U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published a final rule which amends the Customs Regulations effective January 5, 2004 regarding the advance electronic presentation of information pertaining to cargo (sea, air, rail, or truck) prior to its being brought into, or sent from, the U.S. (See final rule for compliance dates for each transportation mode.)
NCTA, which helped broker a plug-&-play agreement between the cable and consumer electronics (CE) industries, is asking the FCC to reconsider or clarify its order largely incorporating the agreement. NCTA praised the Commission for adopting the agreement and said its objections were focused on “some narrow technical issues that arise from certain language used in the rules that varied from the language proposed” by cable and CE. Petitions for reconsideration were due Mon.
NCTA, which helped broker a plug-&-play agreement between the cable and CE industries, is asking the FCC to reconsider or clarify its order largely incorporating the agreement. NCTA praised the Commission for adopting the agreement and said its objections were focused on “some narrow technical issues that arise from certain language used in the rules that varied from the language proposed” by cable and CE. Petitions for reconsideration were due Mon.
Despite the relatively small number of console owners who have taken their systems online, San Francisco-based Zelos Group said a survey of U.S. consumers found that “online gaming and broadband support drive consumer adoption of game consoles.” Zelos analyst Billy Pidgeon said “this finding bodes well for Microsoft and Sony, whose latest consoles offer Internet connectivity.” But he warned: “Nintendo would be well advised to reconsider its strategy to not connect its console to the Internet, as GameCube owners show a greater desire to play games online than did PS2 and Xbox owners.”
Two different groups of business organizations petitioned the FCC to stay new unsolicited fax rules (CD Aug 5 p4) which they said would impede their ability to communicate with members or preexisting customers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, joined by the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors, National Assn. of Manufacturers, National Restaurant Assn. and others, filed a stay petition Fri. charging the rules were “ludicrous,” Chamber Gen. Counsel Steve Bokat said. The Chamber said the rules would place “a monumental and costly administrative burden on associations and other businesses by requiring them to obtain the signed written consent of each recipient before any commercial fax may be sent.” Bokat said the rules meant “if a customer called and asked for a faxed copy of a bill or invoice, for example, a business would be prohibited from doing so.” The Chamber said it was urging its members to contact the FCC and their representatives in Congress to “explain the negative impact this will have on their ability to satisfy customers and hear from the business associations they trust.” The Business Users Coalition, composed of the American Society of Travel Agents, Mortgage Bankers Assn. of America, National Assn. of Mortgage Brokers, Consumer Mortgage Coalition and Midwest Circulation Assn., asked for a stay of at least 6 months. The group said it wouldn’t have time to “review, understand and comply” with the rules before the Aug. 25 effective date. The FCC’s decision to eliminate “established business relationships” (EBRs) as a justification for sending unsolicited faxes “caught all aspects of industry, from large to small businesses, off guard,” the coalition’s petition said. “The task of obtaining the necessary written authorizations is so large because the dependence of businesses on regular faxed information is so great,” the coalition said. It said it was confident necessary consents would be given, “but it is not practical to assume tens of millions of businesses can comply with the new rules -- providing consent to all companies that send them information -- in only 30 days.”
The FTC said it would propose to add a new section to the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) that would impose fees on entities accessing the national “do-not-call” registry. The amendments, if adopted, among other things would: (1) Require only sellers to pay the annual fee for access to the national registry. (2) Propose an annual fee of $29 per area code, with a maximum annual fee of $7,250. (3) Allow free access to up to 5 area codes. (4) Set Oct. 1 as the effective date for the “do-not-call” provisions of the Amended TSR. The Commission said additional revisions in the Amended TSR “would allow more entities to access the ‘do-not-call’ registry” while limiting access only to telemarketers, as currently defined by the rule, would prevent parties that were exempt from the FTC’s jurisdiction from obtaining the information necessary to scrub their lists in case they decided to do so for customer-service reasons. Limited access also could prevent sellers from fully complying with the rule, and “may unnecessarily hinder the services provided to the telemarketing industry by list brokers and others,” the FTC said. It stressed, however, that the information in the national registry could be used for no purpose other than to stop unwanted telemarketing calls. The FTC asked 3rd parties for comments.
SES Americom is “trying to sneak in the back door” by using license granted by Gibraltar to place DBS satellite at orbital location that wouldn’t be permitted if license were authorized by FCC, DirecTV Pres. Roxanne Austin said. Citing possibility of interference to DBS subscribers, DirecTV and EchoStar filed opposition at FCC to SES application to launch satellite for competitive DBS service(CD April 26 p3). “Our opposition to SES Americom’s FCC petition isn’t about competition -- we welcome the competition -- it’s about interference,” Austin said. Proposed DBS service offered by SES at 105.5 degrees would cause customers to “suffer significant service interruptions and impede our ability to deliver local channels,” she said. DirecTV said SES satellites would be only 4.5 degrees from DirecTV satellites at 101 degrees and 110 degrees, which would violate 9 degrees spacing established by ITU and FCC.
Boeing is “confident it will be able to correct” problem in BSS 601 satellites by mid-April, spokesman said. NASA also remains hopeful Boeing will be able to fix problem in Tracking & Data Relay Satellite (TDRS)-1, which is based on 601 bus and is in useless orbit while company attempts to move it into orbit without exhausting fuel reserves. However, satellite insurance expert said concerns over Boeing satellites were severe enough to cause increase in insurance rates.
Surge in demand following terrorist attacks probably will help slumping transponder prices, industry analysts and officials said in interviews. Before attacks that brought on widespread boost in sales, global prices for satellite capacity had decreased 10% and there were concerns that it might drop further, according to London Satellite Exchange (LSE) which brokers transponders online (e.sax.com) and tracks pricing trends. LSE blamed overcapacity on privatization of Eutelsat and Intelsat, which led to sale of some capacity owned by smaller stakeholders, and on downturn in economy. Others blamed glut of fiber cable capacity. Extra business following attacks “may put industry over hump” but won’t necessarily stop trend, one analyst said.
Transition of voice traffic to Internet protocol (IP) is expected to take years, but one company, Performance Technologies of Rochester, N.Y., already has applied IP technology to underlying Signaling System-7 (SS-7) control network. Company’s SEGway product is SS-7 to IP internetworking device that enables wireline and wireless carriers to offload SS-7 traffic to shared packet networks rather than use dedicated circuit for each link. Link Concentrator, 2nd product due next month, reduces need to add links to Signal Transfer Points (STPs) by concentrating SS-7 traffic onto fewer shared IP links. Both products use Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) to transport SS-7 messages over IP networks with same reliability as dedicated links, company said. Developed specifically for signaling data, SCTP is transport protocol operating on top of IP -- at best potentially unreliable connectionless packet service. SEGway product is transparent to SS-7 network and messages are transported without need for new SS- 7 point codes (addresses) or network reconfiguration upon installation, company said.