On Tuesday, opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said Labor claims that the NBN would create a “tsunami of innovation” were wrong because the “apparently broadband-deficient” US was at the centre of online innovation, not “superfast nirvanas of Korea and Japan”.

To read this report in The Australian in full, see:
www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/conroy-cites-big-american-nbn-backers/story-e6frgaif-1226358209889

The tiny contraption can access spectrum between 300GHz and 3THz (otherwise known as T-Rays for terahertz), and was able to transfer data at a speed of 3Gbps. But this was only a test run — researchers suspect that using terahertz spectrum could get data transfer up to rates of 100 Gbps.

To read this Ars Techinca report in full, see:
arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/terahertz-frequencies-bring-japanese-researchers-3gbps-in-a-wifi-prototype/

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday issued a letter asking Verizon Wireless to clarify a few points, as first reported by Ars Technica. Verizon Wireless is offering to sell the A and B licenses for the 700 MHz spectrum it owns, so long as it can have the spectrum licenses it wants to buy from cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox Communications, for $3.6 billion.

To read this New York Times report in full, see:
bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/fcc-questions-verizon/

About 20 members of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association are meeting with officials from the Federal Communications Commission and White House as well as key lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The group represents small firms that generally use unlicensed spectrum to provide wireless broadband service to a few hundred or several thousand customers in rural communities and small towns that are not served by a cable company or another wired broadband provider.

To read this Tech Daily Dose report in full, see:
techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/small-wireless-broadband-provi.php

The research is the result of collaboration between the Internet Society (ISOC), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The study was released by the three organizations at World Summit on Information Society Forum 2012 in Geneva, Switzerland. The full report is available here: www.internetsociety.org/localcontent

The three organizations believe that societies have a rich heritage and knowledge base that should be recognized, recorded and shared for the benefits of people throughout the world. However, much of the world’s content remains inaccessible even to the local population, not to mention at a broader level.

During the joint workshop at the WSIS Forum 2012, Mr Jānis Kārkliņš, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO, said that “Understanding the relationship between development of local content, Internet and access prices could help to demonstrate the economic benefits of expanded infrastructures across countries, particularly if the amount of local infrastructure fosters the development of local content in local languages. The availability of local content could also, in turn, stimulate demand for Internet services. Finally, the prices of local Internet access could prove to hinder or promote the development of local content.”

The representative of OECD, Mr Taylor Reynolds, said, “We cannot continue to think of local content, Internet infrastructure and access prices as separate issues. Progress and developments in one area can impact the others so we need to develop a broader approach to policy making that takes the cross-cutting benefits into account.”

Mr Markus Kummer from the Internet Society stated, “This study confirms the strong relationship between local content and Internet infrastructure. Keeping the traffic local and building up local content is key for improving access to the Internet. As the volume of local content increases around the world, the Internet becomes more relevant and has a greater impact on improving the lives of local communities. The Internet Society is happy to collaborate with OECD and UNESCO on this study, and to continue our work as advocates for a free and open Internet and ensuring access to relevant content for everyone.”

The study finds that the three elements are inter-related and likely feed into each other in a virtuous circle: (i) better connectivity is significantly related to higher levels of local digital content creation. In essence, countries with more Internet infrastructure (at all income levels) are also the countries producing more local digital content as measured by Wikipedia entries and by web pages under a given country-code, top-level domain; (ii) countries with more international connectivity have lower domestic broadband prices and countries with more better domestic infrastructure have lower international bandwidth prices. The inter-linkages between the different elements lead to three key lines of policy considerations evolving out of this research: (i) Fostering content development, (ii) Expanding connectivity, and (iii) Promoting Internet access competition.

The study is available on the UNESCO, OECD and Internet Society websites:

• www.unesco.org
• www.oecd.org
• www.internetsociety.org

About the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):

Since its foundation in 1945, UNESCO as the only United Nations specialized agency for education, science, culture, communication and information, works towards creating the conditions for peace and dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values. UNESCO’s unique competencies contribute as well to the realization of internationally agreed development goals.

Under UNESCO’s mandate, the Organization also contributes to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty for sustainable development and intercultural dialogue. Through its large network of field offices and National Commission around the world, UNESCO has a comparative advantage to act as a normative setter, catalyst of ideas, clearinghouse and capacity builder within the areas of its global mandate.

Fostering cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and a culture of peace is one of the strategic overarching objectives that is seen as driving force of development, not only in respect of economic growth, but also as a mean of leading a more fulfilling intellectual, moral and social life. This is captured in the seven conventions in the field of culture and number of recommendations, which provide a solid ground for the promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity. Cultural and linguistic diversity is thus considered as an asset that is indispensable for poverty reduction and the achievement of sustainable development. At the same time, acceptance and recognition of cultural diversity - in particular through innovative use of media and ICTs, particularly the Internet - are conducive to dialogue among civilizations and cultures, respect and mutual understanding.

About the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):

The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The OECD provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. We work with governments to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change. We measure productivity and global flows of trade and investment. We analyse and compare data to predict future trends. We set international standards on a wide range of things, from agriculture and tax to the safety of chemicals.

About the Internet Society:

The Internet Society is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone.

This news release was sourced from:
www.internetsociety.org/news/clear-correlation-between-local-content-internet-development-and-access-prices

The UK Apple Store now describes the mobile-capable device as having “cellular” capability, rather than 4G. The latter offers superfast mobile connections at speeds of up to 100 megabits per second.

To read this report in The Guardian in full, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/15/apple-drops-4g-new-ipad-uk

Google plans to give multiple mobile-device makers early access to new releases of Android and to sell those devices directly to consumers, said people familiar with the matter. That is a shift from Google’s previous practice, when it joined with with only one hardware maker at a time to produce “lead devices,” before releasing the software to other device makers. Those lead devices were then sold to consumers through wireless carriers or retailers.

To read this Wall Street Journal report in full, see:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304371504577406511931421118.html

The diverse ways that federal agencies use spectrum range from unmanned aerial vehicles to emergency radio communications. That, NTIA deputy associate administrator Karl Nebbia said, means it’s not easy to completely clear government spectrum for use by private companies.

To read this Tech Daily Dose report in full, see:
techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/ntia-companies-agencies-will-n.php

The EU-funded project EARTH has received the 2012 “Future Internet Award” prize for developing unprecedented energy efficiency solutions for wireless communication networks. Researchers from companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Telecom Italia, DOCOMO, and from universities in Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and UK, have optimised the energy use of 4G/LTE (Long-Term Evolution) base stations, which account for the highest energy consumption in the mobile network.

European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: “The ICT sector is growing but its carbon footprint should not follow. I congratulate the partners of the EARTH project who have found ways to deliver the services we need while reducing CO2 emissions and cutting down on energy bills.”

Optimising the energy use of the network will gradually bring down electricity bills for operators and help keep mobile costs affordable, while reducing pollution and carbon emissions. By reducing the power required to operate each mobile base station, it is also expected that these stations could in future be operated reliably by renewable energy, further reducing emissions.

The EARTH project runs until June 2012. Products are expected to be available on the market in 2014. Industrial and SME partners have already started to transfer their results into real products for the multi-billion euro global market for 4G products.

The project received €10 million of its nearly €15 million from the EU. The Digital Agenda for Europe (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200) uses funding from the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7) to support innovative ICT solutions.

Background

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector has been estimated to represent about 2% of global CO2 emissions. Digital Agenda actions are incorporated in the Europe 2020 energy and climate change targets involving a 20% cut in greenhouse gases and primary energy consumption respectively, plus another 20% increase in the use of renewable energy. Industry is showing efforts to cut down on emissions and increase the ICT sector’s energy efficiency by setting up strategic priorities and standards.

Project members are:

• Alcatel-Lucent (Project Coordinator), Stuttgart, Germany
• Ericsson (Technical Manager), Stockholm, Sweden
• NXP Semiconductors, Caen, France
• DOCOMO Euro Labs GmbH, Munich, Germany
• Telecom Italia S.p.A., Torino, Italy
• CEA, University of Surrey, UK
• Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
• IMEC, Leuven, Belgium
• IST- Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
• University of Oulu, Finland
• Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
• TTI Norte, Santander, Spain
• ETSI, Sophia Antipolis Technology Park, near Nice, France.

LTE technology (Long-Term Evolution), otherwise known as 4G technology, is the mobile broadband networks standard; already being deployed across Europe, it offers mobile connection speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) at peak rate. What is more, statistics have shown wireless mobile traffic will exceed traffic from fixed networks by 2015, while growing ten-fold over the next five years.

There are more than five million base station sites worldwide, a number expected to grow to more than 11 million base stations sites worldwide by 2020.

Useful links:

• EARTH Project: https://www.ict-earth.eu/
• Future Internet Award: www.cefims.eu/fiaward/
• European Future Internet Portal: www.future-internet.eu/
• Digital Agenda website
• Neelie Kroes’ website
• Follow Neelie Kroes on Twitter

This European Commission news release was sourced from:
europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/327

The request for information is the first step toward the distribution of $135 million in grants to state, local and tribal governments that will cover the planning of the nationwide network, called FirstNet. Specifically, the RFI will seek information on existing infrastructure that might be deployed on behalf of the effort, including cellular towers and backhaul networks. Comments are due in 30 days.

To read this Nextgov report in full, see:
www.nextgov.com/mobile/2012/05/ntia-seeks-comments-national-public-safety-network/55721/

Also see:

Development of the State and Local Implementation Grant Program for the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network

NTIA is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public comment on various issues relating to the development of the State and Local Implementation grant program, which NTIA must establish pursuant to the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 to assist state and local governments in planning for a single, nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network.  NTIA intends to use the input from this process to inform the development of programmatic requirements to govern the state and local planning grants program.

Request for Information: Development of the State and Local Implementation Grant Program for the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network

www.ntia.doc.gov/federal-register-notice/2012/development-state-and-local-implementation-grant-program-nationwide-pub