February 2011

As cellular networks grapple with a deluge of data traffic from smartphones, a growing number of companies are offering to help wireless carriers shift the heavy load to a longtime Internet standby: Wi-Fi.

Suppliers of technology to help offload mobile data include behemoths such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Motorola Solutions Inc. as well as smaller vendors such as Ruckus Wireless Inc. and BelAir Networks Inc., each of which manufactures devices that transmit and receive Wi-Fi signals. Such devices, called access points, have long been a fixture in homes, coffee shops and companies. But increasingly, wireless carriers and third-party operators are buying heavy-duty variants to form larger Wi-Fi networks, intended to siphon off data traffic in places with big concentrations of smartphone users.

A titanic battle is under way between US business and China, a battle reflected in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address last week and destined to dominate relations between the two countries for years. At issue: Innovation.

China's bureaucrats have been rolling out an array of interlocking regulations and state spending aimed at making their country a global technology powerhouse by 2020. The new initiatives—shaped by rising nationalism and a belief that foreign companies unfairly dominate key technologies—range from big investments in national industries to patent laws that favor Chinese companies and mandates that essentially require foreign companies to transfer technology to China if they hope to sell in that market. To hear US business executives describe it, Beijing's mammoth new industrial policy is like the Borg in "Star Trek" -- an enormous organic machine assimilating everything in its path, in this case the inventions of other nations.

[Commentary] The announcement by the White House that it would support reallocating the D Block – the 10 MHz of spectrum left over from big broadcast band auction of 2008 (the 700 MHz Auction) – to public safety use rather than auction it for commercial use defies conventional wisdom on two fronts.

First, the National Broadband Plan called for an auction of D block to commercial providers as a means of providing critical spectrum for broadband, using the revenue to fund the construction of the public safety network, and giving public safety access to the rest of the 700 MHz band. Given that the Administration generally supported the FCC’s assessment that we have a looming “spectrum crisis” (although they took no position, until now, on D Block), why pull 10 MHz of prime spectrum ready for auction out of contention?

Second, conventional wisdom holds that because of deficit concerns, lust for auction revenue will drive spectrum policy. But the White House not only endorses taking prime spectrum off the market, it wants to spend additionally billions on public safety infrastructure (under the FCC’s original plan, the auction of D Block would fund the build out of an interoperable national public safety network).

So what happened? The short answer is, I believe, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee.

The introduction of greater controls over online piracy faced a fresh delay on Feb 1 after the UK government asked Ofcom, the media regulator, to review parts of the Digital Economy Act.

“I have no problem with the principle of blocking access to websites used exclusively for facilitating illegal downloading of content. But it is not clear whether the site blocking provisions in the act could work in practice so I have asked Ofcom to address this question,” said Jeremy Hunt, culture secretary. The act was passed in the final days of the Labour government last year. Critics say it lacked proper parliamentary scrutiny. Record labels and online publishers reacted with dismay to the review, fearing further damage to their businesses from widespread copyright infringement on the Internet. The proposed code of practice for dealing with those spotted downloading music and movies unlawfully is still being prepared by Ofcom. A campaign of writing letters to those people is not expected to begin until early 2012. But Internet service providers, two of which have launched legal action to block the act’s provisions against piracy, will welcome the review into what they see as a burdensome responsibility for a problem beyond their control.