The U.S. and European Union will conduct the second round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks Nov. 11-15 in Brussels, said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in a Monday news release. Negotiations will cover regulatory and other issues, the USTR said. The following round of negotiations will be held Dec. 16-20 in Washington, USTR added. The administration canceled the last round of TTIP negotiations, slated for October, due to the partial government shutdown. Industry leaders pressed for comprehensive tariff elimination in a final TTIP pact, during an Oct. 30 Senate Finance Committee hearing (CD Nov 1 p9).
The FCC’s field test of a study to determine whether critical information needs (CIN) are being met will take place in Columbia, S.C., the Office of Communications Business Opportunities (OCBO) said in a public notice Monday (http://bit.ly/1b7uKBH). Columbia was chosen “because it is a medium-sized market that is racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse,” said the OCBO. “Ease of travel for data collection, as well as having a nearby school of communications/journalism, also made it a model site.” The field test is designed to vet the study for future use nationwide, and will mirror the model mentioned in the May public notice on the CIN study, the FCC told us last week (CD Oct 25 p6). To assess whether the government needs to take action to ensure that information needs are being met for all “it is necessary to understand how the public acquires critical information, how the media ecosystem operates to provide this information, and what barriers exist to participation,” said the OCBO. The field test is expected to be completed “no later than July 2014,” said the public notice.
The Wireless Tax Fairness Act (HR-2309, S-1235) “would freeze government’s ability to squeeze extra dollars out of middle-class families through outrageous wireless taxes,” said Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity Senior Vice President Erik Telford Monday. In a U.S. News & World Report op-ed (http://bit.ly/1gnpiBT), he said wireless taxation at the state and local level has become an “over-milked cash cow for short-sighted legislators.” The bill would stop state and local governments from charging wireless service taxes for five years. CTIA has been a major supporter of the act, while state and local advocates have defended municipalities’ ability to impose the taxes. Lawmakers reintroduced the proposed legislation in the House and Senate this summer.
Public-private partnerships are key to closing the digital divide with a targeted approach with different kinds of programs, said municipal telecom lawyer Lori Sherwood of Kissinger & Fellman, on a NATOA webinar Monday. Libraries are partners to provide adoption and access resources, said Larra Clark, American Library Association director-program on networks. Libraries provide a “triple play” of access, with physical locations with Internet infrastructure, staffed by information professionals and robust and diverse electronic content, said Clark. “Increasing community partnerships with libraries will help communities leverage the limited public resources we have.” Boston residents have several barriers to adoption that will keep them from using the Internet, said Debra Socia, Tech Goes Home executive director. The Boston-based nonprofit provides 15 hours of relevancy training to enable community residents to train others, said Socia. Boston residents can also find low-cost choices to connect to the Internet through the Connect2Compete portal such as Comcast Internet Essentials and Freedom Pop, she said. Over the past three years, 10,000 Boston residents have participated in the program, and Tech Goes Home has partnered with other community institutions to connect 10,000 residents to the Internet over the next year, said Socia. “With peer-to-peer engagement, we can establish a level of trust, because the trainers are people that they know.” Austin, Texas, has also established programs to get residents to connect to the Internet, said John Spiers, city program coordinator. The city has a $200,000 grant program for technology opportunities that provides a one-to-one matching opportunity, said Spiers. The program has funded about $2 million in projects in Austin, he said. With Google Fiber coming to Austin, there are more opportunities in the city for competition, said Spiers. “We support competition, especially when the price point is lowered,” he said. “It will best serve the general public, and it will provide the best result -- more access.”
The market for fingerprint-enabled smartphones will grow significantly in the coming years, IHS predicted Monday. The technology is featured in Apple’s new iPhone 5s and that’s “inspiring a wave of imitators,” said the research company. A total of 525 million smartphones with integrated fingerprint sensors will ship in 2017, up from 45.7 million this year and 4.5 million in 2012, it predicted. Fingerprint scanning for security, authentication and other purposes has “always been a conceptually attractive solution” in smartphones, said IHS analyst Marwan Boustany in a news release. But “cost, size, performance and reliability issues have prevented fingerprint sensors from attaining widespread adoption,” he said. Apple overcame those challenges in the iPhone 5s and Apple’s fingerprint sensor solution “delivers seamless functionality,” he said. Fingerprint sensors were used in handsets as far back as 2000, first in a cellphone sold by Sagem, said IHS. Other cellphone brands that offered fingerprint sensors included Fujitsu, Pantech, LG and Motorola, said IHS. New fingerprint-enabled cellphones include HTC’s One Max, the Konka k5 Van Gogh and Pantech Vega Secret Note, said IHS. IHS expects Samsung will roll out fingerprint-enabled smartphones in 2014, the research company said.
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., and Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., urged the Senate Friday to pass a companion to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (http://1.usa.gov/HCM76q). The House passed CISPA in April (CD April 19 p6). “We cannot afford to wait any longer to shore up our defenses against cyber attacks,” Ruppersberger said in a news release. Israel said in a news release that Senate passage of a CISPA companion will ensure “we are as best protected as possible."
Amplify, focused on improving teacher and student performance, joined TechAmerica, said the association in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1ecu6t7).
The Senate Privacy Subcommittee plans a hearing on the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, it said in a notice Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1ff8LwH). The hearing will be Nov. 13 at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., introduced the legislation and will preside over the hearing. The bill would call for the government to report annually on the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders issued under the authorities of the Patriot Act and FISA, the general categories of information collected, the number of Americans and permanent U.S. residents whose information fell into those categories and was actually reviewed by federal agents and how many searches were run on that data. That’s what Franken’s office said when re-introducing the legislation last week with Dean Heller, R-Nev. (CD Oct 31 p9). Companies would also be able to disclose the number of orders received and complied with, the categories of information they produced and the number of users whose information was produced in these categories.
Barry Boniface, a partner with MSouth Equity Partners and former carrier executive, Monday was appointed as a member of the 15-member FirstNet Board by Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. “With more than two decades of business and management experience in the telecom industry, I believe Barry Boniface will be a great addition to FirstNet,” Pritzker said. Appointed to a three-year term, he replaces retired telecom executive William Keever, who served a one-year term and did not want to be reappointed. Also Monday, Stuart Kupinsky, former general counsel at network solutions provider Tekelec, joined FirsNet as chief counsel.
The planned purchase of BlackBerry by a consortium led by top shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings was dropped and the struggling device maker is instead receiving a $1 billion investment, BlackBerry said Monday. Fairfax and other institutional investors will invest in BlackBerry via a $1 billion private placement of convertible debentures, said BlackBerry in a news release. The transaction is expected to be completed within the next two weeks, it said. Under the previously announced $4.7 billion purchase plan, BlackBerry shareholders would have received $9 a share in cash from the consortium, which would have then taken BlackBerry private. A consortium including Qualcomm was planning to make an alternative bid for BlackBerry, according to published reports prior to BlackBerry’s Monday announcement. BlackBerry and Qualcomm declined to comment. After the closing of the $1 billion investment, Thorsten Heins will step down as BlackBerry CEO, and he and David Kerr will resign from its board, said BlackBerry. John Chen will become executive chairman of BlackBerry’s board and be interim CEO until a replacement is found; Fairfax Chairman Prem Watsa will become lead BlackBerry director and chairman of its Compensation, Nomination and Governance Committee, said BlackBerry. The appointment of ex-Sybase CEO Chen as BlackBerry interim CEO and chairman suggests that Fairfax sees BlackBerry’s “future in software rather than devices,” said Ovum analyst Jan Dawson. That “makes sense in light of BlackBerry’s sputtering device shipments over the past few months, but it’s still not clear where that growth will come from,” he said. The planned investment “marks the conclusion of the review of strategic alternatives” that BlackBerry announced Aug. 12, BlackBerry said Monday. BlackBerry’s board “conducted a thorough review of strategic alternatives and pursued the course of action that it concluded is in the best interests” of the company and shareholders, it said. The financing provides an “immediate cash injection on terms favorable to BlackBerry, enhancing our substantial cash position,” it said. BlackBerry shares closed 16.4 percent lower Monday at $6.50.