FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is expected to leave before the end of February, with an announcement possible after Clyburn goes to Las Vegas for CES this week, informed people said. If Clyburn leaves, Republicans would have a 3-1 majority on the commission, with Jessica Rosenworcel the remaining Democrat.
President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Monday aimed at improving broadband deployments in rural areas of the U.S., saying at an American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Nashville that it will be the first of several actions aimed at changing the current situation. One of the orders is aimed at “streamlining and expediting requests” for rural broadband projects, he said. The other targets siting of tower facilities on Department of the Interior-owned lands. Both orders will ensure citizens in rural areas are “going to have great, great broadband,” Trump said. The texts of the orders weren't available.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is expected to leave before the end of February, with an announcement possible after Clyburn goes to Las Vegas for CES this week, informed people said. If Clyburn leaves, Republicans would have a 3-1 majority on the commission, with Jessica Rosenworcel the remaining Democrat.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau revoked spectrum licenses held by Acumen Communications and dismissed the company’s pending applications for modification and renewal of various authorizations. The action follows an order by the FCC Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel, the order said. "Acumen lacks the qualifications to be or remain a Commission licensee because Acumen failed to respond to a Letter of Inquiry from the Enforcement Bureau, waived its right to a hearing, and failed to respond to evidence that has been presented to the Commission in its own license application proceedings.” It holds eight licenses for private land mobile radio (PLMR) stations in the Los Angeles area, a single PLMR license authorizing itinerant operation nationwide and two licenses for microwave stations in the Los Angeles area, the bureau said. The company didn't comment.
Sprint said the nearly 14-year 800 MHz rebanding is almost complete. The big question remains: Why did the process take so long when rebranding originally was projected to be completed in just three years? Former FCC officials and observers said on some levels that the 800 MHz rebanding was uniquely complicated, far more so than envisioned.
Two tech firms landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for using magnesium oxide (MgO) as what they call a “breakthrough material” for enhancing the performance of thin-film transistors that drive the pixels in most consumer displays. The patent (9,856,578), which describes “methods of producing large grain or single crystal films,” was based on an April 2014 application and was assigned to Solar-Tectic and Blue Wave Semiconductors and names Ratnakar Vispute, Blue Wave’s owner, and Andrew Seiser, systems/process engineer, as the inventors. MgO thin films “have assumed significant importance in recent times” as a protective layer on the glass used in consumer displays and as an “intermediate buffer layer” between a semiconductor substrate and a ferroelectric film used in chip production, says the patent. As an insulating material, MgO “is not only highly transparent, but also has very high thermal conductivity, high thermal stability, and a high melting point,” said Solar-Tectic and Blue Wave in a Tuesday statement. “Perhaps most importantly, however, the new material has an unusual orientation which can enhance the preferred orientations of silicon and germanium.”
Vizio landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for a method of encrypting content “on the fly” when “casting” programs from a smartphone to a “second screen” device like a TV. “Currently few if any casting agents can provide content encryption notifications to stream receivers for the stream or content to be casted,” says the patent (9,860.217), which is based on a September 2014 application and lists Vizio Chief Technology Officer Matthew McRae as the inventor. Casting unencrypted content to a second-screen device “is often not a large concern for home environments but can present a significant issue with business environments,” where data being cast to a display device “can contain sensitive business information that would be relatively easy to compromise between the content server and the stream receiver,” says the patent. “The inventor recognized that it would be useful to provide a technique that would give a user of stream casting devices the ability to have content being streamed to second screens to be encrypted. Ideally, the encryption would occur ‘on the fly’ such that the stream would be encrypted prior to being transmitted and decrypted just after being received and just prior to being displayed.” Vizio didn’t comment Tuesday.
Industry observers disagree whether the FCC’s Dec. 14 vote undoing the 2015 net neutrality rules will have long-term negative effects on how the public views FCC. The net neutrality order sparked a huge backlash, including protests outside the FCC as the vote was underway. On social media, tweets by Chairman Ajit Pai are being attacked, even if they have nothing to do with net neutrality. An innocuous tweet Wednesday on FCC approval of a power at a distance wireless charging device brought a torrent of abuse, some of it obscene. “Please Resign. Just resign. You are not helping the American people,” one person said. The FCC didn't comment.
Industry observers disagree whether the FCC’s Dec. 14 vote undoing the 2015 net neutrality rules will have long-term negative effects on how the public views FCC. The net neutrality order sparked a huge backlash, including protests outside the FCC as the vote was underway. On social media, tweets by Chairman Ajit Pai are being attacked, even if they have nothing to do with net neutrality. An innocuous tweet Wednesday on FCC approval of a power at a distance wireless charging device brought a torrent of abuse, some of it obscene. “Please Resign. Just resign. You are not helping the American people,” one person said. The FCC didn't comment.
Industry observers disagree whether the FCC’s Dec. 14 vote undoing the 2015 net neutrality rules will have long-term negative effects on how the public views FCC. The net neutrality order sparked a huge backlash, including protests outside the FCC as the vote was underway. On social media, tweets by Chairman Ajit Pai are being attacked, even if they have nothing to do with net neutrality. An innocuous tweet Wednesday on FCC approval of a power at a distance wireless charging device brought a torrent of abuse, some of it obscene. “Please Resign. Just resign. You are not helping the American people,” one person said. The FCC didn't comment.