The Government Accountability Office has issued a report entitled “Border Security: CBP Lacks the Data Needed to Assess the FAST Program at U.S. Northern Border Ports.”
On July 22, 2010, the Department of Homeland Security released a 2010 progress report on fulfilling the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations for protecting against and responding to acts of terrorism and other threats. DHS released the report on the sixth anniversary of the issuance of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations.
On July 19, 2010, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported S. 3607, the fiscal year 20111 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, etc.)
Smith Bagley asked the FCC to order the Universal Service Administrative Co. to provide uncapped high-cost support to competitive eligible telecommunications carriers serving tribal lands. In a request filed July 6 and posted docket 08-71 Monday, it sought a declaratory ruling that the interstate access support (IAS) paid to incumbent local exchange carriers be reduced to reflect line losses. Smith Bagley said the commission included an exception of tribal and Alaska Native regions when it enacted a cap on high-cost support. USAC has said the exception applies only to the statewide cap on CETC high-cost support, not to the nationwide cap on IAS. The company said the cap costs it $900,000 per year and has caused it to delay construction on three new cell sites. It also said USAC isn’t reducing IAS payments properly. Price cap ILEC lines decreased by 22 percent since Q1 2008, but payments fell only 7 percent, it said. Reducing support would be in line with the commission’s goals to control the size of the fund and make available new support for broadband, the company said.
Volume production of Cirrus Logic’s CS42L73 audio codec chips will start late this year with a goal of producing smartphone-related revenue in second half 2011, company executives said Tuesday on a quarterly earnings call. The new chip will be critical for Cirrus Logic as it seeks to expand its audio business beyond Apple, which accounted for 34 percent of the company’s Q1 revenue of $81.9 million, up from 27 percent of $37.5 million a year ago. Cirrus Logic, which first gained design wins for Apple’s iPod four years ago, custom designed the 338SO589 audio codec that’s featured in Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4. Cirrus Logic doesn’t sell the chip directly to Apple, but rather one of its contract manufacturers, Futaihua Industrial, which accounted for 21 percent of Cirrus’ Q1 sales, according to a 10Q filed with the SEC. The supply agreement with Cirrus’ “largest customer” was the “result of several years of cultivation,” said CEO Jason Rhode, who didn’t refer to Apple by name. Sales to distributor Avnet represented 29 percent of Cirrus’ revenue, the 10Q stated. Cirrus Logic is sampling an audio codec with a “tier one” Japanese supplier and a custom audio amplifier for car audio applications, CEO Jason Rhode said. In addition to the audio codec, Cirrus Logic is sampling the CS35111 3-watt audio amplifier for smartphones, he said. Cirrus’ Q1 net income soared to $17.6 million from $221,000 with a sharp rise in sales. Audio products sales jumped to $53.9 million from $24.7 million a year earlier, while energy chips, including those for power meters, rose to $27.9 million from $12.7 million. Gross profit soared to $46.7 million from $19.5 million. Cirrus’ operating expenses rose to $29.2 million from $26.9 million as capital spending increased to $4 million from $1 million as production capacity expanded, company officials said. Cirrus also made a $500,000 payment during the quarter to Fortis Communities-Austin from which it’s buying a 1.84-acre lot to build a new 140,000-square-foot headquarters. The headquarters, which will replace a 100,000-square-foot facility in Austin, Texas, is expected to open late summer 2012, a company spokesman said. Cirrus will complete the $9.62 million purchase of the land in fiscal 2011, the company said. As of June 26, Cirrus had $6.4 million in restricted cash for obligations related to lease for its current headquarters that expires in September 2011, the company said. Silvaco Data Systems also has until Aug. 6 to file a petition with the California Supreme Court. Silvaco sued Circuit Semantics, which supplied Cirrus with software design tools, for misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair business practices.
Opponents and supporters of reclassification filed long, often strongly worded filings in response to what FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski calls his “Third Way” broadband-reclassification proposal. The comments land at a sharply divided agency.
Facebook is committed to the online safety of minors but stopped short of committing to a “panic button” for U.S. users, the company said Thursday in response to a Wednesday letter by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Klobuchar’s letter asked about the feasibility of a “panic button” on U.S. Facebook pages similar to one provided to U.K. users (WID July 16 p6).
The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has issued a notice that lists those applying for ocean transportation intermediary licenses as a non-vessel-operating common carrier (NVOCC), ocean freight forwarder (FF) or NVOCC/FF OTI, as follows:
Satellites can bring a level of connectivity to Poland now that land-based broadband facilities won’t achieve that until after 2014, the European Satellite Operators’ Association said Tuesday. The nation faces digital exclusion of millions of households and yet only around 10 percent of total funding for long-range programs has been committed for broadband access development, Poland’s regulator found. The situation calls for an immediate review of priorities and goals to speed up connection of Polish citizens, ESOA Chairman Christodoulos Protopapas said. ESOA’s position was backed by Danuta Hübner, who heads the European Parliament regional policy committee, and urged governments to be open to satellite-based solutions, ESOA said. The Polish government has now established a task force to push awareness of and consideration of satellite technology for EU-co-financed projects aimed at bringing broadband to rural areas, ESOA said.
The state of New Jersey was paying for more than 19,000 unneeded and unused phone lines, the state comptroller said Wednesday. Results of a comptroller’s audit of the state Office of Information Technology spurred state departments to disconnect or suspend the lines, saving more than $3.2 million annually, the comptroller said. Auditors also found that for more than a decade New Jersey has renewed major telecom contracts without subjecting them to competitive bidding, as required by law. “The state is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars every month for phone lines that are not even being used,” Comptroller Matthew Boxer said. “Examples of government waste don’t get much clearer than that.” In one instance the state kept paying for a former worker’s wireless phone for almost six years after she resigned. The audit followed a review by the comptroller of the state’s monthly phone usage reports. Since then, departments have disconnected or suspended for 30 days a total of more than 18,000 land lines and disconnected nearly 1,400 unused wireless lines. From now on, the technology office periodically will prod agencies to disconnect lines seeing zero use, the comptroller said. In reviewing state telecom contracts, auditors found that the state has extended four contracts at least seven times without subjecting them to mandatory competition. One contract has been extended 22 times, the comptroller said. Each of these four contracts originally went to the current vendor 10 to 15 years ago after a competitive procurement process. Each contract began with a term of one to three years, but since the original deal was made all have been extended repeatedly. “In one case, the State has paid two vendors -- both part of the same contract -- a total of $164.6 million over the course of six years of extensions,” the comptroller said. “The state has prevented fair vendor competition in its telecommunications contracts for more than a decade and essentially handed out a no-bid contract with each extension,” Boxer said. The comptroller said that during a one-year period, the state paid more than $250,000 in directory assistance charges that state workers ran up when toll-free assistance was available. Vendors owe the state more than $43,000 for bills sent and paid after data lines were disconnected in 2008 and 2009. Many state departments aren’t maintaining documentation to justify assigning employees wireless devices. About 19,000 such devices are assigned to executive branch employees, the comptroller said.