International governmental bodies and public interest groups urged Syria to restore its citizens’ access to the Internet after the nation allegedly instituted a blackout Thursday, days before the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) was set to begin. ICANN confirmed the outage Thursday, saying “service dropped from 100 [percent] to zero almost immediately.” However, Syria’s two country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs), .sy and .syr, are functioning, which indicates a local problem, it said. ICANN said it will continue to monitor and will provide further clarification.
The FCC approved rules moving toward implementing the Local Community Radio Act, which includes a fifth order on reconsideration that establishes a national limit of 70 applications, and a sixth report and order establishing a second-adjacent channel spacing waiver standard, during its meeting Friday. The FCC plans to open a filing window for new low power FM applications in October 2013.
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. -- The borderless world of wireless presents unique regulation challenges for app developers, said panelists at the Entertainment Apps Conference. Joleen Winther Hughes of Hughes Media Law Group said: “Developers want no boundaries or borders, but when you're trying to develop intellectual property, it’s crucial having ownership of it. Once you release an app in multiple jurisdictions, you must also be aware that there are different rules in different areas."
FirstNet doesn’t have to cost states all the taxpayer dollars people fear, a telecom consultant argued. He said that’s despite an established belief that the $7 billion in federal money devoted to building the federal public safety broadband network is not sufficient and will hurt the project. Private equity can and should cover the brunt of what will be enormous costs, said Michael Myers, a consultant speaking on a state planning panel Friday afternoon. The FirstNet Oklahoma Panhandle Region Coordination Element (FORCE) has begun holding a series of talks since its formation earlier this year. Its Friday talk centered on how to bring utilities into the picture and emphasized Myers’ plan.
Stakeholders disagreed over how to move forward on mobile privacy at a Friday NTIA meeting, the sixth in the multistakeholder discussion process to develop industry standards for mobile privacy. The meeting included presentations on short form notice prototypes and discussion of two drafts of mobile privacy codes of conduct.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Friday he went to New York in the wake of Sandy to observe first hand the effects of the storm and the work of FCC staff there. Genachowski provided a brief update on the storm at the end of the FCC meeting, in which he said many questions remain.
Hurdles to updating the Telecom Act include an increase in partisanship in Congress since the 1996 legislation passed on a bipartisan basis, said industry officials aligned with minority broadcasters Friday. Those and other speakers at a Rainbow/Push Coalition telecom conference who represented a broader array of companies said a “do-no-harm” approach is needed, without statutory micromanagement of what the FCC and other agencies can do. The commission is likely to again recommend Congress reinstate tax certificates for communications assets sold to firms of a type that could include those owned by minorities when it releases a triennial report on eliminating market-entry barriers, said an agency staffer working on the document due to Congress Dec. 31.
The FCC Wireless Bureau said continued certification of 25 kHz equipment for use in the T-band is permissible, granting a request for clarity sought by the Telecommunications Industry Association. In May, TIA asked the FCC to clarify its order waiving the Jan. 1 deadline for private land mobile radio licensees in the 470-512 MHz band (T-band) to migrate to narrowband technology. TIA specifically asked the agency to clarify it’s waiving a ban on 25 kHz technologies in radios for use in the T-Band portion of the Part 90 VHF/UHF in certification applications filed on or after Jan. 1, 2011.
Commissioners are scheduled to see the latest draft of the FCC’s long-awaited special access order Friday morning, agency officials said. The three Democratic commissioners voted over a month ago to approve the order, which would provide guidance to the Wireline Bureau on what a data collection request on the special access market should say (CD Oct 26 p3). Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai have not voted on the order.
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. -- Entertainment content providers see apps as potentially powerful tools for disseminating content and interacting with consumers, executives said. Speakers at the Entertainment APPS Conference said figuring out how to best use the technology is still a work in progress. It depends on the device, said John Penney, Starz executive vice president-strategy. “The smaller the device, the harder it is to create an impression.”