panel discussions on cybersecurity and the country’s progress with the National Broadband Plan.
The Internet Society’s Colorado Chapter and the Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force said they'll hold their events together this month in an effort to raise the profile of the transition to IPv6. INET Denver and the 2013 North American IPv6 Summit will be together on April 17, they said. A live stream of INET’s programming will be available at http://bit.ly/14V3QhK.
The federal government faces some crucial questions regarding its competition policies, with great economic consequences, said a report from S.M. Gately Consulting released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/10KgpHs). The Broadband Coalition, which sponsored the report, celebrated the report and cautioned against the direction of certain legacy providers. “Do we return to a policy of disconnection?” asked coalition spokesman Chip Pickering, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi, during a Tuesday discussion of the report in Washington. AT&T’s November petition on how to transition to Internet Protocol-based service amounts to the “same song, different verse” of what the telco has proposed for the last 100 years, he said. He welcomes AT&T’s entry to the IP world but not an end to interconnection policies crucial to competition, he said. Susan Gately, the report’s author, described how telecom competition, investment and jobs growth spiked in the ‘90s and has fluctuated over the last 10 years. The report focuses on wholesale business broadband and paints two scenarios that could result from wholesale conditions -- one that stimulates the hiring of 650,000 telecom sector workers over the next half-decade as well as $184 billion in private funding for these telecom networks and the other costing the telecom sector 300,000 jobs and reducing investment by $30 billion. The report identifies possible worsening wholesale conditions as a failure to recognize and adapt to evidence of legacy provider market power in the provision of packetized, IP-based last-mile services. “The results are just stark,” Gately told us. Gately and Pickering cautioned against retiring copper due to how many companies are still able to use it. Pickering emphasized the importance that U.S. regulation be technology neutral. The report will provide valuable data and historical context to members of Congress on the benefits of promoting broadband competition, Pickering said.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology said Tuesday ID codes of five characters instead of three will be issued by the FCC starting in May, as part of its equipment authorization process. The FCC authorized the longer codes last year (CD June 14 p5). The change reflects the growing number of wireless devices submitted for approval each year to the FCC, officials said then. OET imposed a three-character restriction on authorization codes in 1979. “On May 1, 2013, the Office of Engineering and Technology will begin issuing five-character grantee codes,” OET said (http://bit.ly/Z6uvV0). “The five-character codes will consist of an Arabic numeral between two and nine followed by four alphanumeric characters (capital letters or Arabic numerals between two and nine). Thus, the FCC ID for products with a five-character grantee code may be up to nineteen characters long if the grantee chooses to use fourteen characters for its product code.”
Clear Channel and Wind-up Records said they reached an agreement that will give the record label a share of Clear Channel’s digital and broadcast revenue. Clear Channel has agreed to similar deals with other labels in recent months including Big Machine, Glassnote Entertainment Group and others. “We believe growing digital radio is critical to artist development and are excited to be aligned with Clear Channel in its digital radio strategy,” said Edward Vetri, CEO of Wind-up Records.
The Australian government launched its first space policy. The policy “will ensure that Australians can continue to access the satellite capacity we need through partnerships with other countries and commercial suppliers,” the country’s industry and innovation ministry said Tuesday in a press release (http://bit.ly/11NAkbd). Principles include supporting rules-based international access to space, improving domestic coordination and strengthening and increasing international cooperation, the policy said (http://bit.ly/YHDdcY). Relationships with key allies including the U.S., the U.K. and Japan are a priority, it said. The government will facilitate academic, inter-government and industry exchanges with international partners “to better allow Australian citizens to work in difficult-to-access overseas job markets for space capabilities, including in the U.S., Canada and the European Union,” it said.
SES and SkyStream renewed a multi-year deal to expand very small aperture terminal networks in the Middle East. The contract includes using capacity on SES’s NSS-6 satellite at 95 degrees east “to provide reliable connectivity to its maritime, and oil and gas customers via secure VSAT networks,” SES said in a news release (http://bit.ly/ZjItPr). SkyStream will use the Ku-band capacity to deliver corporate virtual private network services across Iraq, Afghanistan and other key countries, it said.
The FCC Media Bureau rescinded an application granted last year to GB Enterprises Communications for an involuntary assignment of license of WHNR(AM), Cypress Gardens, Fla. La Poderosa in Winter Haven, Fla., sought reconsideration of the grant of assignment to George Reed based on a June 2012 court order, the bureau said in an order (http://bit.ly/10Qzuc6). The petitioners assert that the court order “clarifies the emergency grant by unambiguously authorizing Reed to seize and sell only the stock of GB, not the station license,” it said. The petitioners said the emergency grant was vague as to the extent of Reed’s authority, which logically extended only to the assignor’s personal assets, “not to the WHNR(AM) license, held directly by GB,” it said. The bureau admonished Reed “for his failure to file a copy of the June 12 Court Order,” it said.
The FCC directed cable operators to respond to a cable pricing survey on rates for basic service, cable programming service and equipment used to receive those services. The cable operators selected for the sample must complete and file the questionnaire by May 31, the Media Bureau said in an order (http://bit.ly/XBj8X9). The commission is requesting the information as part of a mandate of the Cable Act requiring it to compare the average rates of cable operators “found to be subject to effective competition with those of operators not subject to effective competition,” it said. The survey requests information including the monthly charge for equipment and the number of subscribers, it said. It also asks questions about the monthly charge for basic service and expanded basic service as of Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013, it said.