India is asking all companies that offer encrypted communications to install servers in the country so the government will have access to user data. India’s Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said notices were being dispatched to companies like Google and Skype, numerous Indian news reports said. While the U.S. State Department has been in touch with its foreign partners, it’s a matter for RIM and to work out directly with Indian officials, the agency said in an e-mailed statement.
The FCC acted in “injudicious haste” in adopting new Wireless Communications Service rules “without an adequate record to support its performance requirements,” AT&T said in a petition at the FCC, seeking partial reconsideration of a May 20 order. The WCS Coalition filed in support of the carrier. The FCC approved the order as the first step toward the National Broadband Plan’s goal of freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum over 10 years for wireless broadband(CD May 21 p5).
Largely dismissing an April plea from the U.S. Copyright Office to cast the Performance Rights Act (HR-848) in a more favorable light, GAO maintained that the bill would raise costs for broadcasters and boost revenue for the recording industry. A GAO report dated August 2010 and released Friday reached the same conclusion as a February preliminary report made public in June. That earlier version had prompted an April rebuke from the Copyright Office (CD June 8 p11).
The FCC would expand the types of providers getting guaranteed space on Sirius XM as full-time channels to be set aside for such use were expanded beyond those owned by minorities, in an order that circulated last week, agency officials said. The draft written by career agency staffers makes good on the 2008 commission order conditionally approving Sirius’s purchase of XM in a several-billion-dollar deal by dictating terms of channel set-asides. Instead of using minority-owned companies to fill 4 percent of the company’s channels, the draft would let Sirius XM pick as qualified entities any firm that doesn’t already have a programming relationship with the company, commission officials said. The channel set-aside was part of FCC approval of the 2008 deal that created the company.
Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission seeks comment on an update of a “concept paper” proposing how the state should restructure its universal service fund, the commission said Thursday. The extensive document, submitted Wednesday by the Washington Independent Telecommunications Association, reflects revisions to a July proposal and goes into significant detail in recommendations. The commission tentatively set Oct. 4 for a third workshop on the document and related matters. Comments are due Sept. 17.
September is expected to be busy for public safety issues in Washington, but time and funding concerns are working against passing any legislation this year, said public safety and telecom industry officials. Legislation to set up a $70 million NTIA grant competition for public safety communications devices (CD July 30 p5) may have a better shot than bills involving the D-block, they said. The House and Senate have introduced nearly identical bills, HR-5907 and S-3731, sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and neither has generated opposition.
The repositioning of Mobile Marketing Association disclosed Thursday is to create more commercial opportunities; better educate brands, agencies and consumers; offer better guidelines, standards and measurement; and better represent the industry before regulators and legislators, said Chief Marketing Officer Paul Berney. The group doesn’t have a position on net neutrality, but supports network openness, he said in an interview.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to circulate an order late Thursday for the Sept. 23 meeting that finalizes rules for the use of the TV white spaces to surf the Internet. In one key change, agency officials said, the order is expected to eliminate the requirement that the devices have the capacity to sense whether TV broadcasts are using a channel. Instead, the order would permit devices to rely on a national database containing information on which channels are occupied in a given area. The commission released the tentative agenda for the meeting, but the order had not circulated at our deadline.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said Thursday he’s not pleased with continuing delay on a net neutrality order, after the Wireline and Wireless bureaus posed a new series of questions on net neutrality (CD Sept 2 p1). But some industry, Hill and FCC officials said Wednesday’s public notice left the agency room to begin regulating wireline before the fall Congressional elections. Meanwhile, the outlook on industry talks conducted by the Information Technology Industry Council remains unclear.
Alaska launched its first statewide broadband availability map, announced Commissioner Susan Bell of the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development in a webcast by Connect Alaska late Wednesday. The web-based map, funded by an economic stimulus grant, could be key to better broadband access and adoption, Connected Nation officials said.