Chinese ISP Baidu certified Pioneer China as the first contract developer and manufacturer of on-board equipment supporting the Baidu CarLife telematics service in China, Pioneer said in a Tuesday announcement. Pioneer will start shipping the “on-board equipment” needed for the service to car manufacturers in China in November, the company said. “Today in China, with the rapid spread of smartphones, it is possible to establish a constant connection to the Internet, and a boost in the telematics service in the car to connect to the network is expected,” it said. “Our on-board equipment to start shipping this autumn is able to provide an easy-to-use, high quality service” for Baidu CarLife, using “the hardware technology and know-how of Pioneer’s Car OEM business,” Pioneer said. “Pioneer will investigate further cooperation with Baidu in a variety of sectors, including the connected vehicles and automated driving society of the future to combine the hardware technology of Pioneer and the abundant content and applications of Baidu.”
Microsoft praised the U.S. State Department's Global Connect initiative, which seeks to connect 1.5 billion individuals across the globe to the Internet by 2020 (see 1509280046). In a company blog post Monday, Paul Mitchell, Microsoft tech policy senior director, called the new initiative an "ambitious effort" and "remarkable," especially against the backdrop of the U.N.'s newly announced sustainable development goals. Mitchell also said Microsoft plans to engage in the State Department's new program. "By working together as part of the Global Connect initiative, we can enable these benefits for those not yet connected," he said. Microsoft joins a bevy of industry groups and businesses that have vocalized support for Global Connect, with some observers calling it overly ambitious.
The FCC released a memorandum of understanding with the Colombian Ministry of Information Technology and Communications agreeing to cooperate to fight mobile device theft. To “foster a vibrant and legitimate market for mobile devices,” rules need to “ensure consumers are protected from purchasing stolen devices,” the Monday memo said. The U.S. and Colombia said they plan to work with carriers to block activation or use of devices that have been identified as being stolen. They also pledged to take steps to disrupt the market for stolen handsets and share data on stolen handsets with other nations.
Sky has begun connecting its first customers to its new “ultrafast” fiber-to-the-home broadband network in York, U.K., the company said in a Monday announcement. Ultrafast customers will be able to receive broadband speeds of up to 940 Mbps, almost 500 times faster than Sky’s existing “service obligation,” making York the first U.K. city to test ultrafast broadband, it said. “The increased downloads speeds offered by ultrafast broadband mean that customers can download an HD movie in less than 30 seconds.” Sky is the U.K.’s first broadband service provider “to offer guaranteed broadband speeds,” said Lyssa McGowan, director of Sky Broadband, in a statement. “As Ofcom continues its review of the broadband market, we believe that trials like this are a valuable demonstration of the alternative technologies now available,” McGowan said of the U.K. regulator. “With the right conditions for investment and innovation, consumers and businesses could benefit from more ultrafast connections across the UK.”
The U.S.-based Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and Germany-based Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance said they agreed to work together on the deployment of 5G. The groups hope to "enable and support the timely delivery of 5G to the market,” a Monday news release said. “In the coming years, both parties intend to achieve this by working together in projects on 5G related issues and by carrying out joint 5G public relation measures.” ATIS President Susan Miller said the agreement underscores the importance of cooperation. "ATIS sees its agreement with NGMN as important to its leadership role in delivering 5G requirements focused on the North American market and contributing them to global efforts,” she said. “The goal is to deliver the long-promised convergence of all services onto a common framework, with corresponding enhancements to efficiency, security and service velocity."
One-fifth of broadband households in Canada own a functioning home security system, Parks Associates said Friday, and 34 percent of Canadian households with security can monitor and control the system through a mobile device. But the Canadian market faces the same challenges as its neighbor to the south with "low awareness, the lack of a concise value proposition, and privacy and security concerns” all “barriers to smart home adoption," Jason Paris, director-business development, said. Paris is presenting at the Connections+ conference Monday in Toronto.
The 2,580-mile Hibernia Express cable is the first trans-Atlantic cable built in more than a decade, Hibernia Networks said in a news release Thursday. The cable has undergone testing on its power stability, spectral efficiency and latency over the past few weeks, it said. The cable has an actual tested latency of better than 58.95 milliseconds from New York to London, it said.
The European Commission launched a public debate focused on geo-blocking and the role of platforms in the online economy, it said in a news release Thursday. The information gathered through the debate will aid the commission in assessing "the need for, or prepare initiatives as part of the Digital Single Market Strategy and the Internal Market Strategy for Goods and Services," the EC said. The debate on geo-blocking is designed to collect opinions on "unjustified commercial barriers which prevent from buying and selling products and services within the European Union," the commission said. The EC also said the consultation concerning online platforms, including search engines, social media, video sharing websites and others, will look at their economic role, explore the liability of intermediaries regarding illegal content hosted online, and discuss ways to improve the free flow of data in the EU and to build a "European Cloud." The debates will help the commission prepare legislative proposals in the first half of 2016 to "end unjustified geo-blocking" and could include targeted change to existing e-commerce rules, it said.
Negotiators from countries party to the Information Technology Agreement will convene in Geneva Monday to Oct. 2 to discuss duty reductions for the pact’s expansion rollout, dozens of industry associations said in a recent statement. The World Trade Organization says the duty reductions will begin in 2016 (see 1507280062), and the industry associations urged a speedy elimination schedule. “While the standard phase-out (or staging) period for tariff elimination under ITA expansion is three years, we urge the negotiators to show as much ambition as possible,” said the statement, which was endorsed by CEA, the Chamber of Commerce, DigitalEurope, the Entertainment Software Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as a range of software and semiconductor groups. “We urge all negotiating parties to show restraint in seeking staging periods longer than three years, given the short innovation cycles for high-technology products.” Each country must finalize its schedule by the December WTO ministerial in Nairobi, the statement said. In late July, the WTO said only 49 countries out of 81 total ITA parties had signed off on expansion, which was brokered in the days before.
One month in, the Samsung Pay digital wallet platform is off to "a successful start” in South Korea, having amassed more than $30 million in “accumulated transaction volume” through Sept. 20, the company said in a Wednesday announcement. Samsung Pay accounted for more than 1.5 million “total transactions,” 60 percent of them completed through the Galaxy Note5 smartphone, it said. The company estimates that 10 percent of Samsung Pay’s “active users” performed transactions on the service daily in the first month. Samsung Pay launches Monday in the U.S., with plans soon to bring the service to the U.K., Spain and China, Samsung said.