FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and acting General Counsel Brendan Carr acknowledged on Twitter meetings with other regulators as part of the Ministerial Programme at GSMA last week. “Enjoyed meeting fellow regulators from Europe Latin America Asia & Africa w/ @AjitPaiFCC to discuss policies that spur broadband deployment,” Carr tweeted Friday. FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly also spoke at the meeting, according to its website, as did ex-Chairman Kevin Martin, now at Facebook. “Wonderful exchanges with African counterparts @ #MWC17, from Burundi to Mozambique,” Pai tweeted. “We stressed mutual spirit of friendship & collaboration.”
The 2017 Mobile World Congress drew a record 108,000 visitors to Barcelona, show producer GSMA said Thursday. That was up 7 percent over 2016 and included attendees from 208 countries and territories, GSMA said in a news release. The 2018 MWC will be in Barcelona Feb. 26-March 1.
Interception and surveillance of EU citizens' personal data sent to the U.S. is allowed by laws in America and subject "to limited, if any, judicial oversight," said the Electronic Privacy Information Center Wednesday in a submission to the Irish High Court. It's hearing a case involving whether Facebook's use of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) provide adequate privacy protections for European citizens (see 1702060029). EPIC is one of several parties selected as amici curiae in the case, which may be referred to the European Court of Justice to decide the validity of SCCs in transferring data. EPIC said U.S. laws don't really provide "adequate safeguards" for such data and effective redress if there are violations. "Many of the privacy safeguards under U.S. law in fact operate to the exclusion of E.U. citizens situated outside the United States," said EPIC. Experts expect the ECJ, which invalidated the safe harbor agreement in October 2015 leading to the creation of Privacy Shield, will hear the case. The office of Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said in a recent update that the Irish court case, which began Feb. 7, may last until mid-March.
The FCC announced Tuesday that Chairman Ajit Pai and R.S. Sharma, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), signed an agreement at the Mobile World Congress pledging cooperation between the agencies. “The nonbinding agreement sets out a framework for the mutually beneficial exchange of ideas through activities such as best practices sharing, bilateral workshops, and digital videoconferences,” the FCC said in a statement. “To guide these efforts, the FCC and TRAI have determined topics of shared interest, including accelerating broadband deployment and aligning spectrum policy to meet increasing mobile broadband demand.”
There were about 556 million registered mobile money accounts in 92 countries at the end of 2016, GSM reported Tuesday. That included 174 million accounts active over the previous days, said a news release. Some 35 mobile money services have more than 1 million active accounts, and there are more than 4.3 million mobile money agent outlets, GSMA said. “The average cost of sending international remittances using mobile money is less than half the cost of doing so via a global money transfer operator.”
IBM launched an ecosystem initiative around its Watson IoT business in Munich, it said in a Thursday announcement. Calling the effort the first “cognitive collaboratories,” IBM said development teams from Avnet, BNP Paribas, Capgemini and Tech Mahindra will collocate development teams at the IBM center, which will also act as innovation space for European IoT standards organization EEBus. IoT innovation has reached a “tipping point,” said Harriet Green, general manager, IBM Watson IoT, cognitive engagement and education, who pegged the number of clients and partners wanting to co-innovate on the IoT ecosystem at 6,000.
Sony is delaying by three months the targeted closing date of the 17.5 billion yen ($153.2 million) sale of its battery business to Murata (see 1610310044), the company said in a Wednesday announcement. Murata and Sony “are continuing the necessary procedures” to complete the sale, but “in light of the current review status of the required regulatory approvals,” the new goal is to close the deal by early July, Sony said. “The rescheduled target closing date remains subject to the receipt of the required regulatory approvals and other conditions.”
GSMA launched an “IoT Big Data API Directory” designed to make “harmonised data sets from multiple sources worldwide available to developers and third parties, enabling them to create innovative new Internet of Things (IoT) services.” API stands for application programming interface. “The directory, which is the first of its kind, is designed to encourage a common approach to data sharing that will help the IoT to realise its full potential and encourage the development of new projects across transport, the environment and smart cities,” GSMA said in a Wednesday news release. Wireless operators China Mobile, China Unicom, KT Corporation, Orange and Telefónica put in place solutions enabling them to share harmonized IoT data, GSMA said.
The International Trade Commission will undertake the first of three reviews on business-to-business and business-to-consumer digital technologies, including on digital exports that might encounter trade barriers overseas, the agency said in a Friday notice. As part of its first of three planned investigations, the ITC scheduled a hearing April 4. The commission will accept requests to appear at the hearing through March 21, pre-hearing briefs and statements through March 23, post-hearing briefs and statements through April 11, "all other written submissions for the first report" through April 21, and will submit the first of three digital trade reports to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Aug. 29, the commission said. Pursuant to a Jan. 13 request to the ITC by then-U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman (see 1701180032), the agency anticipates releasing the second report by Oct. 28, 2018, and the third report by March 29, 2019.
Global Q4 smartphone sales reached 391 million units, up 6 percent year on year, GfK reported Wednesday. Western Europe was the only region to see negative growth with unit sales down 4 percent year on year to 38.6 million and dollar sales off by a percentage point to $16.2 billion. North American unit sales rose 3 percent to 58 million and dollar sales advanced 5 percent to $22.9 billion, it said. Following a dip in Q3 last year, North America experienced a turnaround in demand in Q4, driving by operator promotions and flagship device launches during the holiday season, said the research company. It forecasts that tough competition among North American carriers will drive marginal growth in smartphone demand of 1 percent year on year to 193.4 million units in 2017. Central and Eastern Europe had the steepest rise in the quarter, at 16 percent, posting unit sales of 24.2 million, for $5.6 billion in revenue. China led all smartphone sales with 118.9 million, up 12 percent, grossing $36.9 billion, it said. Smartphone demand is expected to remain stable even in saturated markets this year, said analyst Arndt Polifke, citing their relevance in developed markets for innovations such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, smart home functionality, mobile payments and mobile health. Polifke said that developing regions such as the Middle East/Africa and emerging Asia “have yet to mature and as such still have significant potential for growth, leading to a solid growth outlook for smartphone demand in 2017."