SPECTRUM
Govt. 3G Auction Timetable Threatens U.S. Security - GAO (WP)
BROADBAND
AT&T Unit Sees No Halt in Net Access (NYT)
Experts: Content Hinders Asian Broadband Take-Up (Reuters)
INTERNET
Netscape's New Mission (WP)
SPECTRUM
GOVT. 3G AUCTION TIMETABLE THREATENS U.S. SECURITY - GAO
Issue: Spectrum
A plan to auction spectrum licenses in the 1750 - 1850 MHz band for private
use could endanger national security if the Defense Department is not given
additional time to study the matter, government auditors said in a report
released yesterday. The auction has been proposed for September 2002.
Currently the Defense Department is the principal occupant of that band. In
February, DoD issued a report in that found that sharing or losing spectrum
in that band could jeopardize the agency's ability to control and
communication with satellites that manage sensitive national security data.
The Defense Department also said it would not be able to vacate the band
until at least 2017 for space systems, and by 2010 for ground-based systems.
A separate study conducted by a consortium of wireless industry providers
found that requiring the Defense Department to share its spectrum with
wireless providers would present far fewer potential interference problems.
The GAO report notes that both studies used radically different methods and
formulas to calculate the potential for interference. More importantly, the
study concludes that neither study contains enough information to make
reallocation decisions.
[SOURCE: WashTech.com, AUTHOR: Brian Krebs (Newsbytes)]
(http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/12004-1.html)
BROADBAND
AT&T UNIT SEES NO HALT IN NET ACCESS
Issue: Broadband
A day after auditors called into question the financial viability of
Excite( at )Home, AT&T Broadband, major partner of the company, assured customers
today that its high-speed Internet service would remain uninterrupted if
Excite ultimately failed. Excite( at )Home filed a report with the Securities
and Exchange Commission on Monday that included a statement by the Ernst &
Young auditors expressing substantial doubt" about the company's ability to
survive.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/technology/22EXCI.html)
(requires registration)
EXPERTS: CONTENT HINDERS ASIAN BROADBAND TAKE-UP
Issue: Broadband
While the Asia-Pacific region may lead the world in broadband access to the
Internet, penetration rates are not what they could be as content lags
behind, industry experts told a conference on Wednesday. One key reason for
the slower-than-expected take-up was that the service was often
indistinguishable from narrowband apart from speed, "You need to have
high-quality, high-demand content before wide acceptance is going to
happen," said Diing Yu Chen, marketing director at Hewlett-Packard Asia
Pacific. Etienne Charlier, vice president of Alcatel's Asia Pacific
broadband networking division suggested that content had to be targeted to
be successful, such as in South Korea - which leads the world with 27
percent of households having access -- where broadband games appealed to the
country's gaming culture.
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Amy Tan]
(http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=internetnews&StoryID=173112)
INTERNET
NETSCPAE'S NEW MISSION
Issue: Internet
Netscape is looking for a comeback. AOL Time Warner, the current owner of
Netscape has even bigger plans for the brand than renewing the lost browser
wars. Motivated by the merger of AOL and Time Warner, Netscape, which has
been virtually a nonentity for two years, is once again reinventing itself.
This time, the firm that brought the wild and wooly World Wide Web to the
masses, is becoming a portal that will deliver the masses to the
consumer-themed Internet. Netscape had been the company and product which
introduced the world, and Wall Street, to the commercial potential of the
Web. Its success attracted praise, investors and the attention of rival
Microsoft. After losing a vicious "browser war" fought on the battlefields
of functionality, price and corporate tie-ins, a battered Netscape was
bought for $10 billion by one of the corporations that contributed to its
defeat: America Online. Today, America Online is a megamedia empire and
Netscape is AOL's connection point to the Internet: linking consumers from
Netscape's Web site to such AOL brands as MapQuest and to other newly
acquired Time Warner properties. Netscape has put a new tool bar -- branded
with the Netscape name -- at the top of Time Warner Web sites such as
Time.com, People.com and Money.com.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E01), AUTHOR: Alec Klein]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43772-2001Aug21.html)
See Also:
AOL WON'T GET HANDS ON 'NUDESCAPE' DOMAIN - WIPO
[SOURCE: Washtech.com, AUTHOR: Steven Bonisteel]
(http://www.washtech.com/news/netarch/12015-1.html)
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