BROWSING: Policy

Carr criticizes FCC denial of Starlink RDOF funds

Carr, the senior Republican on the FCC, claims that the agency exceeded its authority in denying RDOF funds to Starlink FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is criticizing the Federal Communications Commission's action earlier this month that quashed nearly $900 million in Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF)...

Five social and economic impacts of fiber

Fiber-based broadband access is correlated with a number of aspects of quality-of-life A new report on the status of U.S. broadband looks at how fiber deployments are correlated with several aspects of quality of life, and concludes that access to high-speed broadband is becoming increasingly...

Senators again push FCC to reverse its Ligado spectrum decision

Results of a NSF study on the FCC order is set to be released on September 9 A bipartisan group of Senators is again pushing for the Federal Communications Commission to reverse its 2020 decision that allows Ligado Networks (formerly LightSquared) to use spectrum previously...

The future of USF: Make tech companies pay?

The Federal Communications Commission has made a required report to Congress on the future of the Universal Service Fund, and one of the most hotly debated portions of the record was on how the USF should be funded. Some argued for a "wholesale examination...

DC Appeals court upholds FCC reallocation of 5.9 GHz

An appeals court has upheld the Federal Communication Commission's decision to reallocate a portion of the 5.9 GHz band to unlicensed use, including Wi-Fi, rather than continuing to reserve the whole swath of spectrum for intelligent transportation systems. The decision, released Friday by the...

Paris La Défense preps 5G neutral-host and use-case trials in 26 GHz mmWave bands

Paris La Défense, the major metropolitan business district in Paris, has called for applicants to run 5G neutral-host and use-case trials in 26 GHz mmWave spectrum at its site in the French capital. The two trial streams will be open, respectively, to public mobile...

FCC denies RDOF funding for Starlink, LTD Broadband

Starlink had won projects worth nearly $900 million; LTD was the biggest winning bidder in the RDOF auction Starlink and LTE Broadband have lost federal subsidies worth more than $2 billion, after the Federal Communications Commission rejected their respective applications to provide high-speed broadband services...

Biden signs CHIPS and Science Act into law

'A once-in-a-generation investment in America itself,' he said President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act into law. The bipartisan bill, approved by Congress in late July, will channel $52.7 billion into American semiconductor manufacturing and research efforts and pumps...

Industry IoT Consortium writes satellite IoT guides into networking framework

The Industry IoT Consortium (IIC) has for the first time included an update on satellite connectivity in its Industrial Internet Networking Framework (IINF), its guide to help IoT application developers to design, deploy, and operate industrial networking solutions. It has also joined with the...

Ferrovial, Intel, Liberty Mutual, Toyota join MIT on ‘front line’ of mobility revolution

An automotive-technology-engineering collective has joined a new mobility initiative organised by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the ‘front lines of the mobility revolution’. Their task is to shape a “mobility system”, a press statement goes, that is “sustainable, safe, clean, and accessible”. The...

Five thousand private 5G networks in China? BS! Talking definitions, storms in teacups

Someone somewhere said something about 5,000 ‘private networks’ in China. (Forgive me for not having the reference to hand; I am trying to write quickly and cover ground.) The point, as always, seemed to be just that China is running away with it –...

FCC commits additional funding to close the ‘homework gap’

FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel coined the term 'homework gap' in 2012 to describe the difficulty millions of students have when completing online school assignments The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week announced additional funding for digital student services totaling more than $77 million. The funds are...

Sweeping semiconductor bill passes the US Senate

The CHIPS Act proposes $59 billion of funding for semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed the CHIPS bill, or the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, which aims to estabish a competitive edge over China...

FCC cracks down on vehicle warranty robocalls

The ten most dreaded words in the English language: "We are trying to reach you about your vehicle warranty." But the Federal Communications Commission says it has identified the people behind more than 8 billion of those auto warranty scam calls in the past...

US and UK launch prize competition for privacy-focused AI

The governments of the United State and the United Kingdom have jointly launched a series of prize challenges, hoping to spur development of technologies that allow artificial intelligence models to be trained on sensitive data without having access to the actual, raw data that...

Rosenworcel proposes a boost to broadband minimum speeds

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is asking FCC commissioners to consider opening a new inquiry into raising the minimum speed that the agency considers to be "broadband" from 25 Mbps for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads, to 100 Mbps/20 Mbps. Rosenworcel has...

Who’s set to bid in the upcoming 2.5 GHz auction?

AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon head up a field of 82 qualified bidders for the upcoming auction of 2.5 GHz spectrum, primarily available in rural areas across the U.S. and its territories. The auction will kick off on July 29. US Cellular is also...

Switch, conserve, diversify – the global IoT project to change the energy mix (Analyst Angle)

The war in Ukraine is being fought through many unconventional means. One of the most prominent relates to energy supply and dependence. In 2021, about two-fifths of the gas that Europeans burned came from Russia. The war has boosted already high prices of oil...

Cities deploy Google-made smart-city stickers to build trust in IoT surveillance tech

It has taken three years to appear, but four cities (“communities”) are to adopt and test a set of visual icons, originally developed and announced as part of the Google parent-company Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs project, on smart-connected infrastructure around their streets and neighbourhoods. The...

LoRaWAN ‘more-for-less’ model offers hope for growth and sustainability, says Semtech

Semtech, the steward of LoRa-based hardware production, picked up the baton at LoRaWAN World Expo last week (see more here: LoRaWAN goes pop) to further relay the message that low-power wide-area (LPWA) IoT technologies, headed by its own LoRaWAN entry, present the best...

The trouble with private 5G for Industry 4.0 | Part 4 – the features

This is article is taken from a recent editorial report on Industrial 5G Innovation – From Setting Standard to Becoming Standard; the previous instalment in this serialised version of the report is available here. Subsequent instalments are listed below (linking either to the original...

The trouble with private 5G for Industry 4.0 | Part 3 – the spectrum

This is article is taken from a recent editorial report on Industrial 5G Innovation – From Setting Standard to Becoming Standard; the previous instalment in this serialised version of the report is available here. Subsequent instalments are listed below (linking either to the original...

FCC proposes penalty against Verizon for telecom accessibility rule violation

A customer with disabilities filed a complaint with the FCC, alleging that the Verizon Premium Visual Voicemail violated accessibility rules Last week, The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Enforcement Bureau proposed slapping Verizon with $100,000 fine for reportedly failing to provide the Bureau with critical information...

FCC moves forward with new requirements for network resiliency

The Federal Communications Commission has gone ahead with a move to require all facilities-based wireless providers to adhere to a set of previously voluntary commitments around network resiliency and emergency roaming arrangements. The agency is essentially codifying the Wireless Network Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which was...