Roy Mark

Here’s a shocker: The majority of people who contact Congress do not believe lawmakers are interested in what they have to say. Nevertheless, driven by online advocacy campaigns, people are writing to their lawmakers in record numbers. In fact, according to a new report (PDF) by the CMF (Congressional Management Foundation), almost half of voting […]

Dismissing the complaints of incumbent wireless carriers, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told Congress June 10 he plans to move forward with plans for a new spectrum auction that will require the winner to offer a free tier of broadband service. Martin said he hoped to have the issue on the FCC’s July agenda. […]

Although it has been a widely held belief among companies that insiders are responsible for most data breaches, a new study released June 11 claims 73 percent of breaches result from external sources versus 18 percent from insider threats. Skewering some basic corporate security tenets, the study by Verizon Business also contends nearly 9 in […]

Motorola plans to include both current and new frequency bands in the company’s first commercial release of LTE in 2009, including the700 MHz spectrum recently auctioned off by the FCC. The decision to include 700MHz and 2.6GHz solutions in the package will allow network operators to increase coverage and capacity. The timing for commercialization of […]

While waiting to be buried under the glut of anticipated iPhone 2.0 news today, only Samsung among Apple’s handset competitors decided to go mano a mano by also introducing new consumer phones. As for RIM, Nokia, Motorola and T-Mobile, it was an entirely different story. Consider the announcement by Samsung, the world’s No. 2 handset […]

WiMax took another tentative step forward June 9 with the formation of the Open Patent Alliance, creating a patent pool to help companies obtain access to patents at a predictable cost. The group said its aim is to advance a competitive and open intellectual property rights model. The OPA’s founding members include Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, […]

The cellular industry has reacted with great indignity over just the notion of the government selling off some spectrum to be dedicated for free wireless broadband service. The industry’s mouthpiece – the CTIA – insists that if the FCC is going to auction off more spectrum, it should be to the highest bidder who can […]

A Federal Communications Commission proposal to auction off spectrum with the requirement that the winner offer a free tier of broadband service is a business model doomed to failure, according to the principal trade group for the nation’s wireless carriers. In a June 5 filing with the FCC, the CTIA said, “Prior FCC efforts to […]

There’s a major unknown factor in Verizon’s proposed $28.1 billion acquisition of Alltel: antitrust regulations. If approved by the Washington regulators, the deal would give Verizon Wireless and AT&T control of 58 percent of the U.S. mobile market. That would be no problem for the Bush administration’s antitrust officials, such as they are, who have […]

Comcast is testing a new method of managing network traffic that would target heavy users instead of the applications favored by bandwidth hogs. Comcast claims only a handful of users are clogging its broadband network and slowing it down for the vast majority of users. In testing beginning in three markets June 6, Comcast plans […]

With Hillary Clinton sent to the presidential sidelines June 3, Congress can now turn its attention to its most pressing issue: How quickly can lawmakers shut down the 110th Congress? They have campaign trails to hit—both their own and the presidential candidate of their choice—Barack Obama or John McCain. That’s not a good thing for […]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is disappointed with Google and it has nothing (at least publicly) to do with the search giant’s opposition to a possible Yahoo-Microsoft merger. Ballmer, speaking at the American Electronics Association’s annual dinner in downtown Washington, jabbed his rival by saying “search technology hasn’t changed a lot over five years.” That’s right, […]