Tom Power, deputy federal chief technology officer, said Thursday the success of FirstNet isn’t guaranteed, but he’s confident the public safety network will be a success. Power warned that the $7 billion set aside for FirstNet by Congress out of auction proceeds will likely be the only money to come directly from the federal government. The adequacy of the $7 billion was raised repeatedly throughout a forum sponsored by wireless infrastructure association PCIA, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials and the Maryland/D.C. Wireless Association.

Inmarsat plans to launch the first Inmarsat-5 satellite this year as part of its forthcoming Ka-band network, Global Xpress. The network will expand Inmarsat’s services in mobility and bandwidth to serve governments and the private sector (CD July 23 p15). Executives involved in the rollout at Inmarsat and companies it’s working with said in interviews that they're making progress on the product to improve satellite Internet coverage.

The White House said it’s not satisfied with a cybersecurity bill despite its adoption of some amendments aimed at addressing privacy concerns approved during markup by House Intelligence Committee members. The amendments “reflect a good faith-effort to incorporate some of the Administration’s important substantive concerns, but we do not believe these changes have addressed some outstanding fundamental priorities,” White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Thursday via email. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (HR-624) passed the committee 18-2 during a closed markup session Wednesday afternoon. The bill, which passed the House last year but didn’t reach the Senate, is now expected to be considered by the full House next week, the committee said in a news release after the vote.

China’s leadership is strongly backing the rollout of IPv6, said Asia Pacific Network Information Center Director General Paul Wilson in an interview. Some sectors, such as academia and research, have “achieved a very high level of IPv6 readiness,” but local content providers and enterprises in the Asia Pacific region and China still have some way to go, he said. One sign of China’s interest in promoting the new technology is that it’s hosting its 11th summit on IPv6 this week in Beijing, he said. APNIC is one of the five regional Internet registries that allocates IP addresses. IPv6 is the latest version of the protocol that routes traffic across the Internet.

The federal government should free up some of its spectrum, former officials said during a Broadband for America panel Wednesday. Last summer’s Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report on spectrum sharing is “insane” and “bad science fiction,” said former NTIA Administrator Larry Irving.

President Barack Obama’s $3.77 trillion budget for fiscal year 2014 proposes an auction of the 1675-1680 MHz band spectrum that LightSquared hoped to get from the government for its wholesale wireless broadband network. The budget alternately suggests assigning the spectrum and charging a fee. The budget mentions spectrum repeatedly. Another theme is increased spending on cybersecurity.

Voxx International had hoped to ship its first after-market mobile DTV tuner for the automotive market in May, but “that’s going to be pushed out probably to” its Q3 that starts in September, CEO Patrick Lavelle said in an interview at the Long Island Digital Summit Tuesday. Voxx is still “waiting” for the chipset that’s being supplied by Mobile Content Venture (MCV), and it has been “delayed,” he said. MCV didn’t immediately comment.

Google appears set to launch its own experimental network in the 2524-2625 MHz band, which could be a prototype for future operations in 3.5 GHz spectrum. The FCC launched a rulemaking in December aimed at opening the 3550-3650 MHz band for shared use and use by small cells. Google had no comment, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

LAS VEGAS -- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski thinks his departure won’t affect the “continuity” of the voluntary incentive auction of TV frequencies, and that broadcasters shouldn’t view it as a “zero-sum game” between stations and carriers, he said Wednesday in a Q-and-A at the NAB Show. Just like cable -- which broadcasters initially opposed -- expanded stations’ revenue and business opportunities, so too will mobile wireless do so for stations, he said. Every stakeholder “should take this problem-solving and fact and data approach” to the auction and other issues before the FCC, just as commissioners have done, “even where we've disagreed, and we disagree fairly frequently,” Genachowski said. “We've worked to keep the focus on problem solving,” as “even where we disagree, we've been able to avoid dysfunction,” he said.

Capitol Hill’s dormant net neutrality debate boiled over Wednesday afternoon as House lawmakers sparred ahead of the markup of a bill aimed at codifying the U.S. policy against “government control” of the Internet. Republicans on the House Communications Subcommittee argued that international governments are seeking to regulate the Web through a U.N. body and U.S. lawmakers must send a strong message that it’s committed to Internet freedom. But Democrats on the panel loudly objected to the bill’s use of the term “government control,” which they said was overly broad and could have unintended consequences on U.S. and foreign policy regarding the Web. Technology groups and public interest groups said they also opposed the “government control” language in the bill and urged lawmakers to reject or amend the provision in separate statements and blog posts.