DC BLOX sees a business model for building regional data centers in places like Greenville, South Carolina, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, Alan Poole, general counsel of the Atlanta-based company, said during an Incompas webinar Thursday. As connected devices became more powerful, tech companies realized they needed to move data centers and computing power closer to users, Poole said in a conversation with Incompas CEO Chip Pickering during the session. COVID-19 spurred tech growth, Poole said: “The investment in digital infrastructure around that time to help meet the pace of demand was wild, awe-inspiring, and we’re still going through that,” he said. A key element DC BLOX considers is how welcoming a city will be to investment, as data centers require access to land and electricity. The company also examines potential tax incentives to build. Policymakers must ask what they’ll do if one developer takes all the available power, which is “happening all over the country,” Poole said. One center can require up to one gigawatt of power, which is "eye-popping.” Accordingly, the ability of data centers to generate power onsite, including “green” energy, will become increasingly important, he said. Communities should decide whether they want to compete “because there are many [competing] markets” and they are offering tax and other incentives. “At least at DC BLOX we’re doing everything we reasonably can to head off community concerns as soon as possible, because it makes more sense financially.” The availability of large enough fiber pipelines to handle growing demands is also a concern. “Is there enough fiber on all these routes?” Poole asked. “It was assumed, until very recently, that we were never going to need materially bigger conduits and that has proven absolutely untrue.” Some markets getting high-speed internet for the first time don’t have a nearby internet exchange point yet, allowing ISPs to exchange data with other networks: “That’s where the true internet compute happens and if you’re not close to one of those exchanges, you have problems with things like latency that might make real-time videoconferencing … unworkable.” Pickering said he loves the focus on “Tier 2” markets. “Those are great emerging hubs” and data centers “are a critical component and a critical piece of the infrastructure to make those hubs grow, succeed, prosper.” As communications technology rapidly evolves, “electricity is still kind of in the old world,” Pickering said. As the U.S. competes with China, “electricity and energy really is the supply-chain critical component.”
Exports to China
China-based Hikvision USA provided the FCC with additional information about its proposed plan for compliance with agency rules (see 2308070047). Questions were posed during an August meeting with staff from the FCC Public Safety Bureau, Office of Engineering and Office of General Counsel, said a filing this week in docket 21-232. “Hikvision does not market, sell, or distribute component parts to the U.S. market,” the company said: “Nor does it intentionally make available Hikvision-manufactured component parts for inclusion in products marketed, sold, or distributed in the United States.” Hikvision said Hangzhou Hikvision Technology “or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates, such as Ezviz or HikRobot, contracts directly” with original equipment manufacturers. It’s Hikvision’s understanding “that the OEM entity will apply for and obtain the applicable equipment authorization from the Commission,” the filing said.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. Lawsuits added since the last update are marked with an *.
U.S. ISPs face a bigger cybersecurity threat today because nations representing that threat work together like never before, Wilkinson Barker’s Clete Johnson said Wednesday. Other experts said cybersecurity plans are rightly a requirement of receiving funding under the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program.
President Joe Biden signed the Launch Communications Act (S-1648) Thursday night, the White House said. The measure, which the House passed earlier this month (see 2409180049), will require that the FCC streamline the authorization process for commercial launches’ access to spectrum. The Senate approved S-1648 last year. Lead sponsors Sens. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., hailed its enactment Friday. It's “a win for American innovation,” Hickenlooper said. Now “we can lead the next era of space exploration.” The U.S. “must maintain its edge in the 21st century space race against China, and this legislation is a necessary step in maintaining American space dominance,” said Schmitt, who is Senate Commerce Space Subcommittee ranking member.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
Europe needs better connectivity to compete globally, speakers said Wednesday at a discussion on the bloc's digital future. They cited former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's Sept. 9 competitiveness report, which, among other things, urged the EU to "profoundly refocus its collective efforts on closing the innovation gap with the US and China, especially in advanced technologies."
ATLANTA -- The U.S. is taking an increasingly hard line against all connected Chinese and Russian devices, not just those from particular manufacturers such as Huawei, cybersecurity expert Clete Johnson told attendees at SCTE's annual TechExpo Wednesday. Meanwhile, cable providers at TechExpo discussed why it's imperative that there is better convergence in wireline and mobile services.
The House voted 257-125 Monday night to approve the Senate-cleared Building Chips in America Act (S-2228), sending it to President Joe Biden's desk. S-2228 would streamline federal permitting rules for projects that the 2021 Chips for America Act funded. It would in part make the Commerce Department the lead federal agency for conducting National Environmental Policy Act reviews for Chips for America Act projects and narrow the number of projects that would require those evaluations. The Senate approved the measure in December by unanimous consent. S-2228 lead sponsors Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, hailed the legislation's passage in the House. “This is a major step forward for our economy and national security,” Kelly said. “By preventing unnecessary delays in the construction of microchip manufacturing facilities, this bill will help maximize our efforts to bring this industry back to America, creating thousands of good-paying jobs and strengthening our supply chains.” Cruz called it “a crucial step in onshoring jobs and making our country less dependent on China for semiconductors critical to national defense.”
Based on preliminary findings, the telecom equipment market declined 16% year over year in Q2, “recording a fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit contractions,” Dell’Oro Group said in a new report. “Helping to explain the abysmal results are excess inventory, weaker demand in China, challenging 5G comparisons, and elevated uncertainty,” the report said. China saw a 17% market downturn, but Chinese gear makers Huawei and ZTE are gaining market share, Dell’Oro said. The top seven suppliers in the first half of the year were Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, Cisco, Ciena and Samsung, the report said: “Huawei and ZTE combined gained nearly 3 percentage points of share between 2023 and 1H24.”