The 700MHz ‘ D Block ‘ has been the subject of much debate over the past few years, primarily because the FCC’s master plan to auction it off — yet require the winner to open up the waves for public safety use on command — didn’t exactly pan out. Post-failure, the agency made clear its plans to host up another auction or two in order to accomplish the same goal via slightly different means, but now public safety entities are coming forward with a healthy amount of opposition. Rob Davis, head of the San Jose Police Department, puts it bluntly: “If they auction this spectrum, we’ve lost it forever.” These public safety officials also have allies in Congress, with many worried that auctioning off the spectrum may lead to an inability to accurately wield bandwidth in a hurry if needed during a national emergency
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Public safety agencies want D Block for themselves, FCC still seeking auction
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Tags: 700mhz, broadband plan, broadbandplan, dblock, engadget, fcc, internet, nationalbroadbandplan, public safety, publicsafetynetwork, return-false, wireless, wwan
You know that ” National Broadband Plan ” that the world keeps yapping about? Sprint’s down with it, and has been since before it ever existed, apparently. Based on a glowing press release outed this week by the carrier, it has just wrapped up a five year initiative to free 35MHz of highly valuable spectrum needed for future broadband expansion.
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Sprint clears 35MHz of spectrum for future use, wonders if it’s alone in the world
The National Broadband Plan may one day bring broadband to everyone in the United States but, as a new report from the FCC itself reveals, there’s still quite a ways to go. According to the report (issued every year by the agency), between 14 and 24 million Americans have no access to broadband, which is now defined by the FCC to be a 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. That’s a significant revision from the previous 200kbps downstream standard used by the annual report, and brings it in line with the minimum goals set by the National Broadband Plan
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FCC reevaluates US broadband competitiveness, finds 14 to 24 million lack access
Oh, we know all about doin’ time. We watched both Oz and The Wire in their entirety, and have seen Let’s Go To Prison , like, eight times.
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House passes Cellphone Contraband Act of 2010, prisoners go back to writing letters
Slowly but surely, the future is creeping up on us. In-flight WiFi is getting there, and in-car WiFi is following suit. Autonet Mobile already sunk its teeth in at General Motors, and now it’s doing likewise over at Subaru
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2011 Subaru Outback gains in-car WiFi option, strange Maine birds not included
Ericsson — one of the world’s top-tier infrastructure suppliers for mobile networks — has crunched some numbers recently, figuring the five billionth cellphone line came into existence last Wednesday, July 8, largely from major surges in uptake in emerging markets like China and India. Mobile broadband access (which we take to mean access to 3G speeds and beyond) still trails significantly at just 360 million in 2009, though they’re predicting a cool 3.4 billion users by 2015
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Ericsson estimates mobile lines have hit 5 billion, gives shout out to China and India for the help
If you’ve never heard of the NetTalk TK6000, you’re certainly not alone — suffice it to say it’s an as-seen-on-TV product that converts a standard ethernet internet connection into a VoIP telephone cord. And to be clear, the new NetTalk Duo doesn’t seem to offer anything different than its predecessor, only a shiny bullet case, but that just makes it the perfect salvo across incumbent MagicTalk’s bow . We can hardly wait to see how the latest chapter in the infinite long distance call saga will play out
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NetTalk reveals the Duo, we await MagicJack’s response
Bringing broadband to everybody is certainly an admirable goal, but at least some US Senators are apparently starting to question if the new National Broadband Plan is ambitious enough. In written questions submitted to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowsk i recently, Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) pointed out that other nations already have 100Mbps fiber-based services and are beginning to roll out 1Gbps residential services, which would only be required for a “single anchor institution in each community by 2020″ under the National Broadband Plan” — something Inouye says “appears to suggest that the US should accept a 10- to 12-year lag behind the leading nations.” That’s a sentiment echoed by Senator Mark Begich (D-AK), who asked Genachowski why the plan settled for the minimum download speed of 4Mbps by 2020, and added that “it seems a bit modest for a goal.” For his part, Genachowski insists that the 4Mbps targets are “aggressive,” and he notes that the plan recommends reevaluating that target every year, so it’s possible it could increase over time.
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Senators grill FCC Chairman over ‘modest’ National Broadband Plan goals
It’s funny — we remember the day that YouTube began supporting plain ole HD like it was yesterday, and we’re guessing today will hang in our memory banks for quite awhile, too. Over at the VidCon 2010 conference, YouTube officially announced support for videos shot in 4K (a reference resolution of 4096 x 3072), which means that the famed online clip portal now supports resolutions from 360p to 4,096p. Granted, only a handful of humans even have access to a 4K camcorder , and 4K projectors aren’t exactly simple to find (or afford), but we couldn’t be happier to see YT staying way ahead of the curve here
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YouTube moves solidly into the future by supporting 4K content
