Ericsson and SoftBank said they're moving to a next phase of 5G testing, using 28 GHz spectrum. Japan’s SoftBank is the parent of Sprint. The companies noted in a Friday news release that 4.5 GHz, the subject of past testing, and 28 GHz are candidate bands for 5G in Japan. “The coming 5G trial will be conducted both in indoor and outdoor trial environments covering both device mobility and stationary tests,” the companies said. “The trial will utilize Ericsson's mmWave 28GHz 5G Test Bed solution, which includes base stations and device prototypes and will showcase advanced 5G technologies including Massive-MIMO, Massive Beamforming, Distributed MIMO, Multi-user MIMO and Beam Tracking together with multi-gigabit data rates and ultra-low latency which are becoming key requirements for future consumer mobile broadband and industrial use-cases.”
World Trade Organization members should consider a digital trade facilitation agenda during the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in December and make permanent the current prohibition on customs duties on e-commerce transactions, said the International Chamber of Commerce in a Wednesday report. A digital trade facilitation agenda could help developing and least-developed countries lacking resources and technical constraints compete, ICC said in a news release: Global initiatives can help reduce “the temptation of introducing new protectionism.”
ZTE formally pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act through illegally shipping U.S.-origin items to Iran, obstruction of justice and making a material false statement, DOJ announced. The Chinese multinational company agreed to plead guilty to the alleged violations, pay $430.5 million in fines and criminal forfeitures, and to serve three years of corporate probation, during which an independent compliance monitor will review and report on ZTE’s export compliance program, the department had announced earlier this month (see 1703070042). Justice cited plea documents that showed ZTE either directly or indirectly through a third party shipped about $32 million worth of dual-use U.S.-origin wireless and wireline infrastructure hardware to customers in Iran between January 2010 and January 2016.
The European Commission said it's requiring Google parent Alphabet, Facebook and Twitter to change terms of service and improve responsiveness to removing content aimed at committing consumer fraud within one month or face “enforcement action.” The EU has been scrutinizing the three firms’ practices, including their ability to detect and remove scam content like fake promotions and ads for counterfeit products. Friday’s announcement followed a Thursday meeting between EC officials and representatives from three companies. Social media companies generally “need to take more responsibility in addressing scams and frauds,” said Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Commissioner Věra Jourová in a news release. “It is not acceptable that EU consumers can only call on a court in California to resolve a dispute.” Social media companies’ terms of service must comply with European consumer law, which requires a balance between parties’ rights and obligations, and those terms be drafted in plain language, the EC said. The decision came soon after Germany said it was proposing a law that would allow fines of up to $53 million against social media firms if they fail to remove libelous or threatening posts. Google, Facebook and Twitter didn’t comment.
A Unamas Septet recording of A. Piazzolla by Strings and Oboe, to be released Friday on the Ottava label in Japan, will be the first Master Quality Authenticated recording on CD, said MQA in a Thursday announcement. The MQA-enabled CD could mark “a new era of hi-res audio,” said mastering engineer Mick Sawaguchi. MQA CD works the same way as an MQA digital file, said MQA: With a conventional CD player connected to an MQA-enabled device, the MQA CD will “unwrap’ to the original sample rate,” it said.
The European Commission approved AT&T's $108.7 billion buy of Time Warner, AT&T said in a news release Wednesday. "The global clearance process is on track," said AT&T Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs Bob Quinn. The company said it hopes to have DOJ approval and close on the deal this year (see 1703080006).
ZTE overtook Huawei as the biggest filer of international patent applications through the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2016, while Qualcomm came in third, WIPO said in its annual report Wednesday. Patent applicants based in the U.S. maintained their No. 1 ranking for the 39th year running, with nearly a quarter of the 233,000 applications filed globally -- a 7.3 percent increase from 2015 -- under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Japan placed second with a 19.4 percent share, followed by China with 18.5 percent, WIPO said. Applications originating in China jumped 44.7 percent from a year earlier, WIPO said. If that trend continues, China will overtake the U.S. within two years as the largest user of the PCT system, it said. There also was strong 2016 growth in applications originating from Italy (up 9.3 percent from 2015), Israel (up 9.1 percent), India (up 8.3 percent) and the Netherlands (up 8 percent), WIPO said. But applications from Canada fell 17.3 percent for the second straight year of double-digit declines in filings, WIPO said. It cited declining applications from BlackBerry and Nortel.
Intel’s proposed $15.3 billion buy of Israeli-based Mobileye (see 1703130015) “kills the myth that Israelis can’t build big companies” and that Jerusalem “is not a hotbed of innovation,” said Lou Kerner, who manages Flight VC's Israeli Founders Syndicate, in a Medium.com blog post Tuesday. The Mobileye deal also “turns the world’s focus to Israel, in a highly positive way, for at least a period of time,” Kerner said. “But most importantly for the Israel tech sector, tech ecosystems, when they are humming, are virtuous circles,” he said. Israel’s tech sector “was already booming,” but the Mobileye deal “just adds more fuel to Start Up Nation’s roaring bonfire,” he said. Mobileye's deal with Intel “is unique" because instead of Mobileye being integrated into Intel, Intel's Automated Driving Group “will be integrated into Mobileye,” and will be “headquartered in Israel,” senior Mobileye management told employees Monday in announcing the deal.
BT agreed to Ofcom requirements to spin off its Openreach network division, the British regulator said in a release Friday. "Openreach will become a distinct company with its own staff and management, together with its own strategy and a legal purpose to serve all of its customers equally," Ofcom said. "BT has agreed to all of the changes needed to address Ofcom’s competition concerns. As a result, Ofcom will no longer need to impose these changes through regulation. The reforms have been designed to begin this year."
Chinese multinational ZTE will plead guilty and pay $430.5 million to the U.S. government for illegally shipping U.S.-origin wireless and wireline infrastructure hardware to customers in Iran for almost six years, obstruction of justice, and “making a material false statement,” DOJ announced. In total, ZTE will pay the government $892.4 million, under the impending guilty plea and settlement agreements reached with the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, DOJ said. BIS suspended another $300 million in penalties, which ZTE will pay if it breaches its settlement with the agency, DOJ said. ZTE lied to federal investigators and “deceived their own counsel and internal investigators” about the illegal acts, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. An independent corporate compliance monitor will review and report on ZTE’s export compliance program over the next three years, during which the company will remain on corporate probation, according to DOJ’s announcement. “Criminal information” filed March 7 in federal court in the Northern District of Texas charged ZTE with one count of “knowingly and willfully” conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and one count each of obstructing justice and making a material false statement. ZTE then signed a plea agreement with the government, which the court must still approve, DOJ said. BIS four times extended the original June 30, 2016, deadline for a temporary general license for ZTE that maintains normal licensing requirements for exports, re-exports and in-country transfers to ZTE and ZTE Kangxun (see 1702230001), after announcing sanctions against the two entities and two affiliated firms on March 8, 2016 (see 1603070001). The current temporary general license expires March 29.