G.O.P. Balks at Plan to Add Airwaves for Mobile Internet and Wi-Fi

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AppId is over the quota
The remarks, which came at a House communications subcommittee hearing, took aim at one of the top priorities of Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman: to make available more unlicensed airwaves, or spectrum, to open congested mobile broadband networks and to use in Wi-Fi hot spots.

In September, the F.C.C. proposed freeing 12 to 20 megahertz of spectrum for those unlicensed uses. The unlicensed space on the electromagnetic spectrum would also be used as “guard bands.” Those are areas that border segments of airwaves that are used by cellphone companies, broadcasters and other communications entities; their purpose is to limit interference from transmissions on nearby airwaves.

Mr. Genachowski defended the commission’s plans. “Unlicensed spectrum has a powerful record of driving innovation, investment and economic growth — hundreds of billions of dollars of value creation for our economy and consumers,” he told the committee on Wednesday.

He pointed to Wi-Fi networks, which operate on unlicensed airwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum, as an example of innovation that has generated “hundreds of billions in tax revenues” and made the United States a leader in the use of unlicensed airwaves.

But Representative Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, who is chairman of the panel, said the law that gave the F.C.C. the ability to conduct “incentive auctions” of newly available spectrum required “maximizing the proceeds from the auction.”

For the F.C.C. to obtain the highest price for the spectrum it sells, it should limit the size of guard bands, Mr. Walden said; he said the six-megahertz minimum size proposed by the F.C.C. was unnecessarily fat.

Up to $7 billion of auction proceeds is earmarked to help build a nationwide public safety communications network for first responders. The spectrum for the auctions is supposed to come from television broadcasters who voluntarily give it up or move their position on the airwaves in exchange for some of the auction proceeds.

“I support the use of unlicensed spectrum to foster innovation” for relief of congested broadband, Mr. Walden said. “What I cannot support,” he added, “is the unnecessary expansion of unlicensed spectrum in other bands needed for licensed services, especially at the expense of funding for public safety.”

The F.C.C.’s five commissioners, who all testified before the subcommittee on Wednesday, are split 3-2 along party lines over the issue of unlicensed spectrum.

Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, a Republican, said it would be premature for the commission to reserve newly available airwaves for unlicensed use.

Instead, the commission should set aside the “white spaces” between broadcast television channels for unlicensed use, he said. White spaces are similar, but smaller, guard bands in the part of the spectrum dedicated to broadcast television that are intended to minimize interference between stations.

“At this early stage in the incentive auction process,” Mr. McDowell said, “it is not apparent that we should stop the progress well under way in the TV white spaces arena to create a solution for a problem — an alleged shortage of unlicensed spectrum in lower spectrum bands — that may never exist.”

The F.C.C.’s plans for unlicensed spectrum received support from Democrats on the subcommittee, including Representative Henry A. Waxman of California. Mr. Waxman said the way unlicensed spectrum would be set aside and used were settled in negotiations on the Public Safety and Spectrum Act, which was enacted this year.

“I am troubled by attempts by some to relitigate issues that were resolved earlier this year, when the bill passed Congress with widespread support,” Mr. Waxman said.

Republicans on the subcommittee also sparred with Mr. Genachowski over whether the F.C.C. should limit the amount of spectrum any one company could own. That would limit the potential buyers of some spectrum to be auctioned. Supporters of restrictions say they are one of a few ways to give smaller cellphone companies the ability to build nationwide networks.

Separately, the F.C.C. said late Wednesday that it had agreed to allow Dish, the satellite television company, to use spectrum that it controled for mobile broadband; previously, the airwaves were to be used only for satellite transmissions. The change, which was expected, greatly expands the value of the spectrum and could allow Dish to enter a mobile broadband partnership with another wireless company.

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Mobile overtakes desktop in China

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IP is over the quota
19 July 2012 Last updated at 15:05 The number of people accessing the internet via mobile has risen 10% since the end of 2011 Mobile phones are now the most common way for people to connect to the internet in China, a report has said.

For the first time, desktop computers are no longer the leading method for the country's 538 million connected citizens to get online.

The report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) said over 50% of the year's new internet users were from rural areas.

A fall in smartphone costs has been the key cause of growth, experts said.

"Mobile phones are a cheaper and more convenient way to access the internet for [residents in] China's vast rural areas and for the enormous migrant population," said the report from the state-linked CINIC.

Mobile internet users now number 388 million, up almost 10% since the start of the year.

"Mobile phone prices continued to drop," the report said.

"The emergence of smartphones under 1,000 yuan [$157, £100] sharply lowered the threshold for using the devices and encouraged average mobile phone users to become mobile web surfers."

The total number of those online has risen 5% since the end of last year, many of whom are very active in cyberspace.

Bill Dutton, professor of internet studies at the University of Oxford, told the BBC that the trend followed similar growth in other parts of the world.

"We're moving to what we call next-generation users," he said.

"They're likely to have three or four devices in their homes, therefore they're able to integrate computing into their lives wherever they are."

Continue reading the main story Raymond Li Head of Chinese, BBC World Service

With more than a billion people using mobile phones, China is already the largest mobile market in the world.

Therefore, the confirmation that more Chinese people are browsing the internet using mobile phones rather than desktop computers is hardly surprising, especially after the rapid growth of smartphone usage in the country over the last 12 months or so.

According to a report by Needham & Company earlier this month, China became the largest smartphone market in the world, with more than 33 million sets of mobile phones sold in China compared with 25 million in the USA at the same time, and the growth rate was a stunning 164% too.

Many experts say that we are only witnessing the beginning of China's dominance in the global smartphone market now.

He added that the rapid adoption of mobile among the rural community was one of necessity over desire.

"There's a wave of people coming online that would not otherwise be able to afford to be there."

Great Firewall

Over half of the connected population in China frequently use microblogging sites like Sina Weibo, a service similar to Twitter which is banned in the country.

The popularity of these services has prompted the government to force users to sign up using their real names.

Internet use in China has had a rocky history. The country has been on the end of sharp criticism from human rights groups for blocking large amounts of content from its citizens - a system which has been dubbed the "Great Firewall of China".

The report's implications are likely to have been noticed by the country's Communist leaders.

Mobile phones are an ideal platform for the microblogs which have become unofficial forums for information about unrest, scandals or disasters.

While internet access through web-browsers is constrained by the Great Firewall, specially written mobile programmes - or apps - frequently circumvent China's internet controls.

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A new way to access BBC News on your mobile

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If you are one of the growing number of people who use a mobile device to access BBC News, we have some important news for you.

This week sees the start of a revamp of our mobile services to make them even simpler and quicker to use, and to make more content available, more easily.

Mobile has become a key way for many people to keep up to date with news. In an average week, for example, the BBC News site and apps are visited by about 9.7m users on mobile and tablet devices worldwide, or about 26% of total users to BBC News Online.

To date, there have been three options for accessing BBC News on a mobile. The experience you get varies considerably depending on which one you use:

1) The first, and oldest, mobile option is the "mobile browser" site - mostly comprising headline links and designed for the simpler mobile handsets which predated the arrival of smartphones.

2) The second is the BBC News mobile app, which has been downloaded from the Apple and Android app stores several million times and is designed to give quick access to the day's main stories. The app allows you to read them offline too, and is a handy way to catch up with the top stories fast, but doesn't contain all the related editorial material you would find on the main site.

3) The third is the full desktop website, which many people also access on their phones. This has the advantage of giving you everything the main website contains, but on a smallish mobile screen it can be hard work to pinch, zoom and scan the content.

Now we are simplifying some of the above into a new service which launches this week and replaces the earlier mobile browser site.

Using an approach called Responsive Design, the BBC Future Media product team for News have built a mobile site which can detect and adapt to your device, giving you the optimum size and format for the phone you are using.

This new site is designed, for now, mainly for simpler phones, although you should be able to access it on any device. It will gradually evolve as new features and functionality are added in coming weeks, to the point where it becomes the default browser for smartphones as well. For those using our apps, of course we'll keep them up to date too and continue to look for ways of developing and improving them.

Kate Milner, product manager working on BBC News for mobiles, explains here in more detail what the new mobile service has to offer, and what to expect next.

People sometimes talk about a "mobile first" view of digital development and this project is a step in that direction, since the underlying technology, design and editorial approach is likely to help shape the way we develop services for tablets and the main desktop site in future too. Chris Russell, who leads the product team, writes more about this here.

We hope you'll like using the new mobile site, and If you'd like to leave comments and feedback about it, or have questions, please post them here.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

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Virgin Atlantic Offers Mobile Service in the Skies

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By Deanna Cioppa

What goes through your head when the flight attendants announce that it's time to turn off phones and electronic devices? Is it "ah, finally, peace and quiet," "wait! I forgot to call [someone not that important]," or do you smile snidely and take no heed of their direction? Well, you're not going to hear that announcement for much longer, on Virgin Atlantic flights anyway.

With the official reveal of its Airbus 330-300 (flying between New York and London), the airline is offering in-flight cell phone usage for its flyers. According to a release, passengers on the new Airbus will be able to make calls, send and receive texts and emails, and have access to the web at 35,000 feet, via General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). By the end of the year, the airline says the service will be available for nearly 20 of its aircraft. The cost of the service is a bit steep—one British pound (or about $1.59) per minute, but can go up based on your network provider.

While the service is available throughout the plane, Virgin says it's mainly directed at business travelers who need to make a short call or send an email or two—"exceptional situations," as the airline puts it. To that end, only six users will be able to connect to the service at a time.

Despite that low number, some have been voicing concern over the potential for loud (or worse, boring) phone chit-chat in cabins. After Tuesday's announcement, the Associated Press wrote, "The British airline's new service could be a blessing for business travelers who want to stay connected during eight-hour flights across the ocean. It could also be a nightmare for the passenger sitting next to them."

Sarah McIntyre at Virgin's U.S. public relations office tried to assuage those worries. "This is more about people making a brief call to the car picking them up," she said in a phone interview, and not meant for passengers to be "chatting away." The feedback during the airline's trial period with the new service, she said, has been "very positive so far."

This development and the new Airbus is part a $160 million investment by Virgin Atlantic. Other digital goodies include a "technology hub" in the new airplane's Upper Class cabin with connections for smartphones, USB, and tablets, and a new in-flight entertainment system called Jam.

The service, dubbed AeroMobile, is initially available for customers using the O2 and Vodafone mobile networks. Service will still be unavailable during takeoff, landing, and within 250 miles of US airspace.

What do you think of Virgin Atlantic's new phone service? Weigh in in the comments below.

Photo credits: Courtesy of Virgin Atlantic

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Facebook buys mobile e-commerce app Karma

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