1. Monthly archive
  2. June 2019

June 2019

FCC Authorizes Second Wave of Funding for Rural Broadband From Connect America Fund Auction

The Federal Communications Commission authorized $166.8 million in funding over the next decade to expand broadband to 60,850 unserved rural homes and businesses in 22 states, representing the second wave of support from 2018's successful Connect America Fund Phase II auction. Providers will begin receiving funding in June. In total, the auction last fall allocated $1.488 billion in support to expand broadband to more than 700,000 unserved rural homes and small businesses over the next 10 years.

Some big tech firms cut employees' access to Huawei, muddying 5G rollout

Apparently, some of the world’s biggest tech companies have told their employees to stop talking about technology and technical standards with counterparts at Huawei in response to the recent US blacklisting of the Chinese tech firm. Chipmakers Intel and Qualcomm, mobile research firm InterDigital Wireless, and South Korean carrier LG Uplus have restricted employees from informal conversations with Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker. Such discussions are a routine part of international meetings where engineers gather to set technical standards for communications

President Trump on tech antitrust: ‘There’s something going on’

In an interview with CNBC, President Donald Trump criticized the antitrust fines imposed by the European Union on US tech companies, suggesting that these tech giants could, in fact, be monopolies, but the US should be the political body raking in the settlement fines. “Every week you see them going after Facebook, and Apple, and all of these companies that are, you know, great companies," President Trump said. "But I will say that the European Union is suing them all the time." “Well, we should be doing this. They’re our companies.

Supreme Court to hear racial discrimination case against Comcast

The Supreme Court said that it would hear a case alleging that Comcast discriminated against an African-American owned media company in declining to take up its channels. The justices said in an unsigned order that the court will consider whether the network needs to prove that Comcast meant to act in a discriminatory way in the case. Byron Allen, the owner of the Entertainment Studios Network (ESN), alleged that Comcast violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in rejecting to carry his channels.

FCC Announces Delay in Wireless Emergency Alerts Improvements

The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) through which all Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) are authenticated, validated, and delivered to participating Commercial Mobile Service Providers, has informed the Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau that IPAWS will not be ready to support certain improvements to WEA as of June 10, 2019, as previously expected. Accordingly, until such time as IPAWS will support and deploy the State/Local WEA Tes

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Date 
Tue, 06/11/2019 - 19:00

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