GENEVA -- U.S. and Asian manufacturers and others are pressing to update the 1997 World Trade Organization agreement on a range of telephony, Internet, broadcast and data gear. The WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) has boosted deployment of telecom and information technology products, said Mark MacGann, director general of the European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association. However, it doesn’t cover consumer electronics. Convergence of information technology with consumer electronics has made it out of date, MacGann said.
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GENEVA -- Work on frequency issues for development of IMT-2000 and systems beyond IMT-2000 are ongoing at the technical level, said the co-chair of a working group of the Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM) preparing for the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC). The hope is to do the work before CPM ends, but much remains to be done, she said.
Foes of a broadcasting treaty proposed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)(CD Sept 8 p5, Sept 6 p6) utterly fail to show how more copyright protection for broadcasters would hurt them, U.S. broadcasters said. ISPs, telcos and nongovernmental bodies keep saying “horrible things are going to happen” if broadcast rights are updated, NAB Senior Assoc. Gen. Counsel Ben Ivins told us. He urged them to “show me your pain” by citing specific examples of where the sort of protections contemplated by the treaty have caused “bad stuff.”
Senate Commerce Committee negotiations on a hefty manager’s amendment to pending telecom reform legislation were expected to continue “well into the night and tomorrow,” a committee spokesman told us Wed. The committee is scheduled to markup Chmn. Stevens’ (R-Alaska) 3rd draft of the bill today (Thurs.). Some Hill watchers said the marathon meeting could spill into next week. The broad draft contains hot topics like net neutrality and preemption of state wireless regulation (CD June 21 p1), as well as issues like video franchising and Universal Service Fund (USF) reform.
GENEVA -- Networked RFID standardization is gaining momentum at the ITU, but global frequency harmonization remains a hindrance to realizing global supply chain efficiencies and improving port security, officials said. The one area of RFID “we hope will be addressed within the ITU is the one of networks, and that is object-to-object communications,” said Craig Harmon, pres. of QED Systems and reporting member of the ITU group on RFID (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 31).
European justice and home affairs (JHA) ministers agreed provisionally Thurs. to a 2-step approach to mandatory retention of communications traffic data. Meeting in Brussels, the Council said member states should first require communications services providers (CSPs) to retain fixed and mobile telephony data. Internet data and information about uncompleted phone calls would have to be retained starting later, letting CSPs that can’t now retain such data a chance to update their systems. Most of the delegations also agreed on a 12-month data retention period, with member states allowed to cut the time as low as 6 months in exceptional circumstances.
Equipment makers in filings late Fri. suggested ways the FCC could tweak some of its rules for unlicensed devices. Several raised concerns that while Part 15 regulations had been successful so far, growing deployments of Wi-Fi and other technologies could require future changes. While supporting the broad outlines of the FCC’s proposed streamlining, some companies differed on details, including whether “etiquette” rules were needed for unlicensed devices.
Wireless companies and equipment-makers generally lauded FCC efforts to update rules on radiofrequency (RF) emissions from wireless equipment and CE devices, but said in comments to the Commission this week that in some cases the changes didn’t go far enough to keep up with new technology. Fine- tuning suggestions ranged from clearer guidelines on micro devices to similar streamlining steps for 3G systems in licensed bands.
The FCC updated parts of its Part 2, 15 and 18 rules for unlicensed devices Thurs., including repealing a prohibition on data transmissions for Part 15 remote control devices. An industry lobbyist said the changes represented a clearing out of regulatory “underbrush” needed to update the Commission’s unlicensed rules. For remote control devices, the FCC removed the restriction on data transmissions, saying it would let manufacturers make more-flexible and imaginative ones. NTIA had expressed concern about such a change, saying systems using voice and data would proliferate. It warned that because the only timing restriction would be for the devices to shut off after 5 sec., some would be transmitting almost all the time, raising the risk of interference to licensed services. “It is not practical to prohibit all data transmissions as NTIA requested,” the FCC said. The changes stipulate that remote control devices operating under Sec 15.231(a) of the rules will be limited to transmitting a control signal, but can transmit data with the control signal. The agency didn’t go as far as some companies had wanted, including requests to remove restrictions on radio control toys and to allow video and voice transmission for operations such as baby monitors. By keeping those limits in place, the FCC said NTIA’s concerns about harmful interference from devices transmitting continuously were addressed because the rules still barred continuous transmissions. The FCC also made changes in the restricted bands above 38.6 GHz, concluding that only certain parts of that band had sensitive radio services that required such protection. The changes loosened limits on harmonic emissions from certain devices, including those operating in the 24 GHz band. “These changes will benefit manufacturers because equipment will no longer have to meet limits that are tighter than necessary to control interference,” the agency said. The Commission said it was continuing to talk with NTIA about which bands above 38.6 GHz should continue to be designated as restricted. It put off such decisions to a later date. It also increased allowable field strengths in the radio frequency identification (RFID) rules. For RFID systems, which use radio signals to track items such as shipping containers and store merchandise, the move harmonizes U.S. rules with standards for such devices in Europe and Australia, the FCC said. Its rules already allow intentional radiators such as unlicensed RFID devices to operate in the 13.56 MHz band at certain power limits. Companies told the FCC that the changes would allow those devices to transmit data over longer localized ranges. Texas Instruments and Motorola had told the Commission that the changes would improve homeland security applications of such devices, including baggage tracking. Other changes included simplification of the labeling requirement for manufacturer self-authorized equipment.
Top FCC officials said Wed. at the Wireless Communications Assn. (WCA) show in Washington that they expected decisions by early next year on a series of interlocking spectrum issues, including efforts to solve public safety interference at 800 MHz. The outcome of the 800 MHz proceeding has implications for replacement spectrum that Multipoint Distribution Service (MDS) operators seek in the planned reallocation of some MDS spectrum for advanced wireless services.