NEW ORLEANS -- States and municipalities have a bigger role than people realize in broadband, panelists said Friday at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors annual meeting. These powers may have increasing relevance as the federal powers diminish and local upgrade projects continue to spread throughout the country, they argued. Three years ago at NATOA’s last New Orleans meeting, there were doubts about whether the association would even continue as an organization, but those doubts are now gone, said Executive Director Steve Traylor.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Over time, manufacturers of larger organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays for TV sets will use printing methods to make them, David Fyfe, a consultant with Sumitomo Chemical, said during OLEDs World Summit Friday. The shift to printing over “fine metal mask” (FMM) manufacturing will be driven by the cost reductions offered by printing methods, he said. “Samsung is predicting that 26 percent of TVs will be OLEDs by 2020, and to get there the cost is going to have to come down to be pretty close to where LCD [liquid crystal display] is,” Fyfe said. “I don’t think that can be achieved with fine metal mask technology."

A cybersecurity executive order that’s being drafted wouldn’t supplant the need for new law should the White House decide to release any final document, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday. She urged Congress to continue its work to pass a comprehensive cybersecurity bill, after one failed in the Senate this summer due to the threat of a filibuster. As chances of such legislation decrease, collaboration will be necessary to combat cybersecurity threats, ex-White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said at another event. “An executive order will help but we still need comprehensive cybersecurity legislation,” Napolitano said at a conference hosted by National Journal and Government Executive. “It is something that Congress will have to come back and address."

The African Telecommunications Union’s meeting to prepare for the World Conference on International Telecommunications produced a mixed set of opinions on the U.S.’s position and on a proposal the U.S. opposes as allowing Internet regulation, said Terry Kramer, the head of the America’s WCIT delegation. The U.S. has opposed a proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) that would establish a “sender-party-pays” principle for Internet traffic compensation that could require the sender of any Internet content to pay for its transmission. Kramer made the case for the U.S.’s position on the possible revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) during the ATU’s meeting in Accra, Ghana, which ran Tuesday and Wednesday of last week (CD Sept 24 p5).

IBiquity Digital continues to “push forward” in its efforts to land HD Radio functionality in smartphones and tablets, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Jury told us. “We're talking to carriers, we're talking to handset manufacturers,” Jury said. But “beyond that, I don’t have anything more specific to say in terms of an actual device launch, but we continue to push for some launches this year,” he said.

NEW ORLEANS -- The U.S. needs to embrace new measures of broadband and renewed focus on expanding the technology to more Americans, said officials from the FCC, Google and the National Association of Telecommunications Officials and Advisors Thursday on a panel at NATOA’s annual meeting.

Telcos and carriers expressed strong support for a USTelecom petition for reconsideration of an FCC public notice that imposed various obligations on eligible telecommunications carriers that deal with tribal groups. The rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), and the First Amendment, groups say. But tribal groups that commented strongly objected to the petition, calling it “misguided” and “deeply disappointing.” The public notice (http://xrl.us/bnro5r) offered “further guidance” on the tribal government engagement obligation provisions in the USF/intercarrier compensation order, and USTelecom took issue with its calls for “culturally sensitive” marketing and in-person meetings between telecom executives and tribal leaders.

Current and former National Security Agency officials stressed the importance of a collaborative public/private effort to secure the nation’s critical assets from cyberattack. Chris Inglis, NSA deputy director, and Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and NSA, both advocated such an approach Thursday at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit.

AMSTERDAM -- The European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association proposal for International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) was the target of Internet network operators during the meeting of RIPE, the Internet address manager for Europe and the Middle East. Maria Hall, deputy director for the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications in Sweden, and co-chair of the RIPE Cooperation Working Group, said “there might be a problem in a certain area, but do we really want to put that into the ITR[s]? In many cases the answer is ‘no.'"

JACKSON, Miss. -- Dish Network was looking for lightning to strike a third time by holding the launch event for its new dishNET satellite-based broadband service at the Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City flagship store on Thursday, Dish CEO Joseph Clayton told reporters. The service will launch nationwide in the U.S. Monday, but the Mississippi retail chain was selected for the launch, in part because it previously played a key role in the launch of DirecTV and Sirius Satellite Radio.