Global LTE reached 250 million subscriptions in the first quarter of 2014, an Ovum analyst said. The U.S. is the world’s largest LTE market, with Verizon Wireless and AT&T accounting for 35 percent of global LTE subscriptions, it said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1uJLRGJ). Verizon had 47.9 million subscriptions, and AT&T had 38.4 million at the end of Q1 2014, Ovum analyst Thecla Mbongue said. Korea was the most penetrated LTE market during that period, with a rate of 47 percent, it said. In emerging markets, where prepaid service is dominant and handset subsidies are less frequent, LTE take-up is slow, she said. Coverage is limited and operators “prioritize the high-end and business segments,” she said. LTE subscriptions are expected to exceed 2 billion by 2019, she said.
"To date, there is no evidence that a person or group has maliciously accessed personally-identifiable information (PII) from the [Healthcare.gov] site,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in her prepared remarks (http://1.usa.gov/1rgcz9m). The committee was probing Tavenner following government confirmation that Healthcare.gov had been breached (WID Sept 8 p8). When designing Healthcare.gov, CMS created the Federal Data Services Hub (the Hub) “that provides an electronic connection between the eligibility systems of the Marketplaces to already existing, secure Federal and state databases to verify the information a consumer provides in their Marketplace application,” said Tavenner. The Hub doesn’t retain personally identifiable information and frees each state’s marketplace from setting up “separate data connections to each database,” she said. Tavenner also touted CMS’s ongoing security monitoring -- penetration testing, continuous monitoring and mitigation strategies. “In addition to daily operational security testing, a comprehensive end-to-end security control assessment that meets industry standards will be conducted by independent assessors next month,” she said. “This security control assessment will test security for open enrollment and plan year functionality.” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Wednesday released a report criticizing the security testing of Heathcare.gov before the website’s launch (http://1.usa.gov/1mbVvkt).
The NFC Forum, the industry group promoting the use of near-field communication (NFC) technology, launched analog testing as part of its certification program, the group said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1BQzyLc). Its analog certification will be the “first detailed evaluation” of the radio frequency (RF) performance of an NFC device, it said. “Consistent RF performance is essential to smooth and swift NFC interactions, fulfilling NFC’s promise of a seamless experience for the consumer,” it said. The testing “milestone” comes at an opportune time, it said, citing IHS estimates that global shipments of NFC-enabled mobile phones will surge fourfold through 2018, when they'll reach shipments of 1.2 billion units and be 63 percent of all mobile phones shipped. “When a device is certified as compliant with NFC Forum specifications —- and the analog specification in particular -— it provides consumers with a better assurance that NFC’s easy touch interface will deliver the comfortable and consistent experience they expect,” the group said. Though dozens of companies belong to the NFC Forum at various levels of membership, its founding “sponsor” members are Broadcom, Google, Intel, MasterCard, NEC, Nokia, NXP, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, STMicroelectronics and Visa.
The Internet Association, a tech company lobbying group, released a video Wednesday featuring House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., with whom they've disagreed on net neutrality. “We have a lot to showcase in that the Internet allows access to the market that’s frankly worldwide,” Upton said in the video, which also showed business leaders from a small business walking tour in Michigan (http://bit.ly/1uL6lxY). “These businesses may not be in business without the Internet. You don’t need to regulate the Internet -- it’s not a problem as long as it’s not regulated,” Upton says on the video.
Internet access via mobile devices soared 67 percent in the past 12 months, said a report released Thursday by StatCounter, a website analytics company (http://bit.ly/1udvccq). Overall, 64.6 percent of Internet access is from desktops, but mobile device access has grown from 17.1 percent to 28.5 percent in the past 12 months, StatCounter said. Tablet Web access has increased from 4.8 percent to 6.8 percent of traffic, the company said. “Mobile usage has already overtaken desktop in several countries including India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia,” said CEO Aodhan Cullen.
The FCC must “move cautiously” as it creates service rules for unlicensed use in the 600 MHz duplex gap because of the potentially “complicated and challenging” interference issues that will come up as part of that proceeding, said AT&T Vice President-Federal Regulatory Joan Marsh in a blog post Wednesday. AT&T doesn’t share the FCC’s “confidence that unlicensed devices in the duplex gap in the configuration and at the power levels identified in the order can operate without creating interference to the adjacent licensed allocations,” Marsh said (http://bit.ly/1pkLH2c). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a draft order and Further NPRM last week on interservice interference after the incentive auction. Filings from Broadcom and Qualcomm provide disparate analyses of unlicensed devices’ ability to operate without interference in the duplex gap, an early indication of the technical challenges that lay ahead, Marsh said. Caution is “essential,” she said. “If interfering services are ultimately permitted in the duplex gap, the adjacent licensed blocks (and their associated paired channels) will not be fungible. They will instead be impaired licenses.” Some license impairments may be unavoidable, especially in border areas, but the FCC should try to avoid interference when possible because introducing it “where it need not exist would be a significant step in the wrong direction,” Marsh said.
The House passed Joint Resolution 124 (http://1.usa.gov/1qOCsha) to temporarily extend the ban on Internet access taxes, among other items, through Dec. 11, said a House Appropriations Committee news release (http://1.usa.gov/1sqbsQr). The Senate was expected to vote on the resolution Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1uXh4Ve). Senate Judiciary Committee member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, criticized at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) (HR-684), which would let states tax remote sellers with annual revenue exceeding $1 million (http://1.usa.gov/1sv9HFq). Cruz said he fears the bill could be passed in the next session of Congress. Some advocates of the ban on Internet access taxes believe a disagreement in the Senate over the MFA kept the body from passing a stand-alone moratorium on Internet access taxes (WID Aug 18 p1).
Technology companies and civil liberties and privacy advocates sent yet another letter to Congress, pressing legislators to bring two email privacy bills to the floor (S-607, HR-1852) (http://bit.ly/XprPEe). The letter -- with signers ranging from Adobe to search engine DuckDuckGo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- is the most recent letter urging congressional leaders to allow a vote on the bills, which would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to require a warrant for law enforcement to access remotely stored data. “They would pass overwhelmingly, proving to Americans and the rest of the world that the U.S. legal system values privacy in the digital age,” the letter said.
Communities with widely available gigabit access have a per-capita gross domestic product 1.1 percent higher than communities with little to no gigabit availability, said a study released Thursday by Fiber to the Home Council Americas. The study examined 55 communities in nine states, a news release said (http://bit.ly/1wI8FJk). The 14 communities with gigabit “enjoyed approximately $1.4 billion in additional GDP when gigabit broadband became widely available,” said Council President Heather Gold.
Cox Enterprises bought mobile technology company Experience for more than $200 million, Cox said in a Thursday news release (http://bit.ly/1rg82np). Experience provides upgrades and deals at live events such as concerts and sports games, working on its offerings with sports teams and concert promoters. “Experience is the first company created through a partnership announced in early 2013 by Jim Kennedy, chairman of Cox Enterprises, and technology entrepreneur Tripp Rackley,” Cox said. Cox said that 20 months ago, it “announced plans to invest in and develop tech growth companies as part of its portfolio."