The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recalls for January 10-11, 2012:
Public safety broadband waiver recipients must implement a common signal identifier before deploying a 700 MHz public safety broadband network for regular use, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said. According to an order issued Monday, petitioners must implement common public land mobile network identifiers (PLMN ID) approved by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions’ IMSI Oversight Council. They must also develop a scheme for assigning network identification numbers and arrange for a common competent clearinghouse to support commercial roaming. The waiver recipients requested the common PLMN ID as an effort to alleviate costs involved with the changes. The bureau said the benefits of a common PLMN ID and network identification scheme outweigh the costs.
The FCC reminded licensees, frequency coordinators, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties in a public notice that the Jan. 1, 2013, deadline for private land mobile radio licensees in the 150-174 MHz and 421-512 MHz bands to migrate to narrowband technology is now less than a year away (http://xrl.us/bmnyey).
President Barack Obama’s announcement Wednesday he was installing Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through a “recess appointment” could have big implications for the FCC. Industry and government officials said the resulting blow up over the Cordray appointment could provoke Senate Republicans to hold up votes on other nominees, and FCC nominees Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai could get caught in the crossfire.
President Barack Obama’s announcement Wednesday he was installing Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through a “recess appointment” could have big implications for the FCC. Industry and government officials said the resulting blow up over the Cordray appointment could provoke Senate Republicans to hold up votes on other nominees, and FCC nominees Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai could get caught in the crossfire.
Clearwire is training its sights again on T-Mobile in an eager search to sign a second wholesale customer to join Sprint Nextel on its 4G network, said Chief Financial Officer Hope Cochran. The failure of T-Mobile’s sale to AT&T “did free up a lot of conversations,” she said late Wednesday at Citi’s investors conference in San Francisco. T-Mobile needs “capacity, they need spectrum, and they need an LTE path,” Cochran said. She left unstated Clearwire’s sales pitch that it can meet those needs, and she declined to discuss any communications between the companies.
The Food and Drug Administration has issued a one year progress report on its efforts to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act, which was signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. FDA states that it has made significant progress in developing proposed rules to implement the sweeping food safety reform law, publishing mandated reports, and taking important steps toward increasing overall food safety capacity in the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a December 2011 update on its plans for land border cargo pre-inspection pilots in Mexico and Canada. According to its December 2011 update and CBP sources, the parameters of the Port Huron/Sarnia “Cargo Express” pilot are still under discussion, no decision has yet been made on the start date for the FOXCONN campus pilot in San Jeronimo, and Mexico has begun construction at the pre-inspection facility in Tijuana.
Sandwich Isles Communications asked the FCC to waive new rules setting caps on the amount of universal service cash that can be allotted per line for another decade, in a petition filed in docket 10-90. In its petition, the RLEC said it needed a break from sections 54.302 of the newly adopted rules (CD Oct 28 p1) to bring high-speed broadband to native Hawaiians. Although heavily redacted, the petition said Sandwich Isles needs the waiver because of “unique circumstances and obligations placed solely” on the company by the state of Hawaii under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 (http://xrl.us/bmnniv). Hawaii is still trying to resettle its aboriginal population throughout the islands and it will need robust broadband to meet their needs, Sandwich Isles said. “These obligations center on deployment of needed communications infrastructure to extend broadband networks in unserved areas of the state,” the petition said. “Expansion of Hawaii’s economy throughout the ‘neighbor islands’ is essential to jobs creation and resettlement of the Hawaiian Home Lands, 98 percent of which are located outside Oahu. Only a portion of the planned home sites on the Hawaiian Home Lands have been completed and occupied.”
More than 4 million 3DS units were sold in the U.S. since it was released March 27, Nintendo of America (NOA) said Tuesday. The company also sold more than 4.5 million Wiis and more than 3.4 million DS systems other than the 3DS in 2011, it said. It was the fifth straight year in which Nintendo sold more than 12 million total hardware units in the U.S., NOA said. The Wii’s U.S. installed base grew to 39 million, while the DS’s grew to more than 51 million, it said. “One of the strongest software lineups in our history helped Nintendo have a great holiday season and to close 2011 with a full head of steam,” said Scott Moffitt, NOA executive vice president-sales and marketing. The latest Mario and Zelda titles have “already broken” sales records, and are expected to have a “long tail,” with sales continuing long after their releases, he said. That, coupled with “a massive” first- and third-party game lineup in the first part of this year, creates “prospects for 2012” that he said are “extremely promising.” Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS “became the fastest-selling titles in the history” of their franchises when they were released and also became the first 3DS titles to sell 1 million copies each in the U.S., NOA said. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii also “broke launch records,” becoming the 45th title for the console to sell more than 1 million copies in the U.S., it said. Coming releases for Nintendo’s systems include new entries in Nintendo’s Pokemon and Kid Icarus series, as well as the third-party Resident Evil: Revelations from Capcom and Metal Gear Solid 3D Snake Eater from Konami for the 3DS. Two older Nintendo titles also celebrated sales milestones as 2011 ended, Mario Kart Wii passing 11 million copies sold and New Super Mario Bros for the DS crossing 10 million copies sold, NOA said.