Engineers Frequency Advisory Committee (EFAC), which sought FCC certification as a frequency coordinator under Part 90 of the commission’s rules, would be a first of its kind, EFAC said in a news release. Other coordinators have been nonprofit trade associations, but the new coordinating entity was set up by Blue Wing Services, the Shulman law firm and Tusa Consulting Services, EFAC said. The founders “believe that there is a trend of frequency selection becoming more and more engineering-centric, as land mobile radio spectrum transitions from shared to exclusive,” EFAC said. “The founding members of EFAC are finding that they are doing more and more of the frequency selection work themselves, before sending in applications, including creating affordable monitoring services in the field.” The FCC sought comment on the application Tuesday. Comments are due Jan. 5., replies Jan. 20. EFAC would serve as a frequency coordinator for Part 90 public safety and industrial/business pool frequencies, the FCC said.
Ultra HD TVs with 2160 lines of vertical resolution will qualify for Energy Star certification under an "allowance" that lets them consume up to 50 percent more incremental power than comparably sized and featured 1080p sets and still be deemed Energy Star-compliant, the EPA said in its final draft of the Version 7.0 Energy Star TV specification released Wednesday. Comments on the final draft are due Dec. 17, so that the EPA may release the actual specification by late December, before it becomes effective in September, the agency said.
The Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council approved a report Wednesday from CSRIC Working Group 2 on wireless emergency alerts that recommends the FCC modify its current 90-character limit rule for WEA alerts, to allow for messages of up to 280 characters for 4G LTE devices following technology confirmation by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS). The FCC should retain the 90-character rule for WEA alerts for devices using legacy 2G and 3G networks, but the working group believes the goal should be to phase that limit out as 2G and 3G devices go offline, said CTIA Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Brian Josef, Working Group 2 co-chairman. “We’re raising the floor” but recognize that some devices will be able to accept WEA alerts of only up to 90 characters, Josef said during the CSRIC meeting.
The Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council approved a report Wednesday from CSRIC Working Group 2 on wireless emergency alerts that recommends the FCC modify its current 90-character limit rule for WEA alerts, to allow for messages of up to 280 characters for 4G LTE devices following technology confirmation by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS). The FCC should retain the 90-character rule for WEA alerts for devices using legacy 2G and 3G networks, but the working group believes the goal should be to phase that limit out as 2G and 3G devices go offline, said CTIA Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Brian Josef, Working Group 2 co-chairman. “We’re raising the floor” but recognize that some devices will be able to accept WEA alerts of only up to 90 characters, Josef said during the CSRIC meeting.
New details have begun emerging about President Barack Obama’s executive action to reform immigration policies that tech groups and companies have sought for high-skilled workers (see 1411210031). Yet uncertainties abound regarding how long those policies might take to become effective, since many of Obama's reforms will need to undergo extensive rulemaking procedures.
New details have begun emerging about President Barack Obama’s executive action to reform immigration policies that tech groups and companies have sought for high-skilled workers (see 1411210031). Yet uncertainties abound regarding how long those policies might take to become effective, since many of Obama's reforms will need to undergo extensive rulemaking procedures.
New details have begun emerging about President Barack Obama’s executive action to reform immigration policies that tech groups and companies have sought for high-skilled workers (see 1411210031). Yet uncertainties abound regarding how long those policies might take to become effective, since many of Obama's reforms will need to undergo extensive rulemaking procedures.
On Nov. 26-27 the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports:
Though HDMI has had its critics over the years, most recently from compatibility concerns about meshing HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 content protection (see 1403240068), the HDMI interface will get a Primetime Emmy award for "engineering excellence" in ceremonies Jan. 8 during CES, HDMI Licensing said in a Tuesday announcement. HDMI Licensing President Steve Venuti said the award is given "for developments and/or standardization in engineering technologies which either represent so extensive an improvement on existing methods or are so innovative in nature that they have materially affected the transmission, recording, or reception of television." What began as a "vision" has become a "de-facto worldwide HD connectivity standard and a household name for exceptional digital audio and video quality over a single cable," Venuti said. He estimated more than 1,500 licensees have created 4 billion HDMI-compliant products. Last spring, Venuti publicly acknowledged performance issues could become a keen problem as more studios begin protecting their native Ultra HD content with HDCP 2.2, and there’s a body of HDMI 2.0-compliant devices that don’t support HDCP 2.2 and will yield error messages when a consumer wants to play back a movie. In years past, manufacturers and retailers also accused HDMI Licensing of lax policing of its standards. So "inconsistent" was the implementation of HDMI at one point that Best Buy threatened publicly to clear its shelves of HDMI products that hadn’t been tested and certified for compatibility with other HDMI devices because it could no longer "trust the standard" (see 0612190104). HDMI Licensing responded by ramping up its oversight of compliance testing (see 1405010065), but critics still abound.
The Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) and Pacific DataVision said Tuesday that they had submitted a joint petition to the FCC Monday that proposes a rulemaking that would realign the Part 90 land mobile radio 900 MHz band. The realignment would introduce “advanced broadband technology” to the private enterprise user community that would result in spectrum allocations “capable of serving the long-expressed needs of utilities, energy companies, transportation providers” and others, EWA and Pacific DataVision said. “When employee safety and property are threatened, our nation's critical infrastructure providers cannot afford to lose communications,” said EWA President Mark Crosby in a news release. “Unfortunately, that happens all too often when a crisis prompts capacity issues on commercial wireless networks.” It has become “increasingly difficult for the FCC to identify 'greenfield' spectrum to meet important new requirements of its enterprise constituents,” said Pacific DataVision Vice Chairman Morgan O’Brien in the news release. “Realignments and repurposing of existing allocations are today's only practical way of addressing these needs.”