The FCC Public Safety Bureau granted two waiver requests Tuesday for Anchorage’s application for authorities to operate an IP-based land mobile data system for public safety agencies and emergency responders on the general use channels on the portion of the 700 MHz band designated for public safety narrowband use. Anchorage intends to integrate the new system into the existing Anchorage Wide Area Radio Network (AWARN), the bureau said. One waiver will let Anchorage operate the mobile data system using 50-kHz channels, which is beyond the 25-kHz bandwidth the FCC typically allows under its rules. The other waiver will let Anchorage obtain from CalAmp Wireless Networks, the city’s equipment vendor for the project, equipment capable of operating with a channel bandwidth greater than 25 kHz, the FCC said. Anchorage’s waiver requests fit the FCC’s requirement that “unique or unusual factual circumstances” related to the system make it “inequitable, unduly burdensome or contrary to the public interest” to enforce the rule, the bureau said. There’s “little demand” for the 700 MHz general use channels in Alaska beyond the AWARN system, and Anchorage is justified in needing to use channel bandwidths greater than 25 kHz to achieve its desired data throughput rate of 128 kbps on the new system, the bureau said. All CalAmp transmitters for the new system must comply with industry-adopted adjacent channel power emission limits, which minimize interference to adjacent channels, the bureau said (http://bit.ly/VQVMMG).
Honors for the world’s first TV to land Greenguard certification from UL Environment for limited toxic emissions go to LG’s model 55EC9300 55-inch curved OLED TV, LG and UL said Wednesday. “Complex components, plastics and other substances in TV products can create significant potential to contribute to high chemical and formaldehyde exposures,” said UL Environment, which tested and approved the LG set in its Marietta, Georgia, lab. Though the Greenguard standard dates back several years for certification of paints and other household products, Greenguard specs and testing procedures for certifying electronics products were published in April 2013, UL Environment said.
Crestron seeks a declaratory judgment that five models of cable retractors it markets don’t violate a patent granted to RGB Systems, a supplier of AV system integration products that operates under the name Extron Electronics (CED June 20 p9), Crestron said in a countersuit against RGB filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The patent at issue (8,740,127) was granted to RGB on June 3 this year, and describes a cable retractor as being composed of “an articulate housing” that contains “a cable stop housing pivotably coupled to a pulley housing.” RGB waited only 10 days after landing the patent to use it as its basis for an infringement complaint against Crestron in federal court. Crestron also seeks to have the patent declared invalid on the grounds that it violates at least four sections of federal patent law, citing, for example, and without explanation, prior art in a patent (4,935,155) issued June 19, 1990, to inventor Walter Steiner. The Steiner invention describes a pulley-based clothes drying apparatus “with a central post member, a collar member axially displaceably mounted on the supporting post member and a plurality of support arms.” Key wording in the patent that may have bearing on a cable retractor patent dispute describes “the possibility to dry a few pieces of clothing only without the need of putting the entire apparatus into its operative position.” To do so, “a supply of a second clothes line may be pulled out from the apparatus and fixed at a distantly located anchoring member,” the patent says. “Upon releasing the end of the second clothes line, it is automatically drawn back.” Crestron and RGB representatives didn’t immediately comment.
San Diego followed the law in denying permits to American Tower, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision handed down Thursday. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez had ruled the city violated the state’s permit law when it didn’t act on the conditional-use permit (CUP) applications within 60 days, but otherwise had acted correctly. Nonetheless, because of the violation, Benitez granted American Tower summary judgment. There was no violation of the Telecom Act or state law, said the 9th Circuit decision written by Judge Jay Bybee, which reversed the lower court’s finding in favor of the tower company. The appeals court otherwise upheld the lower court. “The City’s decision to deny the permit applications was supported by substantial evidence, and the City did not misapply its Land Development Code,” the court held (http://1.usa.gov/1qdhOl5). “The permit denial did not constitute unreasonable discrimination among functionally equivalent service providers because the plaintiff and the City were not functionally equivalent providers."
Carriers are allowed to insert “exoneration clauses” into through bills of lading that force shippers to sue the carrier for cargo loss instead going to the subcontractors that may have been directly responsible, said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in a decision issued Aug. 6. Although the insurance company for the shipper of merchandise damaged in a train derailment wanted to sue the railroad to recoup its losses, the court ruled valid a clause in the through bill of lading issued by the ocean carrier that subcontracted out the inland transportation for a shipment from China to Georgia.
Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood fired back at industry officials questioning the group’s statements that President Barack Obama’s views on net neutrality go well beyond policy advocated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (WID July 14 p4). One commenter suggested Free Press is living in a fantasy land. “Prepaid pundits are free to spout off whenever they want,” Wood said Thursday. “There is indeed a Title II crowd” that believes broadband should be reclassified, Wood said. “It’s made up of millions of Americans,” he said. “It includes thousands of civil society group and grassroots leaders. It counts hundreds of innovative edge companies, venture capitalists, and dozens of real broadband providers among its numbers. It also has a growing list of lawmakers at the local, state and federal level.” Obama mentioned the Internet for a second time in a week Wednesday, at a news conference. The administration is “disturbed by efforts to control the Internet,” Obama said (http://1.usa.gov/1qYUEFD). Over the past decade the growth of “new media, new technology allow people to get information that previously would have never been accessible, or only to a few specialists,” he said. “Now people can punch something up on the Internet and pull up information that’s relevant to their own lives and their own societies and communities.” Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said in an interview Thursday that Obama’s statement on Tuesday made clear the president “understands the stakes” involved in the open Internet proceeding. “I think he did it with clarity and with a clear-headed approach to what the cost of a ‘fast-lane, slow-lane’ Internet would be,” Copps said. “I would hope that the commissioners would be looking at that and listening to that.”
Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood fired back at industry officials questioning the group’s statements that President Barack Obama’s views on net neutrality go well beyond policy advocated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (CD July 14 p2 or WID July 14 p4). One commenter suggested Free Press is living in a fantasy land. “Prepaid pundits are free to spout off whenever they want,” Wood said Thursday. “There is indeed a Title II crowd” that believes broadband should be reclassified, Wood said. “It’s made up of millions of Americans,” he said. “It includes thousands of civil society group and grassroots leaders. It counts hundreds of innovative edge companies, venture capitalists, and dozens of real broadband providers among its numbers. It also has a growing list of lawmakers at the local, state and federal level.” Obama mentioned the Internet for a second time in a week Wednesday, at a news conference. The administration is “disturbed by efforts to control the Internet,” Obama said (http://1.usa.gov/1qYUEFD). Over the past decade the growth of “new media, new technology allow people to get information that previously would have never been accessible, or only to a few specialists,” he said. “Now people can punch something up on the Internet and pull up information that’s relevant to their own lives and their own societies and communities.” Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said in an interview Thursday Obama’s statement on Tuesday made clear the president “understands the stakes” involved in the open Internet proceeding. “I think he did it with clarity and with a clear-headed approach to what the cost of a ‘fast-lane, slow-lane’ Internet would be,” Copps said. “I would hope that the commissioners would be looking at that and listening to that.”
Steel baluster and newel fasteners imported by Colonial Elegance are subject to antidumping duties on steel threaded rod from China (A-570-932), said the Commerce Department in a scope ruling issued Aug. 1. The three models of fasteners subject to the scope inquiry meet all of the characteristics in the scope, and the fact that the Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading for the fasteners isn’t listed in the scope is irrelevant, said Commerce.
President Barack Obama weighed in on net neutrality in remarks that net neutrality advocates widely say condemn paid prioritization deals and may even warrant FCC reclassification of broadband as a Title II Communications Act service. Others said it’s a stretch to read Obama’s words that way or to contend there’s any split between him and the independent agency. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler launched a rulemaking for crafting net neutrality rules earlier this year and has defended it as asking questions, not yet prescribing any one path forward.
President Barack Obama weighed in on net neutrality in remarks that net neutrality advocates widely say condemn paid prioritization deals and may even warrant FCC reclassification of broadband as a Title II Communications Act service. Others said it’s a stretch to read Obama’s words that way or to contend there’s any split between him and the independent agency. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler launched a rulemaking for crafting net neutrality rules earlier this year and has defended it as asking questions, not yet prescribing any one path forward.