Alcatel signed contract with China Academy of Space Technology for development and construction of telecommunications satellite, company said Fri. Satellite will be flown aboard China Long March launcher in 2005, Alcatel said.
Exports to China
U.S. delegates spent much of the first week of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary (Plenipot) in Marrakesh engaging other countries on telecom and Internet issues, said David Gross, U.S. State Dept. coordinator for international communications & information policy. Gross held bilateral meetings with ministers from 10 countries -- Brazil, Kuwait, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Israel, Mali, Mexico, South Africa, and Tunisia -- and has more scheduled, he said in a news briefing Thurs. from the Plenipot.
At ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, China is pushing proposal that it take stronger role in Internet security, with eye toward regulations to combat terrorism and crime conducted via Web. China submitted proposal to Plenipot that recommended ITU establish working group on Internet security “with a view to developing regulations to be followed by all countries in this area so as to effectively combat transnational crimes and terrorist activities carried out through the Internet.” Group should examine Internet security standards and come back with recommendations next year for ITU Council, China said. It cited “ever-growing number and range of Internet-related security problems” that international hacker groups could create, such as “imposing pornographic and violent content on users of all ages, religious beliefs and cultural backgrounds.” Proposal said “increasing numbers of illegal, criminal and even terrorist activities” have been carried out on information and communications technology networks. Internet security has been tough problem to resolve “due to insufficient cooperation among various governments,” proposal said. China’s contributions at Plenipot are being closely watched because it has taken leading role of late in promoting cost-sharing plan on international Internet connections that U.S. has opposed. International Charging Arrangements for Internet Services (ICAIS) is expected to emerge at 4-week conference, which started Mon. At Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in May, China proposed addressing how to charge for Internet connections when 2 countries had disproportionate traffic flows. U.S. has opposed ICAIS on ground that it would amount to Internet regulation that could stifle its development. But developing countries have looked to ICAIS to help even out inequitable charging arrangements they say exist under peering and transit systems that disproportionately favor Internet traffic hubs such as U.S. Chinese proposal floated at APEC would have Internet connections involving least-developed countries settled without charge to prevent “polarization” of Internet globally. When 2 networks of similar scale exchange relatively proportionate traffic, both sides could agree to method that didn’t involve settlement of accounts, proposal said. If 2 networks were of disparate scales, Chinese proposal would have had recipient ISP pay all or part of cost based on how much traffic flow between 2 sides differed. China recently has begun circulating questionnaire to other countries that seeks information about Internet traffic entering and leaving their borders. One sticking point raised by critics of China’s stance on interconnection is that its proposals use formulas based on factors that currently aren’t measured. Questionnaire appears to mark effort to provide baseline for those proposed formulas to be used.
Loral doesn’t have to use Chinese Long March rocket to launch Asia-Pacific Telecom (APT) Apstar 5 satellite if U.S. govt. doesn’t approve export license by Sept. 30, under terms of new $110 million contract with APT Satellite of Hong Kong, Loral announced Mon. APT has decided to allow Loral to break agreement to use Chinese booster in exchange for purchase of half of 54 transponders on Apstar 5 along with sharing $230 million cost of building, launching and insuring satellite, companies said. Loral will retain 50% ownership of satellite regardless of launch site, under contract signed Sept. 20. APT and Loral will select new launcher jointly if State Dept. fails to approve license, companies said. Loral’s capacity on Apstar 5 will be designated Telstar 14. Satellite is scheduled for launch in 3rd quarter next year, Loral said.
Internet shouldn’t be regulated internationally in context of attempt to reopen International Telecom Regulations (ITR), obligations that cover issues such as cost-based accounting rates for international telecom traffic, and U.S. will be “very vigorous” in defending that position at upcoming International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary (Plenipot) in Marrakech, Morocco, said David Gross, U.S. State Dept. coordinator for international communications & information policy. Gross -- who will lead a 60-member delegation to ITU from public and private sectors (including Dept. of Defense, FCC, NTIA, DoC, NASA and others) -- said U.S. wanted to make sure any action taken on ITR didn’t become back-door Internet regulation. NTIA Dir. Nancy Victory said Internet should be kept separate from traditional telecom regulation. Their comments came at Fri. news briefing on Plenipot.
Cost-sharing proposals on international Internet connections, ICANN administration, structure of ITU and role of private sector are among issues that ITU Plenipotentiary Conference is expected to wrestle with later this month. Plenipot, Sept. 23-Oct. 18 in Marrakesh, is held every 4 years and is billed by ITU as “key event at which ITU member states decide on the future role” of organization.
OpenTV, which is part of Liberty Media, said it was picked by Jiangxi Cable Network in China to build, along with OpenTV’s local partner, Beida Jadebird Huaguang (Jadebird), network offering digital and interactive TV service to cable provider’s 3 million subscribers. Jiangxi Cable Network’s digital TV (DTV) services are expected to be available in 3 months and will be precursor to interactive television (iTV), OpenTV said. OpenTV and Jadebird had partnered in April to deploy OpenTV’s iTV solutions to Jadebird-invested cable TV networks throughout China. OpenTV said pact was its 51st agreement with network operator and 20th agreement with cable operator.
LONG BEACH, Cal. -- “Fundamental reform” of export licensing controls is needed for survival of U.S. satellite business, Boeing Vp-Govt. & Legislative Affairs Loretta Dunn told International Satellite & Communications Exchange (ISCE) Conference here Thurs. Dunn said she had led industrywide effort to modify controls since satellites were placed on munitions list and licensing was moved to State Dept. from Commerce Dept. in 1998 after 2 U.S. companies were accused of passing sensitive technical information to Chinese following launch failures. Satellites should be licensed as commercial products, Dunn said: “It’s critical for industry to move forward. We need rationalized and streamlined” approach to licensing. She said industry wanted “to move satellites back to Commerce, but we don’t want to change any of the safeguards.” Dunn said not one U.S. satellite export license request had been rejected since new guidelines had been in place.
STANFORD, Cal. -- Commerce Secy. Donald Evans promised aggressive promotion of broadband Tues., but only through evangelism of technology’s benefits and promotion of policies to remove roadblocks. “The President has made it clear to the country and the FCC that he favors [policies] that will allow competition to flourish and allow broadband to spread across the country,” Evans said in Stanford U. appearance that included demo of Internet II project.
Qualcomm and Siemens altered their cross-licensing pact, granting Siemens Information & Communication Mobile Group royalty-bearing license under Qualcomm patents to make infrastructure and subscriber equipment for CDMA systems. Companies said expansion of existing agreement also gave Qualcomm royalty-free rights under Siemens’ patents to market and sell CDMA components, including multimode chipsets. Separately, wireless carrier China Unicom and Qualcomm reached agreement under which China Unicom will launch new wireless application service on its existing CDMA network by year-end. New service will be based on Qualcomm’s Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) system. China Unicom and Qualcomm also said they planned to create joint venture in China to jump-start BREW developer community there. China Unicom said it would introduce service to some customers by 4th quarter, including wireless data applications such as games, business and navigation services, e-commerce.