The International Chamber of Commerce is urging World Trade Organization members meeting this week at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi to conclude an information technology tariff elimination agreement, which ICC said in a news release Tuesday could inject up to $190 billion into the global economy. The tariff elimination deal would be the first completed in nearly 20 years. ICC wants expanded product coverage under the WTO Information Technology Agreement 2, and continued absence of customs duties on e-commerce. "Despite standstills in negotiations technology and high-tech, products have continued to develop at a rapid pace, along with the business and organizational models that rely on them to thrive,” said ICC Secretary General John Danilovich. “The WTO ministerial is a real opportunity to make progress on this element of the global trade agenda that would reap the benefits of the digital economy and create significant boosts to international trade."
Data collection requirements for importers of FCC-regulated goods are unclear for June-December next year, Intel told members of the commission's Office of Engineering and Technology in a Thursday meeting, the company said in a filing posted the next day in docket 15-170. The FCC recently said it plans to waive its Form 740 certification requirements for RF devices imported between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2016 (see 1510190056). Intel "recommended that the FCC not require collection or reporting of the information contained in Form 740 either during or after this period" and should rely on existing Customs and Border Protection processes for the data collection. The company "stressed importers should have the flexibility to manage their own records and develop internal controls for monitoring noncompliant devices." Industry responses on doing away with Form 740 were largely positive, though Boeing noted it considers the government collections of the information to be a useful compliance tool (see 1510140028). The company also supported FCC-proposed changes to rules for approval and certification of RF devices (see 1412310022). Intel recommended the FCC continue work to accommodate new technologies and "define conditions and certification methods to allow approved modular radios to be used irrespective of the end host," which would benefit the IoT industry.
Qualcomm received “courtesy copies” of two statements of objections from the European Commission “relating to separate matters involving Qualcomm’s chipset business,” the company said. They give Qualcomm up to four months to respond to the preliminary allegations. Qualcomm has been cooperating with the EC “since the outset of these matters,” it said Tuesday. “We look forward to demonstrating that competition in the sale of wireless chips has been and remains strong and dynamic, and that Qualcomm’s sales practices have always complied with European competition law.” The EC informed Qualcomm “of its preliminary conclusions that the company may have illegally paid a major customer for exclusively using its chipsets and sold chipsets below cost with the aim of forcing a competitor,” Icera, “out of the market" in “potential breach” of antitrust rules, the commission said in a news release. Under the rules, “dominant companies have a responsibility not to abuse their powerful market position by restricting competition,” it said.
There's an imbalance of power between companies such as Facebook and Google that are amassing vast amounts of information about online users, and individuals who have few opportunities to "exercise their fundamental right to privacy," said the English-language version of a report released Friday by Datatilsynet, Norway's data protection authority. "The information asymmetry that characterises the market is a form of market failure," it said. "When consumers have no knowledge about what is going on, they cannot demand services that offer better privacy. The uneven distribution of information results in a competitive situation, which encourages the market players to use methods increasingly invasive of privacy." The DPA said individuals don't just deal with a company that owns a website they visit, but also "ad exchanges, demand side and supply side platforms, ad networks, data brokers and data management platforms." Datatilsynet said it's working to increase transparency in the ad market and recommended website publishers provide information about third parties that collect user data such as type and usage, giving individuals the option to provide "active consent" to companies collecting their data, and improving privacy policies so they are easy to understand.
The EU needs to consolidate and manage spectrum through a single entity with the aim of "harmonizing band allocations, service rules, and regulations as much as possible" if it hopes to create a seamless mobile market in its transition to a digital single market (see 1505060038), said an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report Monday. “Despite being a world leader in mobile communications in the 3G era, Europe has since lagged the United States in deploying high-speed, data-intensive LTE technology," said ITIF President Robert Atkinson in a news release. "To recapture lost economic ground, Europe needs a bold new approach that vests significantly more control over spectrum policy in the European Commission." The EU's "28 different sets of regulations and 28 separate spectrum markets is fragmentation in the extreme," said ITIF telecom policy analyst Doug Brake, the report's author, in the release. He said the EU should look to the U.S., where states are precluded from developing wireless policy, because a single mobile market will be a "boon" to consumers and businesses in the 5G era. Other ITIF report recommendations include: permitting more consolidation in the mobile industry, or competition among four to six major firms to gain economies of scale; reallocating spectrum for mobile broadband use; encouraging the use of tradeable technology-neutral and flexible licenses "to allow room for change"; and adopting a neutral spectrum policy rather than "market shaping" to drive more innovation, capital investment and cost benefits.
IDC sees 2015 as the first year of single-digit percentage worldwide smartphone sales growth, 9.8 percent to 1.43 billion units. The forecast reflects a slowdown in growth in most Asian markets and in Latin America and Western Europe, it said Thursday. With the smartphone market “finally slowing” to single-digit year-to-year growth, maintaining market momentum will depend on “the success of low-cost smartphones in emerging markets,” it said. “This, in turn, will depend on capturing value-oriented first-time smartphone buyers as well as replacement buyers.” IDC sees Android smartphones finishing 2015 with a 9.5 percent global shipment increase to 1.16 billion units, enough for an 81.2 percent market share. Shipments of iPhones will rise 17.3 percent this year to 226 million units, for a 15.8 percent share, it said. IDC sees Windows Phone shipments declining 10.2 percent to 31.3 million units for a 2.2 percent share.
“U.S. businesses and workers in the information and communication technology goods sector will be positively impacted by the elimination of many barriers once TPP is enacted,” Stefan Selig, U.S. undersecretary of commerce for international trade, said in a statement as he released a report identifying the potential economic benefits to be gained from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Highlighted in the report are several country-specific cases where U.S. ICT companies could benefit from TPP's institution, such as the complete or partial elimination of import taxes on American ICT exports in Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam.
Google signed agreements to add 842 megawatts of renewable energy capacity to power its data centers, the company said in a blog post Thursday. Google called the deal "the largest, and most diverse, purchase of renewable energy ever made by a non-utility company." As a result of the agreements, which boost the company's clean energy across three countries, including Chile and Sweden, Google nearly doubled the amount of renewable energy it has bought, and is now up to 2 gigawatts, it said. The new contracts range from 10 to 20 years, it said.
Judges on the European Court of Human Rights are expected to announce their judgment Tuesday on a complaint by three Turkish nationals who said the Ankara Criminal Court of First Instance violated their rights when it blocked access to YouTube because "some ten videos ... were insulting to the memory of Atatürk," said an ECHR release. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was prime minister and then president of Turkey from 1920 to 1938, is credited as the founder of a modern and secular Republic of Turkey. The Turkish court blocked access to the website from May 5, 2008, to Oct. 30, 2010, when the blocking order "was lifted by the public prosecutor's office following a request from the company owning copyright of the videos in question," said the ECHR. It said the three nationals -- Serkan Cengiz, Yaman Akdeniz and Kerem Altıparmak, who teach law at their respective universities in Turkey -- said the restriction had infringed on "their right to freedom to receive or impart information and ideas" and they also didn't get a right to a fair hearing. The release said the three invoked articles 6 and 10 the European Convention of Human Rights, which Turkey ratified in 1954. It said the three also want ECHR under Article 46 to "indicate to the Turkish government" actions it can take "to put an end to the situation." The Turkish court had rejected the three's request to lift the measure since it was "imposed in accordance with the law and that the applicants did not have standing to challenge such decisions," the release said. That ruling was upheld by the Ankara Criminal Court.
The World Radiocommunication Conference agreed to set aside 1427-1518 MHz for international mobile telecom (IMT) use, with delegates to the conference in Geneva asking ITU-Radiocommunication (ITU-R) to come up with the technical measures for ensuring compatibility with mobile satellite service (MSS) operations in the adjacent 1518-1559 MHz band, satellite organizations said in a news release Friday. In C-band, downlink frequencies of 3400-3600 were identified for IMT use in Regions 1 and 2, while in Region 3 some countries will sign a footnote allowing possible IMT use of the spectrum, while others will keep it solely for satellite use, said the groups, including Global VSAT Forum, Satellite Industry Association, Society of Satellite Professionals International and World Teleport Association. A "no change" position was taken on the 3600-4200 MHz band, except for a footnote in Region 2 naming IMT for a few countries in the 3600-3700 MHz band, they said. WRC delegates also shot down a proposal for IMT use of C-band uplink frequencies 5925-6425 MHz for IMT, they said. WRC-15 also set aside some additional spectrum for fixed satellite service (FSS) use: 13.4-13.65 GHz in Region 1 and 14.5-14.8 GHz in several countries, SES said. WRC-15 declined to put globally harmonized bands for FSS, MSS or broadcast satellite service in the C, Ka or Ku bands into a WRC-19 agenda item on new frequency bands for IMT/5G use, the groups said. It also adopted rules to facilitate Earth Stations in Motion (ESIM) in part of Ka-band, allowing better global roaming of maritime and aeronautical terminals while protecting other service and applications from interference, and adopted agenda items for future conferences including the study of additional FSS spectrum at 51.4-52.4 GHz for WRC-19 and additional satellite spectrum in the 37.5-39.5 GHz band for WRC-23, they said. The U.S. delegation to WRC-15 plans to publicly announce and discuss WRC-15 decisions Monday.