A Texas Public Utility Commission hearing officer threw out a wholesale traffic blocking complaint by Grande Communications against Windstream Sugar Land on grounds that no interconnection agreement existed between the carriers. A PUC administrative law judge said the dispute could be handled as a petition for arbitration of a disputed interconnection request. Grande alleged that Windstream began blocking its traffic and refusing to process facility orders unless disputed charges were paid. The ALJ (Case 34143) said an interconnection agreement between the carriers was voided in April, but the current dispute began with Grande’s May filing of a complaint letter. The ALJ said that without an interconnection agreement, Grande’s May letter can be treated as a request for interconnection, which would make the time window for requesting state dispute arbitration Sept. 14 to Oct. 9.
Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems again dominated U.S. videogame hardware sales in July, according to NPD Group data released late Thursday. Xbox 360 again beat PS3, despite a sales surge when Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) cut that console’s price $100 last month (CED July 10 p2).
Canadian Prime Minister Harper, Mexican President Caldern, and U.S. President Bush have issued a joint statement regarding five priority areas for North American cooperation for the next year as part of the latest summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).
In May 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted to its Web site a notice announcing the phased enforcement of mandatory Automated Commercial Environment electronic manifest: Truck for advance cargo information purposes at all land border ports in Michigan and New York beginning May 24, 2007.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a press release regarding the results of a recent survey of CBP officers using the Automated Commercial Environment which revealed low satisfaction with ACE's e-Manifest: Truck processing capabilities due to problems with system reliability, data errors, and insufficient real-time help.
On August 3, 2007, President Bush signed into law the conference version of H.R. 1, the "Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007" (Public Law 110-53).
Public safety groups, supported by radio-maker Motorola, cautioned the FCC not to prohibit or restrict paging by public safety agencies using emergency response frequencies. The FCC is considering whether to restrict VHF public safety frequencies to just two-way voice calls. The FCC said in seeking comment on that proposal it has received interference complaints in the past about interference from paging, particularly to channels set aside for mutual aid.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice on e-Manifest: Truck for advance cargo information purposes, which states that there has been confusion over the applicability of the Section 321 exemption when shipments eligible for the exemption are loaded on the same truck as other shipments that require an e-Manifest.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued its weekly tariff rate quota and tariff preference level commodity report as of August 13, 2007. This report includes TRQs on various products such as beef, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cotton, cocoa products, tobacco, certain BFTA, DR-CAFTA, Israel FTA, JFTA, MFTA, SFTA, UAFTA (AFTA) and UCFTA (Chile FTA) non-textile TRQs, etc. Each report also includes the AGOA, ATPDEA, BFTA, DR-CAFTA, CBTPA, Haiti HOPE, MFTA, NAFTA, SFTA, and UCFTA TPLs and TRQs for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics, etc. (CBP's weekly TRQ/TPL commodity report, dated 08/13/07, available at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
Several major U.K. broadband providers have warned the BBC to contribute to the costs of streaming its TV programs over their networks or they will “pull the plug,” British media reported. Tiscali, Carphone Warehouse, and BT are among Internet service providers (ISPs) said to fret over how much bandwidth the BBC’s new iPlayer could tie up. The service lets viewers watch TV shows online on a seven-day catch-up basis, The Independent on Sunday said. The ISPs reportedly told BBC that they will consider traffic-shaping to ration iPlayer access. Internet players by Channel 4 and ITV could gobble more bandwidth, The Independent said. The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), reportedly has been asked to speak for industry on this issue, has no official position, its spokesman told us. But in ISPA’s January bi-annual newsletter, devoted to the issue of net neutrality, ISPA Council Chairman Jessica Hendrie-Llano said ISPs are looking at options for maintaining service quality in high bandwidth use situations, including prioritization of traffic or charging content providers for network access. But, she said, contracts between ISPs and content providers raise concerns about whether access to information will be constrained by financial relationships. The industry code of practice now advises ISPs not to block or filter any service to customers unless they get clear explanations for the action, Hendrie-Llano wrote. The European Commission is considering net neutrality in a review of the electronic communications regulatory framework. With Europe’s tendency to “to take a back seat” in the net neutrality debate, the BBC scenario or something like it was needed to bring it to the top of the Commission agenda, said StrategyAnalytics digital consumer practice analyst David Mercer, asking rhetorically ISPs plan on charging. If it’s to be end-users, ISPs will have to act uniformly or wind up with some providers competing with lower prices or even free services, rendering the exercise moot, he said. And such activity is likely to invite antitrust probes, he said. And charging content providers, moreover, likely will “stir up a hornet’s nest” of discord over access rights and neutrality issues bound to land in court, Mercer said. The “balance of power lies with net neutrality now,” he said: ISPs will have trouble making prioritization stick. One way or the other, he added, “the legal profession will do well out of any dispute.”