Telecommunication

Bowing to White House demands, Republican Senators have backed off their attempt to reimpose US sanctions on the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE. The retreat means ZTE, a company found guilty of selling US goods to Iran in violation of sanctions, will duck Commerce Department penalties that bar US companies from doing business with it. Chinese officials said those penalties would effectively put ZTE out of business.

Verizon eached a deal with state regulators to expand its high-speed internet services in New York and repair its existing telephone infrastructure. The agreement with the state Public Service Commission means Verizon expects to make its high-speed broadband network available to an additional 47,000 households across the state starting in 2018. The deal requires Verizon to expand fiber and hybrid fiber-copper networks to parts of upstate, the Hudson Valley and Long Island.

ZTE Corp can resume business with its US suppliers, the Commerce Department said July 13, after the Chinese telecommunications giant met the conditions of a deal President Donald Trump made to save the company. The saga over the fate of the Chinese firm began in April when Commerce banned US companies from selling to ZTE as punishment for its failure to honor an earlier US agreement to resolve its sanctions-busting sales to North Korea and Iran. Because ZTE relies on US suppliers to make its smartphones and to build telecommunications networks, the penalty was effectively a death knell.

Robocalls ravaged Americans’ smartphones in record numbers in June. But some of the nation’s top businesses – from credit card companies and student lenders to retailers and car dealers – are still urging the Trump administration to make it easier for them to dial and text mobile devices en masse. For many smartphone owners, there’s rarely a day that they don’t receive an unanticipated call from an unrecognized number, some sporting an area code that’s suspiciously similar to their own. In June, robocalls rang an estimated 4 billion times.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the August Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 2, 2018:

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Report and Order that:

The Commerce Department took a major step to loosen its restrictions on the controversial Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp., signing an escrow agreement that paves the way for the firm to continue doing business with U.S. companies. The move came under pressure from President Donald Trump, who had told Chinese leader Xi Jinping he would help ZTE after the company was met with severe restrictions for violating U.S. sanctions.

[Speech] The Federal Communications Commission has launched an across-the-board review to identify regulations that need to be revised or repealed altogether. Beyond cutting rules that slow network buildout, we’re promoting investment in next-generation networks with a smarter regulatory approach. I often say that dumb pipes won’t deliver smart cities. That’s why we reversed the previous Administration’s decision to impose 20th century utility-style regulations on our 21st century networks.

The piercing ring of a home phone used to command respect. “That’s how I was raised: When the phone rings, you hop to it,” I heard my mom say recently as we chatted on my new landline phone. She finally got rid of her hard-wired phone because she couldn’t stop herself from answering it, even after it had primarily become a conduit for robotic telemarketing and fraud. Despite its demotion to a means of harassment, though, the landline refuses to die. According to a 2017 U.S.

The Federal Communications Commission is refusing to reverse a decision that will take a broadband subsidy away from many American Indians. Under FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's leadership, the FCC voted 3-2 in November 2017 to make it much harder for Tribal residents to obtain a $25-per-month Lifeline subsidy that reduces the cost of Internet or phone service. The changes could take effect as early as October 2018, depending on when they are approved by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB).