A national broadband strategy would fix many U.S. problems, even some that seem unrelated to telecom, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told an Alliance for Public Technology forum Friday. Broadband deployment may have greater unintended benefits than phone rollout did, he said: “The profits [carriers] get don’t capture all the benefits to a broader society.” Adelstein suggested a national broadband summit involving the executive and legislative branches, state and local governments and the private sector. Such a meeting would “elevate the debate” and “make it clear how much of a national priority this is.”
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Deputy Managing Editor for Privacy Daily. Bender leads a team of journalists and reports on state privacy legislation, rulemaking and litigation. In previous roles at Communications Daily, he covered telecom and internet policy in the states, Congress and at the FCC. He has won awards for his reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW). Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of multiple dystopian sci-fi novels. Keep up to date with Bender by reading his blog and following him on social media including Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn.
Limits may be needed on police searches and seizures as more people use iPhones and other smart electronic devices, Adam Gershowitz, professor at the South Texas College of Law, said in a paper. The doctrine of search incident to arrest - - intended to keep police and evidence safe -- can be read as allowing police to sift an iPhone’s e-mails, Internet browser history and other private data, all without a warrant, the paper said. Legal experts we talked with said the opportunity for abusing Fourth Amendment protections is real, but changing the law could be an uphill battle.
The next generation of the Internet is here, and federal agencies required to adopt IPv6 shouldn’t hesitate, panelists from Verizon, the General Services Administration and the Defense Department told an IPv6 conference Wednesday. Agencies must adopt IPv6 by June under a 2005 government mandate. “All the component parts necessary are in place -- virtual circuits, virtual routers, virtual apps, the identity management, security systems,” said Charles Lee, Verizon Business chief technology officer. “You know what’s missing? IPv6.” Without IPv6, “you can not achieve secure, mobile, peer-to-peer, global communications,” he said.
A wireless partnership and broadband expansion could slow access line loss, CEO Ed Mueller told investors as the Bell released Q4 results Tuesday. In Q4, retail access lines declined 6.5 percent year-over-year to 11.5 million. That’s “arguably one of the worst rates of decline in the industry,” Bear Stearns analyst Mike McCormack said during a Q4 conference call. The Q4 loss is “more of the same” for Qwest, Mueller said. The slowing economy had “some impact,” but cable competition hasn’t increased, he said.
Level 3 has fixed many of its sales process problems and “generally returned” to quality levels extent before it integrated six network companies acquired the past two years, officials told investors as they reported Q4 results. Last quarter, Level 3 offered lower 2007 and 2008 expectations after struggling to integrate provisioning processes among the acquisitions (CD Oct 24 p11). “We now believe we've created additional installation capacity and we're working hard to increase the rate of sales to use this capacity,” said CEO James Crowe. “What we need to do is under our own control.”
Multi-billion-dollar share repurchase programs announced by Verizon and AT&T won’t hold back wireless network expansions, but could reflect an economic recession, analysts said in interviews. Verizon said Thursday it would buy back 100 million shares of common stock, worth $36.95 after the market closed. In December, AT&T said it would buy back 400 millions shares, worth $37 each. The Verizon buyback expires in 2011. AT&T’s finishes in 2009.
Qualcomm added LTE to its device and base station roadmap, announcing Thursday that three chipsets support the technology. Qualcomm expects to sample the chips in Q2 2009, it said. The chips are backward compatible with existing 3G UMTS and CDMA2000 networks, and two support UMB. No major U.S. carrier has announced plans to use UMB, but many in the industry see the Qualcomm-developed UMB as an LTE rival. Not so, a Qualcomm spokeswoman said. Qualcomm strives to be “technology agnostic,” supporting “as many technologies as possible,” she said. UMB is still on the Qualcomm roadmap, but the chipmaker also sees a “market need” for LTE, she said. Also Thursday, Qualcomm said international operators Hutchison 3G, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telstra will trial HSPA+ technology this year. HSPA+ is an upgrade to HSPA technology, increasing mobile broadband speeds up to 28 Mbps. Qualcomm expects to se HSPA+ to appear commercially in 2009, it said.
AT&T will raise DSL prices outside the former BellSouth territory, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday. Subscribers to the three lowest-tier AT&T plans will pay $5 more monthly, he said. Prices rose “to better reflect the value of our broadband service and market conditions,” he said. Charges won’t increase for U-verse plans, a $19.99 naked DSL plan or a $10 promotion for new AT&T DSL customers, he said. Increases take effect Feb. 16 for new customers and in March for current subscribers, he said. AT&T may be raising prices “to take advantage of customer inertia and customer frugalness to support revenues,” said Moody’s analyst Dennis Saputo in an interview. “Customers with these DSL speeds are probably quite satisfied with the speed or else they would have gone to cable which generally offers much higher speeds,” he said, and AT&T may have decide those customers would swallow a $5 rise. But it isn’t a good idea, he said: “The $5 increase will push some customers to cable and once they go they are unlikely to ever return, especially if the cable company is upgrading its service offerings.”
The International Trade Commission is studying Broadcom evidence related to Qualcomm workarounds, Chief Financial Officer Eric Brandt said at the Thomas Wiesel Conference in San Francisco. The ITC must decide if an injunction won by Broadcom against Qualcomm also applies to chips designed to work around infringement. Brandt also spoke of a potential Motorola mobile division spinoff and the macro-economic environment. On Motorola, Brandt said he’s “not sure that it’s good or bad at this point,” noting that a Motorola split could “create opportunities for us.” Broadcom and Motorola’s relationship “remains strong,” he added. On the economy, Broadcom sees “storm clouds on the horizon but it’s just not raining here yet,” Brandt said. Due to the semiconductor maker’s “end of the whip” industry position, Broadcom won’t see impact before customers do, he said. Meantime, Broadcom will keep inventories “as lean as possible,” he said.
A patent holder is suing Nokia for $17.7 billion in Germany, Nokia confirmed last week. IP-Com sued Nokia Dec. 13 in the Mannheim, Germany, district court after Nokia refused to pay that price for a license. “We demand at least 12 billion euros in license fees for the patents which we own and which Nokia uses in its products,” Christoph Schoeller, managing director of IP-Com, told Reuters last week. That claim is “completely unrealistic” and Nokia “will of course defend itself,” a Nokia spokeswoman said. The patents in the suit originally belonged to Bosch, she said. Bosch “refused to honor its commitments to standardization organizations and Nokia,” instead selling the patents to IP-Com, a company owned by Bosch outside counsel, she said. Nokia believes the patents are “invalid and not infringed,” and has claims pending against Bosch, she said.