In a 2-1 vote, the FCC approved and released an NPRM Thursday (http://fcc.us/1fs0xoA0) that proposes eliminating the UHF ownership discount and “tentatively” decides that only ownership groups that already exist or had pending applications in front of the commission by Thursday would be grandfathered in if the rulemaking process leads to an order.
Atlanta-based Reworx will recycle end-of-life Dish Network set-tops and other e-waste, including cables, remote controls, batteries and PC boards, in a new partnership, the companies said Thursday. Reworx hires individuals with disabilities and those who face barriers to traditional hiring, the companies said. Dish estimated its sustainability operations last year processed more than 26 million pounds of e-waste. The average Dish set-top lasts about seven years, it said. Reworx is the first e-waste recycler in Georgia to land the EPA’s “R2” certification, the companies said.
Inmarsat signed a contract with Telecom, a New Zealand telecom and information technology services provider, to establish and manage a Pacific Ocean Region (POR) satellite access station (SAS) for Inmarsat’s Global Xpress Ka-band network. Telecom will develop its Warkworth Satellite Earth Station “to host Inmarsat and its Global Xpress satellite antenna,” Inmarsat said in a press release (http://bit.ly/18WKFqK). Warkworth will act alongside Inmarsat’s Auckland-based land earth station and teleport as a co-primary SAS for the Pacific Ocean Region, it said. “Both will act as gateways between the broadband traffic routed via the POR satellite and terrestrial fixed networks."
If companies can’t forecast what impact their investment plans for next year will have on their high-cost loop support revenue, Sacred Wind and other rural providers serving tribal lands “face significant uncertainty and risk with continuing to build out networks to serve unserved and underserved remote areas,” the telco told an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Friday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/16wc4ca). Even though some of the FCC’s “short-term fixes” of the quantile regression analysis (QRA) have helped Sacred Wind continue to provide services in additional remote areas, “the long-term impact of the unpredictability of QRA is still a significant concern for Sacred Wind and the industry,” it said.
An allocation of cable landing station costs to multiple cables is “inappropriate” in the U.S. Virgin Islands because the Connect America Cost Model already incorporates cable station cost allocations into its methodology, the Virgin Islands Telephone told the FCC Wireline Bureau in comments posted Friday (http://bit.ly/1fblp3t). The cost model’s “Undersea” spreadsheet assumes a “very small” landing station; other commenters’ recommendations for use by “multiple cables” would require larger cable station facilities and increase costs overall, said the telco, which does business as Innovative Telephone.
The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) emphasized the “essential role” that logistics connectivity plays in economic growth in a Sept. 20 statement to the United Nations’ (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development. “The role of logistics in facilitating trade is of such crucial importance that adopting appropriate policy to sustain logistics connectivity can assist many developing nations without detracting from those which are already more advanced,” said FIATA’s senior vice president Babar Badat. “It is a typical win-win opportunity that governments should embrace without hesitation. Badat added that it was “paramount” to include sustainable logistics connectivity as an objective of the UN Sustainable Development policy.
CBP’s acting commissioner Thomas Winkowski said the agency has made significant progress with Beyond the Border Action Plan initiatives towards U.S.-Canada cooperation despite budget restraints, during a Sept. 13 U.S.-Canada Border conference. Of the 32 initiatives, Winkowski said that CBP is involved in 15 and has interest in five others that will add "momentum to CBP’s modernization efforts such as early analysis of flows of goods and travelers, effective risk management, and streamlining trade processing.”
The federal government has tried to reduce barriers that companies may face in installing broadband infrastructure on federal land and roads, said Homeland Security Director for the Office of Emergency Communications Ron Hewitt and Martha Benson, General Services Administration Office of Real Property Asset Management public buildings service assistant commissioner, in a joint White House blog post Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1ejeS5j). They co-chair the Broadband Deployment on Federal Property Working Group and outlined how many parts of the country still lack adequate broadband. But the federal government “owns or manages nearly 30 percent of all land in the United States, including 10,000 buildings nationwide,” they said. “Today, we are announcing new steps to build on this progress, including the launch of several new tools and resources to help make it easier for companies to build out high-speed Internet, particularly in underserved communities, and the release of a progress report on implementation of the President’s Executive Order.” The tools and the report were developed by a working group of 14 federal agencies charged with managing federal properties and roads, they said. The tools include an interactive map to help stakeholders identify how to leverage federal properties, a dig-once guide and a broadband inventory tool kit. The government is also working on “a single master application for deploying broadband on Federal properties, to provide multiple broadband service providers and public-safety entities with streamlined business documents for the deployment of wireline and wireless facilities on Federal property,” the post said. “In the coming weeks, we will also be launching an online broadband projects platform, located on the Department of Transportation’s Federal Infrastructure Projects Permitting Dashboard, which will allow agencies to identify and expedite key broadband projects and to publicly track their status.”
The federal government has tried to reduce barriers that companies may face in installing broadband infrastructure on federal land and roads, said Homeland Security Director for the Office of Emergency Communications Ron Hewitt and Martha Benson, General Services Administration Office of Real Property Asset Management public buildings service assistant commissioner, in a joint White House blog post Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1ejeS5j). They co-chair the Broadband Deployment on Federal Property Working Group and outlined how many parts of the country still lack adequate broadband. But the federal government “owns or manages nearly 30 percent of all land in the United States, including 10,000 buildings nationwide,” they said. “Today, we are announcing new steps to build on this progress, including the launch of several new tools and resources to help make it easier for companies to build out high-speed Internet, particularly in underserved communities, and the release of a progress report on implementation of the President’s Executive Order.” The tools and the report were developed by a working group of 14 federal agencies charged with managing federal properties and roads, they said. The tools include an interactive map to help stakeholders identify how to leverage federal properties, a dig-once guide and a broadband inventory tool kit. The government is also working on “a single master application for deploying broadband on Federal properties, to provide multiple broadband service providers and public-safety entities with streamlined business documents for the deployment of wireline and wireless facilities on Federal property,” the post said. “In the coming weeks, we will also be launching an online broadband projects platform, located on the Department of Transportation’s Federal Infrastructure Projects Permitting Dashboard, which will allow agencies to identify and expedite key broadband projects and to publicly track their status.”
A federal court should issue a preliminary injunction barring the state of Maine from implementing its pharmaceutical import law, said a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for Maine by a group of pharmacists and drug retailers. The law, enacted earlier this year, expressly authorizes foreign pharmaceutical vendors to export prescriptions drugs into the U.S., circumventing federal regulations on prescription drugs "and thus posing serious health risks to consumers," the suit said.