Regulation

Dish looks to stockpile more 4G airwaves

Dish Network has signaled to the FCC that it wants to go after even more spectrum. It will participate in two upcoming auctions to get more airwaves, including the controversial incentive auction.

by

A Sprint-T-Mobile merger may not be in the stars

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303874504579373242977741138?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303874504579373242977741138.html Signals from the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission are making Sprint(s s) and its SoftBank owners reconsider any…

by

Do our phones need a kill switch?

A political fight is brewing between local politicians and the mobile carriers about whether every phone should include a kill switch. The wrong people are having the argument.

by

Dish gets its 4G approval; Sprint gets its 4G auction

Dish finally has permission to become a full-fledged cellular network operator, though it remains to be seen whether it will actually become one. The FCC also set the wheels rolling for an auction next year of new 4G licenses that Sprint has been eyeing.

by

The myth of Twitter’s power to self-correct

Twitter has been lauded for its capacity to crowdsource and uncover the “Truth.” Mathias Crawford, a Fellow at Stanford University, says Twitter’s self-correcting skills are vastly overstated and flawed. The company’s influential power could stand to be regulated, he argues.

by

Court sides with FCC over Verizon in fight over data roaming

Verizon Wireless challenged the FCC’s requirements that it make its data networks available to any competitor through roaming agreements, but in a appeals court decision on Tuesday, the commission prevailed. The unanimous vote means Verizon’s 3G and 4G networks remain open.

by

Leveson tied in knots over online news regulation

People don’t expect trustworthy online journalism like they do in print, says the judge making recommendations about British media. His view may seem antiquated to some, but it may see digital publishers dodge new regulation.

by

Bit by bit Verizon starts selling off 4G spectrum

Verizon has begun selling off its extra 700 MHz licenses per its agreement with the FCC to give up spare 4G spectrum in exchange for the cableco airwaves. So far there’s been no blockbuster sale, though and AT&T has yet to make a move.

by

Europe wants operators to share their spectrum

Wi-Fi, 4G, smart grids and the Internet Of Things are leading to a radiowave logjam, the European Commission fears. It wants license holders to hand over spectrum usable by a new generation of waveband-sharing technologies.

by

VOD liability in flux as UK regulators disagree

Distributors are passing the buck and regulators are openly contradicting each other. UK VOD services may take heart as another regulator decision is overturned. But the rulings and counter-rulings leave liability for internet video in flux.

by

AT&T buys NextWave spectrum hoping to create a new 4G band

By buying NextWave, AT&T removes the biggest obstacle to its plan to convert the Wireless Communications Services band from a worthless patch of airwaves to highly valuable 4G spectrum. The deal will cost AT&T $600 million but would pay dividends in new LTE capacity.

by

Verizon, T-Mobile stop bickering, enter spectrum pact

All’s fair in love and war. Only yesterday T-Mobile was lobbying hard to halt Verizon’s acquisition of the cable operators’ 4G spectrum. Today it’s unopposed to the deal. What changed? T-Mobile and Verizon now plan to swap the same spectrum they’ve been fighting over.

by

What you need to know about the EU Cookie Law

Whether they’re outraged, scrabbling in terror, or simply hoping it goes away, it’s the privacy rule that European startups can’t ignore. But what exactly is the European cookie directive? As the rules come into force in the U.K., we take a look at the details.

by

Dish: Sure, we’ll build LTE, just give us four years

Dish Network has taken possession of it’s 4G spectrum and it’s ready to deliver its competitive mobile broadband network – in 2016. In a filing with the FCC, Dish basically asked the FCC for the granddaddy of all extensions for turning in its LTE homework assignments.

by

How mobile networks are policing the web — badly

Mounting evidence suggests Europe’s mobile operators are becoming increasingly censorious, thanks to haphazard adult content filters that are applied to millions of users. The result? De facto, unregulated censorship that screens out thousands of legitimate websites, including GigaOM.

by

FCC wants to know if Verizon is warehousing spectrum

The FCC is curious why Verizon bought a bunch of 4G spectrum back in 2008 but now plans to sell it. The FCC is asking Verizon some poignant questions, and though the word “warehousing” is never mentioned it’s certainly the direction the FCC is heading.

by

FCC Chairman questions AT&T’s merger math

Performing a few mental calculations during his keynote at CTIA Wireless on Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski quickly concluded that the same amount of mobile spectrum existed today as existed before the government slapped down AT&T-Mo. So where did this capacity crisis suddenly come from?

by

AT&T’s blame game: We didn’t raise prices; the FCC did

AT&T is heating up its retaliatory campaign against the Federal Communications Commission for denying its $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson claimed once again that the merger’s death directly resulted in AT&T’s raising mobile data prices 30 percent. We don’t buy it.

by

Verizon to T-Mobile: Weren’t you the hypocrite in bed with AT&T?

Verizon and its cable partners aren’t taking T-Mobile’s bashing of their proposed spectrum deal lying down. In fact, they’re accusing the carrier of hypocrisy, throwing in T-Mobile’s face its own recent attempt to merge with AT&T, which would have created the megacarrier to beat all megacarriers.

by

Verizon, Comcast prepare for Senate showdown

Wednesday’s Senate hearing on Verizon’s spectrum deal with the cable operators certainly isn’t going to be a love fest. Verizon and Comcast will square off not only against its toughest critics – The Free Press and the RCA – but the unions as well.

by

LightSquared to FCC: You owe us spectrum

If the FCC won’t let LightSquared launch LTE in its satellite spectrum, then the carrier wants the commission to find its network an alternate home on the airwaves. LightSquared still claims its 4G network will leave GPS unharmed, but it’s willing to consider a spectrum swap.

by

FCC presses Verizon on mobile capacity crunch

Verizon has claimed that it will start running out of mobile broadband capacity as soon as 2013 unless it gets its hands on the cable operators’ unused spectrum. But the FCC has some questions about the math Verizon used to reach that conclusion.

by

Was the battle over AT&T-Mo a fight worth having?

The AT&T-Mo saga wasted countless dollars and resources, dominating the attention of regulators and the wireless industry for a year, but AT&T’s failure more than made up for those losses. We now have more fearsome regulation and a greater awareness of the mobile market’s precarious competitive state.

by

British regulators extend scrutiny of Groupon

After finding Groupon’s U.K. operation in breach of advertising rules nearly 50 times this year, officials are now referring complaints to regulators conducting a wider investigation into the company’s business practices.

by

Why Verizon needs AT&T-Mo to just disappear

Verizon dodged a bullet on Tuesday when the FCC denounced AT&T-Mo. No conditional approval means no new regulations to haunt Verizon’s own consolidation plans in the future. Now Verizon needs its archival AT&T to throw in the towel before it can do any more damage.

by

Google, this is why you’re under investigation

Those who questioned whether European regulators were right to open an antitrust investigation into Google’s activities last year should take a look at the data again, as the company’s dominance across the continent reaches new heights — and new depths, too.

by

Paris power play feels like deja vu all over again

Another month, another summit in Paris to discuss the future of the Internet — and another debate that ends up in the same old arguments about copyright infringement and law enforcement. Are we doomed to keep repeating our mistakes, or can we ever move on?

by

Report

California’s New Energy Data Privacy Rules: Some Answers, Many Questions

The California Public Utilities Commission is the first U.S. regulatory entity to issue a sweeping set of guidelines for managing and protecting consumers’ data around energy use. The goal is to allow startups and corporate giants alike to access that data to make homes more energy-efficient and eventually build “smart home” networks. But while the recently released guidelines are critical for the smart grid industry to track, they pose at least as many questions as answers, and will doubtless be open to multiple interpretations in the coming months. Companies mentioned in this report include Google, Microsoft, Control4, Tendril and HP. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

by

Canadian Broadcasters: Regulate Netflix Like TV

Netflix could soon be forced to spend more money on Canadian content and run programming “that reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity,” if Canada’s TV incumbents have their way. An industry consortium asked regulators this month to treat Netflix like plain old TV.

by

U.S. Web Firms Told to Stick to EU Privacy Laws

The culture clash between American and European privacy cultures has been bubbling away for some time, but now European lawmakers have given the clearest signal yet to America’s Internet companies that they will be forced to abide by new, stricter privacy regulations.

by

Report

Report: Health Care’s Climb To the Cloud

The U.S. health care system remains one of the most fragmented and inefficient ones on the planet. In fact, many view the use of the term “system” as problematic when it comes to the organizations of health services and health care delivery in the U.S.; a more apt phrase might be “non-system” — that is, a system without effective organization.

by

Report

How Regulated Industries Can Move Toward the Cloud

Regulated industries like health care and financial services frequently deal with large quantities of highly sensitive data many deem unsuitable for cloud storage. But for those prepared to invest in understanding and meeting the requirements of such heavily regulated environments, there are many opportunities to offer premium services.

by