Roy Mark

Ten years ago, Congress enacted laws instructing the Internal Revenue Service to allow the electronic filing of federal income taxes, setting a goal of 80 percent of returns filed electronically by 2007. The IRS responded by outsourcing the task to software companies and other electronic originators who collect more than $1 billion in fees to […]

Public advocacy groups renewed their call April 14 for Federal Communications Commission action to prohibit wireless carriers from exerting undue influence on the provisioning and delivery of text messages addressed by short code. Verizon and AT&T responded by claiming the groups are misrepresenting the issue and new regulations are unwarranted. Short codes, or SMS (short […]

In hopes of accelerating the take-up rate for wireless third- and fourth-generation networks, a new coalition of vendors have agreed to a standardized royalty rate structure for the use of each other’s Long-Term Evolution mobile technology. LTE, along with WiMax, is expected to be one of the standard platforms for the delivery of wireless broadband. […]

Virgin Media has gone old-school when it comes to network neutrality. The United Kingdom’s second-largest broadband provider, with 3.5 million customers, said it wants to charge content providers different rates to deliver prioritized data, voice and video. In an interview in the Royal Television Society’s Television magazine, Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett warned that those […]

Big-box retailers, including Wal-Mart, Sears, Target and Circuit City, drew $3.9 million in fines from the Federal Communications Commission April 9 for failing to properly label television sets that won’t receive digital signals. Sears and its subsidiary, Kmart, were hit with the largest fine at $1.1 million. Broadcasters are set to switch to digital signals […]

The U.S. House of Representatives disappointed a number of IT trade groups April 10, voting 224-119 to indefinitely delay consideration of the Columbia Free Trade Agreement. The trade agreement was strongly supported by the Consumer Electronics Association; TechNet, the powerful lobbying group of technology CEOs; and CompTIA, the powerful Computing Technology Industry Association, which has […]

Motorola grabbed its third Taiwan contract in eight months on April 9 to deploy a WiMax network. Motorola now has 19 contracts for commercial WiMax networks in 18 countries around the world. Motorola and its partner, UTStarcom, will work with Fitel (First International Telecom), one of Taiwan’s major telecom carriers, to develop the network. Fitel […]

Almost 60 percent of Americans are uncomfortable with Web sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN using data about a user’s online activity to customize advertisements or content based on a person’s interests, according to a new Harris Interactive survey. Even after being introduced to four possible recommendations for improving privacy and security polices, the survey […]

The U.S. ranks fourth among the world’s networked economies, according a new report issued April 9 by the World Economic Forum. Denmark came in first in the seventh annual rankings, followed by Sweden and Switzerland. While the study supports the longstanding numbers that the U.S. is still lagging behind a number of industrialized nations in […]

Former AT&T Chairman and CEO David Dorman will assume the role of Motorola’s non-executive chairman May 8, replacing Ed Zander, the company’s current chairman and former CEO. Greg Brown replaced Zander as CEO Jan. 1. The 54-year-old Dorman joined the Motorola board in 2006 following a 26-year career in telecommunications. He is currently a managing […]