The government will have to hold off awarding a contract to build FirstNet’s network until a Rivada Mercury protest is resolved by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Jason Karp, the authority’s chief counsel, said at the close of a board meeting Wednesday. The board met for more than two hours in Sacramento to hear a series of updates. Officials emphasized that work on the network is moving forward despite the legal questions. The meeting was scheduled to be the board’s last before the Trump administration takes office in January.
Fostering prepaid and resold wired internet services and thereby creating competition similar to that existing in the wireless industry could close the digital divide and address systemic racial discrimination reducing internet adoption among minorities, Free Press reported Tuesday. It may be a challenge to convince a Republican-led FCC next year to require those options or stop market-power abuses, said Policy Director Matt Wood in an interview. While a prepaid internet service offered by Comcast lowers one adoption barrier, it may raise other hurdles, Wood said.
Fostering prepaid and resold wired internet services and thereby creating competition similar to that existing in the wireless industry could close the digital divide and address systemic racial discrimination reducing internet adoption among minorities, Free Press reported Tuesday. It may be a challenge to convince a Republican-led FCC next year to require those options or stop market-power abuses, said Policy Director Matt Wood in an interview. While a prepaid internet service offered by Comcast lowers one adoption barrier, it may raise other hurdles, Wood said.
The House and Senate last week passed H.R. 875, the Cross-Border Trade Enhancement Act of 2016, which would authorize the CBP commissioner to enter into alternative financing arrangements with entities to provide customs, agricultural processing or border security services at U.S. land ports of entry, compensating CBP for administering those services. The House passed the legislation Dec. 6 under suspension of the rules, before the Senate passed it under unanimous consent on Dec. 10. Specifically, the legislation would authorize the commissioner and General Services Administration (GSA) chief to enter into cost-sharing or reimbursement agreements for the construction or maintenance of a new or existing CBP or GSA facility, or other infrastructure, at land ports of entry. The bill would also allow CBP and GSA to accept "real or personal property" donations, including money to use toward these infrastructure activities.
Samsung filed four separate trademark applications in recent days that suggest a preview of the buzz terms the company is planning to use when it takes its 2017 TV product line to market in the months after CES. All four applications were filed Dec. 2 at the Patent and Trademark Office, a day after applications for the identical terms were filed with EU trademark authorities, PTO records show. One of the applications is to trademark the term, “Real Black,” in an apparent attempt to do battle against OLED sets from rival LG, which LG markets on its website as having “perfect black” for a “more lifelike image” and uniquely “great shadow detail.” Samsung landed an October 2014 trademark registration for a similarly worded term, “Real Black Filter,” PTO records show. A feature by that name was the talk of Samsung’s high-end plasma TV models at the January 2010 CES for having the ability to reduce onscreen glare caused by ambient light, "so blacks and shadow details are as crisp and defined as possible," an online review then quoted Samsung as saying. Samsung was among the last suppliers to abandon the plasma TV category a few years later (see 1407080054). Other Samsung TV-related trademark applications filed Dec. 2 at PTO were for “Q Contrast,” “Q Contrast Ultimate” and “True Details,” agency records show. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Friday.
Sprint and T-Mobile combining looks more likely with the election of Donald Trump, said analysts and industry lawyers. The companies flirted with a deal in 2014, before dropping plans under pressure from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1408070044). Wheeler said then: “Four national wireless providers are good for American consumers.” The conventional wisdom has been that the Obama administration drew a hard line at four nationwide wireless carriers, but a Republican administration might be willing to accept three.
Sprint and T-Mobile combining looks more likely with the election of Donald Trump, said analysts and industry lawyers. The companies flirted with a deal in 2014, before dropping plans under pressure from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1408070044). Wheeler said then: “Four national wireless providers are good for American consumers.” The conventional wisdom has been that the Obama administration drew a hard line at four nationwide wireless carriers, but a Republican administration might be willing to accept three.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is setting new filing requirements at time of entry for imports of certain species of seafood the agency has deemed high-risk, in a final rule (here). Conceived as part of an administration-wide strategy to combat illegal, unreported and unregistered (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud (see 1503160016), filers will have to submit via ACE certain data elements and electronic documents with information on the fisher, the fish and how it was fished, in order to improve traceability of imports of the high-risk species. The importer of record must also maintain records on the chain of custody of their seafood imports, and obtain an International Fisheries Trade Permit for the high-risk species.
The transition team for President-elect Donald Trump named L Brands’ Mark Neuman as another landing team member for the Department of Commerce. Also named: new members to the teams for the Department of Transportation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and others, said a news release this week.
The Trump transition's Jeff Eisenach cited Latino economic and demographic dynamism in a study Tuesday by NERA Economic Consulting, where he's managing director. "The US Latino population is growing, young, increasingly educated, employed, connected, entrepreneurial, and upwardly mobile in terms of income as well as consumption," said the study. It said: the Latino population grew from 22 million in 1990 to 57 million in 2015 and is considerably younger than the U.S. population average; Latinos are responsible for 29 percent of the growth in real income since 2005; are more likely to participate in the labor force; are more likely to be entrepreneurs; and accounted for 46 percent of U.S. employment growth 2011-15; with $1.3 trillion-plus in buying power. Eisenach is a member of President-elect Donald Trump's FCC landing team, along with fellow American Enterprise Institute scholars Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton (see 1611210045, 1611280050, 1611230014 and 1611290022).