IEEE said it launched an IEEE 802.3 “Standard for Ethernet” study group to explore development of a 400 Gbps Ethernet standard to support “exponential” network bandwidth growth (http://bit.ly/10vMiSv). Citing more Internet users, more ways to access the Internet, higher bandwidth content and expanding applications, John D'Ambrosia, chair of the IEEE 802.3 400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group and chief Ethernet evangelist in Dell’s CTO office, said Tuesday it’s critical to create a plan for the evolution of the Ethernet to accommodate “the burgeoning bandwidth tsunami.” The launch of the study group follows two years of open efforts to tackle the market’s “emerging application” needs, D'Ambrosia said. According to an IEEE report on 802.3 bandwidth assessment, networks will need to support 58 percent compound annual growth rates on average. The rise in users, access methodologies, video on demand and social media will lead to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabits per second by 2020, based on current trends, he said. The Ethernet study group is scheduled to meet during the IEEE 802.1/802.3 joint interim meeting May 14-17 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (http://conta.cc/YQj6si).
The FBI must expedite the release of information about the controversial StingRay mobile phone tracking software, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled Thursday in Washington. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sued the FBI in April 2012, more than two months after it filed a FOIA request for information on government use of the software, claiming the FBI failed to respond to EPIC’s FOIA request within the established 20-day deadline, Kollar-Kotelly said in her ruling. The FBI issued the request to “relevant offices” on May 23, and by July 30, had gathered about 25,000 potentially relevant pages, she said. The agency claimed it needed to delay its response because an estimated 25 percent of those pages would “be subject to classification/declassification review,” Kollar-Kotelly said. The FBI failed to show that it is “deluged with [a] volume of requests ... vastly in excess of that anticipated by Congress,” she said. The agency will need to “produce all responsive, nonexempt records not subject to classification/declassification review” by Aug. 1, and must indicate by May 31 “how many pages are subject to classification/declassification review, and propose a deadline for completing production of those documents, as appropriate,” Kollar-Kotelly said (http://bit.ly/YGsXAX).
The FCC Public Safety Bureau approved various tweaks to its rules for 800 MHz rebanding along the U.S./Mexico border, in a 5th report and order on the subject approved and released by the bureau Monday. “Licensees along the U.S.-Mexico border will benefit from the post-rebanding channel plan because it accomplishes the Commission’s goal for 800 MHz band reconfiguration, i.e. resolving an ongoing interference problem by separating incompatible technologies,” the order said (http://bit.ly/14ACk9l). “Licensees also benefit because we harmonize the channel plan for Mexico border licensees with the channel plan used by licensees throughout the rest of the U.S."
CEA is asking that Charter Communications show proof of interoperability and share its downloadable security technology -- among several other conditions -- before the FCC grants the company a waiver of FCC rules requiring separation of cable set-top box security and navigation. The conditions, which also included a requirement for Charter to continue supporting CableCARDs technology alongside their own, were laid out in a letter from CEA attorney Robert Swartz to the FCC Friday, along with a concession that since Charter serves primarily rural areas, such a waiver wouldn’t necessarily represent an industry precedent that could be cited in future proceedings. However, Swartz said “CEA maintains its concern and position that any waiver granted to Charter, even though conditioned as above, would further move system development away from CableCARDs” with no obvious successor technology identified.
Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., said he will soon reintroduce legislation to clarify the legal rules that govern how companies use consumers’ geolocation data, said a news release Monday. Franken said “people have a fundamental right to privacy, and tracking a consumer’s location and movements without permission violates that right,” in the news release. Franken’s comments follow his recent inquiry into a California-based retail data collection firm, called Euclid, that he said tracks consumers’ locations via their cellphones. “Euclid’s use of opt-out location tracking … simply doesn’t meet the standard of privacy Americans should be able to count on,” he said. “I'm pleased that privacy is a priority for Euclid, but their continued use of opt-out technology underscores the need for Congressional action to protect consumer location privacy.” Last year the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Franken’s Location Privacy Protection Act (S-1223) but the measure failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote. The news release said Franken plans to reintroduce the bill “in the coming months.” The bill would require companies to get users’ consent before obtaining and sharing location information from their mobile devices as well as encourage law enforcement training and create criminal penalties for GPS stalking.
Acacia Research-owned Unified Messaging Solutions said Monday it settled pending patent litigation against Radio One, which agreed to a patent license. Unified Messaging Solutions had sued Radio One in federal courts in Illinois and New York (http://bit.ly/128DsNn). Radio One is “pleased with the result and pleased to have the matter behind us,” said Davis Wright Tremaine lawyer Eric Walters, outside counsel for Radio One.
The launch of the U.S. Air Force satellite WGS-5 is scheduled for May 8. The satellite will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Fla., ULA said in a news release (http://bit.ly/ZwPwEf). The launch vehicle and spacecraft are being processed in Florida, it said.
The FCC announced three new members and numerous re-appointments for its Consumer Advisory Committee Monday, which will hold its first meeting under its new charter on April 26, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the commission’s headquarters. The three new appointees -- Dr. Julian Goldman of Partners Healthcare, Robert Jarrin of Qualcomm Inc., and Douglas Trauner of Health Analytic Services -- will join 29 re-appointees and reappointed CAC chair Debra Berlyn of the National Consumers League in making recommendations on consumer protection to the commission. All appointments and reappointments are scheduled to serve until October 23, 2014, when the committee’s two-year charter ends.
New York may change how it treats telecom industry jobs and call centers. A new bill, S-4434, proposes creating a tax credit for telecom industry jobs and requires companies to give notice if they move call center jobs to another country. It also calls for the New York commissioner of labor to keep track of what employers are moving call center jobs. The bill was transferred to the New York Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee Monday.
The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the Vermont Public Service Board should revisit the question of interconnected VoIP classification and jurisdiction. The Vermont board had previously ruled that interconnected VoIP is a telecom service rather than information, a question still debated on the federal level, and argued that state regulation of VoIP isn’t preempted by federal law due to the ability to divide interstate and intrastate traffic. Comcast appealed the regulators’ decision. The court agreed with its appeal, which said the state regulators “erred in not addressing whether interconnected fixed VoIP is an information service or telecommunications service under federal law because, according to Comcast, VoIP is an information service and therefore any regulation is preempted by federal law,” according to the Friday ruling. The court remanded for further proceedings by the regulators on the question and declined to issue a judgment on the distinction itself. “We disagree with Comcast that the federal designation of VoIP as an information service would necessarily result in express preemption of all state regulation,” the court said of what it deemed the regulators’ unanswered question. “At a basic level, if VoIP is an information service then the result is that the regulations in Title II of the Telecom Act do not apply. … Information services are not wholly exempt from regulation, and state regulations are preempted only to the extent they conflict with federal law or policy.” Several state legislatures around the country have passed laws in recent years and introduced bills in 2013 to prevent state regulators from asserting authority over VoIP and Internet Protocol-enabled services (CD April 1 p7).