Chairman Charlie Ergen and other Dish Network executives urged the FCC to allow terrestrial use of mobile satellite services spectrum in the 2 GHz band, and said an upward migration of the 2000-2020 MHz band is unnecessary and not in the public interest. Modifying Dish’s licenses “is the fastest possible way to get additional spectrum deployed for consumer use,” the company said in a filing (http://xrl.us/bndoxf). It pertained to two meetings last week between the Dish executives and Chairman Julius Genachowski, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and other FCC staff. A 5 MHz move of the 2000-2020 MHz band “could present interference problems for the S-band uplink from users of the 2025-2110 MHz band,” Dish said: It also would prevent the company from using all 20 MHz of satellite uplink spectrum “because the satellites cannot receive transmissions above 2020 MHz.” Docket 12-70, where the filing was posted, is about proposed rules around allowing Dish to build a terrestrial service in the 2 GHz band.
Colorado will receive telecom relay services from AT&T, the company said Friday. AT&T’s services to Colorado include text telephone and captioned telephone services for those with disabilities. AT&T has provided relay service for about 25 years, the company said. The service changed hands to AT&T formally on July 1, said the Relay Colorado website (http://xrl.us/bndowc).
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., termed a “wise decision” the Department of Commerce’s move to locate a Patent and Trademark Office satellite location in Silicon Valley. “With Stanford and other top research universities, a highly skilled workforce, and a sizable share of the nation’s patents, it’s critical to have a patent office in Silicon Valley,” she said in a written statement.
ITU and its cybersecurity partner, the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT), are organizing the first UN-backed cross border cybersecurity drill “designed to test the Arab region’s cyber response capabilities and improve readiness and reaction in the event of a theoretical future cyber attack,” the ITU said (http://xrl.us/bndoji). The drill will be part of an ITU-IMPACT Arab region cybersecurity workshop in Amman, Jordan, on July 15-17, hosted by Jordan’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. More than 10 Arab states will participate in the workshop, which will address topics such as botnets, child online protection and mobile security, ITU said. “Cybersecurity has become a global priority, and no nation, no matter how technologically advanced, can isolate itself from today’s increasingly sophisticated threats,” said ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré. “With 143 countries now part of the ITU-IMPACT coalition and with strong backing from global industry giants and leading partners from academia, I am pleased to note that ITU-IMPACT is now the largest cybersecurity alliance of its kind in the world.” Stressing the importance of a global approach to cyberthreats, IMPACT Chairman Datuk Mohd Noor Amin said the “increasing complexities of cyber attacks and the constantly evolving threat landscape make it imperative that any endeavour towards mitigating those risks is continuously carried out and supported.” The workshop aims to give participants “expert professional knowledge of cyber incident response and handling, network and web security, malware analysis and the steps needed to establish effective national Computer Incident Response Teams (CIRTs),” ITU said: Participants will also be exposed to “various cybersecurity scenarios based on case studies and practical work."
Laura Phillips assumed the presidency of the FCBA. The partner and chairman of Drinker Biddle’s government and regulatory affairs practice group has been co-chair of the Wireless Telecommunications Practice Committee, her law firm said. During her year-long term, she hopes to achieve “vibrant programming and opportunities to network and socialize, and give back to the community” through continued legal education and a scholarship program, she told us.
Communications Daily won’t be published Wednesday, July 4, because of the federal Independence Day holiday. Our next issue will be Thursday, July 5.
Google’s search and ad tools helped provide $80 billion of economic activity for 1.8 million U.S. advertisers, website publishers and nonprofits, said the company’s 2011 economic impact report (http://xrl.us/bndn9v). The report provides a state-by-state breakdown of the company’s economic impact on businesses and consumers. One example is King Arthur Flour, a New England baking company that dates back to George Washington’s presidency, but which recently used the Web to grow into an internationally-renowned baking business, said Margo Georgiadis, Google vice president of Americas sales, in a blog post (http://xrl.us/bndoad). Ninety-seven percent of Americans are going online to find local goods and services using their computers and mobile devices, she said. “The growth of our Internet use has naturally helped the ecommerce industry to expand rapidly over the past decade,” Georgiadis said. “But the web is also positively impacting brick-and-mortar businesses.” The Boston Consulting Group found that American consumers who researched products online last year spent about $2,000 each purchasing those products offline, she said. “That’s almost $500 billion that went directly to main street retail.” Google officials have been traveling the country over the past year “with our Get Your Business Online program, encouraging businesses throughout the U.S. to create free websites and reach more customers,” Georgiadis said. The Web has both positively and negatively impacted brick-and-mortar retailers, said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. He wasn’t involved in Google’s report, and reviewed it at our request. On the plus side, the Internet helps offline retailers advertise more effectively and has made consumers more aware of products they may want to buy, he said. On the negative side, offline retailers are struggling with “showrooming,” where consumers use offline retailers to discover and compare products, but then transact online with a cheaper online-only retailer. Even if it’s true that offline retailers generate half-a-trillion dollars from product purchases that were aided by online searches, “only a small fraction of that can be attributed to new incremental sales that occurred solely because of the consumers’ online research,” he said. “It doesn’t reflect the offsetting lost revenue from showrooming and other ways that online retailers have pulled in revenue that used to go to offline retailers.”
Spare California’s SB-1161 any criticism laced with “fear mongering and political posturing,” said the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project (CLIP) in a Monday blog post (http://xrl.us/bndn9z). The bill proposes forbidding the California Public Utilities Commission to regulate VoIP service until 2020 except in cases where a state statute permits it and is currently expected to remain in the Assembly Appropriations Committee until early August. The legislation would “provide California’s high tech industry with the certainty it needs to invest in the next generation of innovative Internet products and services,” said CLIP, which accused the bill’s various consumer-advocate critics (CD June 25 p6) of “misguided assumption that it would eliminate consumer protections for telephone services.” The organization fears regulatory “balkanization” if individual states develop rules for VoIP, which it says would hurt the “economic growth, individual empowerment, and entrepreneurialism” that’s grown up around services like VoIP. CLIP is a project within the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says it embraces the principles of “limited government, free enterprise and individual liberty."
GlobeCast launched a new IPTV platform, which delivers 16 premium Romanian-language channels to U.S. viewers. MyGlobeTV is a full end-to-end solution with a set-top box that connects to the viewer’s existing broadband connection, GlobeCast said. GlobeCast said it plans to add “communities of channels targeted to different audience segments.” This year, the company also plans to launch an application version “allowing viewers to access the service from any Internet-enabled device,” it said.
The jurisdictions granted early access to the 700 MHz spectrum before FirstNet has been rolled out should be treated carefully, Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI) said in a Friday FCC filing (http://xrl.us/bndn3z) about a meeting last week. The agency should “(i) provide some degree of certainty for an STA [special temporary authority] recipient; (ii) ensure interoperability with the national public safety broadband network; and (iii) preserve flexibility for the Commission after FirstNet is operational,” MSI said. The company encouraged forethought because these early jurisdictions have “invested considerable resources” in building their 700 MHz networks, the MSI representatives said. They said the jurisdictions should have “reasonable expectation that they will be able make full use of the spectrum necessary to operate their networks, at least until FirstNet is operational and able to make decisions on how best to integrate the early deployment networks.” The commission should consider forgoing its current policy of granting 700 MHz spectrum permission with a 180-day limit and instead grant two-year leases or perhaps allow for an easy 180-day extension on its current 180-day leases, MSI said.