ITU-R working party 5A began a preliminary draft revision on ITU-R recommendation M.1310, “Transport information and control systems (TICS) -- Objectives and requirements” during a Feb. 4-13 meeting, a source said. The International Standardization Organization, the European Telecommunication Standardization Institute, the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity Standardization Program and the Advisory Panel for Standards Cooperation were asked for technical contributions. ITU-R working party 5A deals with land mobile service excluding IMT, amateur and amateur-satellite service. Progress was claimed on a preliminary draft ITU-R recommendation on integrated millimeter wave intelligent transport system radiocommunication systems, and on a working document for a new preliminary draft ITU-R report on the technology. Development continued on a new preliminary draft ITU-R recommendation for harmonized frequency arrangements for public protection and disaster relief operations in 380- 399.9 MHz for Europe and Africa and 746-806 MHz in the Americas and some Asian countries. Development began for a report on radio interface standards that could be used for public protection and disaster relief operations between 746 and 806 MHz in the Americas and in some Asian countries.
Telecom carriers would not get retroactive immunity for aiding government surveillance programs under a bill (HR-3773) that the House passed Friday 213-197. The measure sets the stage for a clash with the Senate, which passed a bill in February that would offer retroactive immunity to carriers alleged to have helped the post-Sept. 11 government monitoring of phone and email conversations to find terror suspects. Carriers face dozens of lawsuits by civil liberties groups claiming the program violated laws on search procedure.
On March 6, 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Ralph Basham testified on CBP's fiscal year 2009 budget request before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
The Administrative Procedure Act bars the FCC from letting the American Petroleum Institute license broadband radio service spectrum in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration and production, said the Wireless Communications Association. “At no time… has the Commission proposed or even suggested the possibility of licensing BRS spectrum in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Nor, for that matter, did API until it petitioned for reconsideration of the Second Report and Order.” WCA said API gave no evidence to relieve concerns that allowing licenses of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the Gulf would pose “a clear and present danger” to land-based operators offering wireless broadband on the same frequencies. WCA said “ducting” - a signal trapped in an air pocket and perhaps traveling great distances -- is a problem unique to the Gulf heightening interference concerns. Ducting problems aren’t “figments of WCA’s imagination,” the group said. “The Commission has concluded that there is a ‘certainty that ducting will occur between Gulf and land- based stations,’ that this ducting will cause interference over much greater distances than caused by land-based… systems, and that water-based BRS systems should be required therefore to comply with interference protection requirements that are more stringent than those imposed on land-based facilities,” WCA said.
Iowa hopes to draw “Web search portal businesses” with a new law offering sales, use and property-tax breaks on virtually any gear or property “necessary for the maintenance and operation” of such a company. Besides computers and servers, HF-2233 covers electricity, cooling towers, “business-owned substations” and even “back-up power generation fuel.” To qualify, businesses must spend at least $200 million in Iowa over six years, starting with “site preparation activities,” and they have until 2009 to buy or lease land. Businesses that don’t invest $160 million the first six years owe all exempted taxes. The law broadly defines a qualifying business: “An entity whose business among other businesses is to provide a search portal to organize information; to access, search, and navigate the Internet, including research and development to support capabilities to organize information; or to provide Internet access, navigation, or search functionalities.” The law raised the eyebrow of at least one lawmaker, Senator Jeff Angelo, who said it tracked one passed last year that “lured” Google to open a data center in Council Bluffs. “Why pass a new package every time, when we could simply put the breaks in place to lure high-wage, high-tech jobs year-round” -- instead of writing a bill seemingly designed for Microsoft, “which has expressed interest in Iowa,” Angelo said on his blog. A “lobbyist declaration” listed three Microsoft lobbyists as supporting the bill and lobbyists for media companies Mediacom Communications and Meredith as “undecided.” But Angelo endorsed the law’s broad definition, saying it will give Iowa school graduates economic reasons to stay there if a broad range of businesses moves in. Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, sneered at the law’s required high investment and fiscal impact statement, which predicted that only two buildings for businesses would be built and that the law will cost Iowa roughly $36 million through fiscal 2012.
Google will bump down advertisers in search results whose landing pages aren’t immediately accessible to users who click their ads. Ad placement in sponsored links rides on an advertiser’s “quality score,” now to include “landing page load time,” the time it takes a user to reach an advertiser’s “functional” page, Google’s Inside AdWords blog said. “Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times” will hurt an advertiser’s position, since they frustrate users and harm an advertiser’s conversion rate long term, the blog said. Advertisers will have a month to review their sites, using Google’s new load-time evaluations on their keyword-analysis pages, before the company starts applying load-time penalties. The change also means unfriendly sites must make higher minimum bids for keywords, the blog said.
The Senate Finance Committee has issued a press release announcing that Chairman Baucus reiterated to U.S. Trade Representative Schwab in a hearing that successful passage of Trade Adjustment Assistance legislation will take precedence in the Finance Committee over all pending free trade agreements. (Committee press release, dated 03/06/08, available at http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2008press/prb030608b.pdf)
NPR will move to a new District of Columbia location in 2012. The public radio network, a D.C. fixture since its 1970 founding acquired land for its new global headquarters, which will include 60,000 square feet for broadcast and multimedia operations and a public space for live shows and events, it said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice announcing that it has approved the design for Automated Commercial Environment air electronic manifest (ACE e-Manifest: Air) for advance cargo information purposes, making way for development to begin.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a notice announcing that CBP is preparing a comprehensive system testing plan designed to provide insights into the operational performance of the new Automated Commercial Environment sea and rail manifest (ACE e-Manifest: Sea and Rail1) processing for advance cargo information purposes before it is deployed to U.S. ports of entry in fall 2008.