June 2012

Jeremy Hunt survived the Labour party’s attempt to refer him to the ministerial watchdog, giving some succor to the prime minister as he takes the stand at the Leveson inquiry.

Labour claims Hunt broke the ministerial code by failing to inform parliament of all his department’s communications with News Corp over the BSkyB bid, and not taking responsibility for his special adviser’s emails to the company’s lobbyist. Tory MPs packed the chamber to defend the minister after the Liberal Democrats decided to abstain and not support their coalition partner. Labour lost by 38 votes.

President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order to make broadband construction along Federal roadways and properties up to 90 percent cheaper and more efficient. Currently, the procedures for approving broadband infrastructure projects on properties controlled or managed by the Federal Government—including large tracts of land, roadways, and more than 10,000 buildings across the Nation—vary depending on which agency manages the property. The new Executive Order will ensure that agencies charged with managing Federal properties and roads take specific steps to adopt a uniform approach for allowing broadband carriers to build networks on and through those assets and speed the delivery of connectivity to communities, businesses, and schools.

The Executive Order (EO) will require the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Interior, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs as well as the US Postal Service to offer carriers a single approach to leasing Federal assets for broadband deployment. The EO also requires that available Federal assets and the requirements for leasing be provided on departmental websites, and it will require public tracking of regional broadband deployment projects via the Federal Infrastructure Projects Dashboard (permits.performance.gov). In addition, the Executive Order will direct departments to help carriers time their broadband deployment activities to periods when streets are already under construction—an approach that can reduce network deployment costs along Federal roadways by up to 90 percent.

The White House also announced that nearly 100 partners—including more than 25 cities as well as corporate and non-profit entities—will join with more than 60 national research universities to form a new public-private partnership called “US Ignite.” The US Ignite Partnership will create a new wave of services that take advantage of state-of-the-art, programmable broadband networks running up to 100 times faster than today’s Internet. By bringing software developers and engineers from government and industry together with representatives from communities, schools, hospitals, and other institutions that will benefit from faster and more agile broadband options, the partnership aims to speed up and increase the development of applications for advanced manufacturing, medical monitoring, emergency preparedness, and a host of other services. These applications will improve services to Americans and drive job creation, promote innovation, and create new markets for American businesses.

Proposals for Internet addresses ending in ".pizza," `'.space" and ".auto" are among the nearly 2,000 submitted as part of the largest expansion in the online address system.

Apple, Sony and American Express are among companies seeking names with their brands. The expansion will allow suffixes that represent hobbies, ethnic groups, corporate brand names and more. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced the proposals for Internet suffixes — the ".com" part of an Internet address — in London on Wednesday. Among the 1,930 proposals for 1,409 different suffixes, the bulk came from North America and Europe. If approved, the new suffixes would rival ".com" and about 300 others now in use. Companies would be able to create separate websites and separate addresses for each of their products and brands, even as they keep their existing ".com" name. Businesses that joined the Internet late and found desirable ".com" names taken would have alternatives. Nearly half of the proposals — 911 — were from North America and another 675 came from Europe. Only 17 proposals came from Africa and 24 came from Latin America and the Caribbean — areas where Internet use is relatively low. One surprise came from the Asia-Pacific region, which had 303 proposals, or 16 percent of the total. Many proposals were duplicates. Suffixes in contention are likely to include ".bank," `'.secure" and ".web." ICANN is encouraging competing bidders to work out an agreement. The organization will hold an auction if the parties fail to reach a compromise. Of the 1,930 proposals, 751 were for 230 different suffixes, while the remaining 1,179 were unique.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules and asked for comment on a number of issues involved in improving spectrum efficiency and encouraging greater use of the 4940-4990 MHz (4.9 GHz) band for public safety broadband communications. Improved use of the 4.9 GHz band will facilitate wireless local area networks for incident scene management, fixed point-point surveillance, and support for dispatch operations and vehicular or personal communications.

The 4.9 GHz broadband spectrum is a contiguous block of 50 megahertz of spectrum that is designated for both fixed and mobile and dedicated for public safety. Using 4.9 GHz spectrum, public safety users can set up temporary mesh networks that support data, voice, and video communications at scenes of emergencies; monitor sensitive locations remotely with point-to-point video links; and set up city-wide Wi-Fi networks to give first responders dedicated broadband access. The 4.9 GHz spectrum holds great potential to complement the national public safety broadband network for backhaul; facilitate safer operation of our nation’s critical infrastructure and utilities; and provide wireless broadband connectivity in remote or sparsely populated locations.

Specifically, in the Fifth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission seeks comment on:

• Whether to establish formal coordination requirements in the 4.9 GHz band, whether the 700 MHz Regional Planning Committees (RPCs) could administer a database registration process, and options for a registration database to be used for coordination purposes;
• Whether expanding eligibility to critical infrastructure entities and commercial users would promote more effective and efficient use of the band;
• Whether eligibility for commercial users should be on a secondary basis subject to a shutdown feature to allow public safety priority access;
• Whether the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) is or should be eligible for a 4.9 GHz band license, particularly for backhaul links in support of the 700 MHz network; technical proposals to increase spectrum efficiency, usage, and throughput in the band. Specifically, the FCC invited input on issues such as the channel plan, power and antenna gain limits, aeronautical mobile operations, and interoperability standards.