The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s report released Friday (CD July 23 p1) “fails to offer an actionable system capable of alleviating the spectrum shortage that has already begun to affect the 300 million Americas who rely on mobile handsets and smartphones today,” said Richard Bennett, a Information Technology and Innovation Foundation fellow. “PCAST has offered an intriguing set of solutions to the problem of increasing the supply of civilian spectrum without disrupting military systems, but in doing so it has answered the wrong question,” Bennett said in a written statement Monday. “The urgent issue for spectrum policy makers is how to manage the ever-growing Federal appetite for spectrum without slowing economic growth and impairing the wireless services that consumers have embraced. While the PCAST report offers suggestions for better managing Federal spectrum, the question will need to be addressed in full elsewhere.” But Michael Calabrese, director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project, found more to like in the report. Calabrese said he participated in preparing the report as an invited expert. “We strongly endorse the PCAST recommendation that the administration move immediately to create a spectrum superhighway by opening 1,000 megahertz of prime federal spectrum for shared use by the private sector,” he said. “While there is a looming limit to the amount of spectrum the military and other agencies can vacate for more auctions, the PCAST wisely looks ahead to the much greater opportunity to share vast amounts of underutilized spectrum while protecting primary federal operations from interference. The technology is available now for widespread federal band sharing thanks in large part to the FCC’s implementation of the geolocation databases that allows shared use of vacant TV channels without harming TV reception. The PCAST is correct that we need to extend that governance system for shared spectrum, beginning this year with the lightly-used 3550-3650 MHz radar bands."
Intelsat’s Epic platform was selected by Harris CapRock to provide advanced fixed and mobile services. Harris CapRock will use the platform “to expand its service offerings and offer new applications to its global customers across the energy, maritime and government markets,” Intelsat said. Capacity will be available on the Intelsat 29e satellite, it said. The agreement enables the provision of more than one gigabit of throughput on the platform, Intelsat said.
News Corp. released Amplify, a K-12 educational digital product and service provider offered in partnership with AT&T, the media company said Monday (http://xrl.us/bnhwiu). Amplify will provide education analysis, digital curriculum and a tablet-based educational resource access platform for parents, students and teachers, News Corp. said. Amplify and AT&T will begin to release products and services in U.S. schools through pilot programs during the 2012-2013 school year, News Corp. said.
The European Commission wants input on how to keep the Internet open and neutral, it said Monday. Its consultation (http://xrl.us/bnhv2m) seeks feedback on several issues that have emerged as key during the net neutrality debate, it said. These include: (1) Internet traffic management, including congestion management, managed speeds and privacy. (2) Transparency about actual Internet speed and quality and restrictions on Internet access products. (3) The possibility for consumers to switch providers. (4) Internet interconnection issues between network operators. Comments are due Oct. 15. Responses will feed into a planned EC recommendation, it said. The EC also began a consultation (http://xrl.us/bnhv3i) on possible responses to cyberincidents that disrupt essential network and information systems, including the Internet. The inquiry will help the EC draft legislation on network and information security, which will be an important element of an upcoming EU cybersecurity strategy, it said. The measure under consideration would require organizations to adopt risk management practices and report security breaches affecting networks and information systems critical to the provision of major economic and societal services such as finance, energy, transport and health, the EC said. The only companies now required to take those actions are those in the e-communications sector, it said. Comments are due Oct. 12.
Privacy International will sue the U.K. government if it doesn’t curb exports of surveillance technology to repressive regimes, the group said Monday. It asked the secretary of state for business, innovation and skills why, despite repeated requests, the government hasn’t taken concrete steps to stop technologies that allow dictators to enter people’s mobile phones and computers, commandeer cameras and microphones for surveillance, and monitor email, Skype and voice activity. Text messages and call records retrieved that way have been presented to victims during torturous interrogations, PI said. The use of British technologies by despots in the developing world has been “common knowledge since April 2011,” when The Guardian reported that Egyptian dissidents had found a proposal from a U.K. company in the ransacked headquarters of former President Hosni Mubarak’s secret police service, it said. The product pitched was the FinFisher suite, a range of malicious software that infects computers or mobile devices using a fake update from what seems to be a legitimate source such as Adobe Flash or iTunes, it said. Under the Export Control Act 2002, the government has the power to restrict exports of goods or technical assistance capable of facilitating internal repression or human rights breaches, it said. PI gave officials 21 days to respond, but said if they fail to act by that deadline, it will seek judicial review and possibly an urgent injunction to stop British companies from maintaining or updating systems already sold to despotic regimes, or from making any new exports. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said it’s reviewing the letter and will consider its response. It declined to comment further because the matter may be subject to legal action.
State universal service funds vary in considerable ways, concluded the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI) in a new report on the topic released online Friday. NRRI submitted 10 questions to the states in a survey and heard back from 49 states as well as the District of Columbia to help in “understanding the design of the state funds and the level of funding,” which NRRI calls in its report “particularly critical” (http://xrl.us/bnhtrk). Underscored results from the NRRI report include the statistics that 43 states and the district possess “a combination of various universal service funds, including high-cost, Lifeline, schools and libraries, and other types of funds”; 21 states devote funds specifically for high-cost support; 31 states have funds for relay service; four devote funds specifically to broadband; and six states (Alabama, Delaware, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey and Tennessee) “do not have any form of funds to support telecommunications service.” The report also breaks down other elements, such as when VoIP providers contribute to state USF funds -- three states accept voluntary VoIP contributions, 10 states require contributions from all VoIP providers and 11 require contributions from only interconnected VoIP providers. NRRI recommends tailoring each state’s approach to its nature. “Each state fund must be designed individually to meet the specific needs of both the state’s constituents and its carriers,” NRRI wrote in its conclusion. “States with largely rural populations may generally design their funds to include high-cost support for carriers providing service in difficult to reach or widely dispersed areas. States with more urban populations may not need high-cost funds, and may concentrate their efforts on supporting specific goals such as broadband deployment or Lifeline services."
Chinese TV maker Chengdu Geeya Technology Co. bought U.K. manufacturer Harvard International and its Goodmans brand name, after nine months of talks. Harvard had previously sold its Bush and Alba brands to Home Retail, which runs the U.K.’s Argos store chain, and relinquished its half share of the Grundig brand to Beko of Turkey. Harvard also markets the iLuv range of accessories. In September, Harvard, which will operate as Chengdu Geeya’s British subsidiary, will start a new brand, “View21.” The flagship will be an Internet-capable HD DVR set-top that will conform to the U.K.’s Freeview+ HD standard for free-to-air HD recording, but eschews the recently unveiled YouView IPTV system for seamlessly blending backward-facing broadband catch-up TV with forward-facing live TV received terrestrially (CD July 5 p13). Harvard Chief Technology Officer Martin Wilks said he regards YouView as View21’s “main competitor,” but if the basic Freeview standard is “enhanced” to allow for backward- and forward-facing electronic program guide listings, the View21 box can be easily upgraded. “The buzz is that Freeview will shortly announce an enhanced EPG, probably for next spring,” Wilks said. “But we have not yet decided whether or not we will do that. We want to differentiate in other ways, such as ease-of-use apps that really make sense in a set-top box and second-screen options.” Prototype View21 boxes shown at a London media briefing last week come with BBC iPlayer catch-up TV, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter apps, but these offerings will expand for launch, the company said. Second-screen apps let iPads and iPhones and Android tablets and smartphones function as a View21 remote control, and stream live and recorded programs between the box and the screen of the mobile device. There are no plans for View21 to support Windows Phone, Wilks said: “When you have iPhone and Android, you're done.” The View21 box has no native Wi-Fi but connects via Ethernet cable to a home Wi-Fi router, which then connects by Wi-Fi to the portable, the company said. So a box in one room can serve as a second-screen portable elsewhere in the home, with the portable displaying the box’s electronic program guide and its library of recordings, it said. Unlike Sony’s new Google TV box, which has a remote control with cursor control touch pad on one side and mini Qwerty keyboard on the other, the View21 remote control has only a standard numeric keypad. Text entry for the View21 will need to rely on using an iPad remote or displaying a soft keyboard on the TV screen, the company said.
Correction: FCC Chief Technology Officer Henning Schulzrinne said any data collected by ISPs in a commission broadband speed test would be made public, not OET’s Walter Johnston, to whom the comments were erroneously attributed (CD July 20 p1).
NBC Sports will broadcast 242 hours of the London Olympics in 3D under a sponsorship deal with Panasonic, reaching 80 percent of the 114 million U.S. TV households, Panasonic North America Chief Technology Officer Eisuke Tsuyuzaki told us Friday. There are about 10 million 3D TVs installed in U.S. households, he said. The daily 3D programming, to be shown on a 24-hour delay, will be carried by 15 cable and satellite operators, including AT&T, Cablevision, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Notable exceptions include Dish Network and Charter Communications. Dish and Charter officials weren’t available for comment. “We have made it available to anyone that wants to carry it, and it is not a 3D-specific issue from what I understand,” Tsuyuzaki said. The 3D programming is being delivered on a 24-hour delay in the U.S., largely because of time zone differences and NBC’s primetime schedule for the Olympics, Tsuyuzaki said. NBC will provide 12 hours of U.S.-oriented 3D programming daily introduced by Bob Costas through the end of the Olympics on Aug. 12. The U.S. programming will feature Olympic highlights. Among events to be in 3D are the July 27 opening and closing ceremonies, men’s and women’s gymnastics, diving and swimming, cycling from the velodrome and track and field, Panasonic said. The 10 million 3D TVs installed in U.S. households is a “sizable number” and “you have to give people a reason to use them,” which the Olympics represents, Tsuyuzaki said.
A federal appeals court should deny the NAB’s motion to stay implementation of the FCC’s online political file rules, the FCC and several public interest groups said in court filings Friday. The rules are to become effective Aug. 2. “NAB is wholly unable to satisfy the stringent standards for obtaining a stay,” the FCC said. “It cannot demonstrate that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims, that it will suffer irreparable injury, or that the public interest supports a stay,” it said. In fact, grant of a stay would harm other parties, as well as the public interest, it said. They would “be deprived of the substantial benefits of online access to information that until now has been available only in paper form during business hours at the station’s main studio.” Free Press, the Benton Foundation, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, the New America Foundation and the United Church of Christ also asked the court to deny NAB’s stay request.