Russia export controls and sanctions

Europe and the U.S. should be thinking about a “transatlantic digital marketplace” instead of getting “hung up on our small differences,” U.S. Ambassador to the EU William Kennard, a former FCC chairman, said Monday at a Copenhagen EU Danish Presidency high level conference on the digital single market. He cited a book by Peter Baldwin, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences,” that describes the psychological tendency people have to seize on small differences and enlarge them, saying that although the EU and U.S. are the world’s largest trading partners, they get stuck on issues such as data privacy that are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. As Europe debates its digital single market and the U.S. updates its online rules, they should consider joining forces because China, Brazil, Russia and other countries aren’t going to wait for them to resolve their differences, he said on a webcast.

MUNICH -- Industry and regulators are grappling with the slow uptake of fiber-to-the-home networks in major Western European countries. Countries like Germany and the U.K. don’t even figure in the recent statistics of the Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Council Europe, the Council warned at its meeting this week.

GENEVA -- Talks stymied at the World Radiocommunication Conference, on how to handle concerns with use of cognitive radio systems (CRS) raised by Russia and certain other countries, will focus on a compromise approach that doesn’t include a conference resolution, officials said. Discussions are continuing, the chairwoman of the sub-working group on the agenda item told us.

Without “substantial and radical changes,” mobile roaming reforms floated by EU lawmakers will be a huge failure, a representative for independent mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) said Wednesday at a European People’s Party hearing in Brussels. The event, chaired by the author of the draft legislative response to European Commission plans to force down high data roaming costs, looked at proposed price caps and “structural measures” such as “decoupling” of domestic from roaming contracts and giving alternative providers access to networks in other EU countries at regulated wholesale tariffs. MVNOs fear the report’s recommended roaming prices are so low that independent virtual operators will be barred from competing, said Innocenzo Genna, speaking for Italian MVNO Poste Mobile and independents in general. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that any solution to pricey roaming rates must consider smaller players.

GENEVA -- Wider discussions on cybercrime are ramping up to evaluate existing legal instruments and to assess whether new measures are needed, speakers said at a high-level panel on cybersecurity and cybercrime Tuesday. A “universal convention on cooperation” is needed for the fight against cybercrime, a Russian official said. “Divergence of views” between governments is “very significant,” a U.N. official said. The panel was organized by the U.N. Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the ITU and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Motorola Mobility posted an $80 million loss in Q4 versus $80 million profit in Q4 2010 partly due to intense competition, it said late Thursday. The company shipped 10.5 million mobile devices in the quarter, including 5.3 million smartphones. It sold 200,000 tablets in the quarter and 1 million for all of 2011. The company still expects its $12.5 billion acquisition by Google to be completed early in the year. Regulatory approvals have been received in Turkey and Russia. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce proceeded to phase two in its investigation in December. In February, the European Commission is expected to announce whether it will close its investigation or proceed to a phase two investigation, Motorola said. The statutory waiting period for the transaction has expired in Canada and the U.S., but the companies were told the reviewing agencies haven’t closed their investigations, Motorola said. Meanwhile, the company’s home segment saw its Q4 revenue drop 11 percent year-over-year. Set-top shipments were down 3 percent year-over-year in the quarter. Full year set-top shipments were up 6 percent year-over-year.

GENEVA -- Nigeria was highly critical of the small digital dividend delivered at WRC-07 and the slow-moving approach European countries are taking to accommodating the needs of lesser developed countries. The comments came in a plenary session at WRC-12. European countries have excellent wired networks and received a sufficient digital dividend at WRC-07, a Nigerian official said, but Africa did not. Germany, Russia and Israel said the matter should be addressed at WRC-15.

GENEVA -- Administrations at the Radiocommunication Assembly geared up for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference starting Jan. 23 by approving supporting ITU-R recommendations on various needed technical, operational and regulatory aspects, officials said at a press conference after the assembly, which ended Friday. Assembly agreement on studies for cognitive radio systems “excludes” regulatory matters, an executive said, but the systems will be considered under a WRC-12 agenda item. WRC-12 work on use of orbit and associated spectrum resources and a future conference agenda item on more spectrum for mobile broadband will be some of the “more difficult” WRC agenda items, said Francois Rancy, director of the Radiocommunication Bureau.

The Arab regional group of countries has opposed a WRC-12 agenda item for a primary allocation to the space research service (Earth-to-space) within the band 22.55-23.15 GHz, Vincent Meens, chairman of the ITU-R study group on science services, told us in the corridors of the this week’s Radiocommunication Assembly. Meens works for the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, the government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space policy in Europe. The agenda item is a “major issue of interest to NASA” and will create the framework for the post-shuttle era of manned and robotic flight, Decker Anstrom, the U.S. ambassador to the conference, said in July (CD July 29 p12). Separately, Tariq Al Awadhi of the United Arab Emirates will “most likely” be WRC-12 chairman, Naser Al Rashedi, manager of ITU affairs told us, referring to “rumors.” Al Awadhi is also chairman of the regional group the Arab Spectrum Management Group. Al Awadhi, Kavouss Arasteh of Iran, and Valery Timofeev, the former Radiocommunication Bureau director from Russia, had been under consideration for WRC-12 chairman. An ITU spokesman did not know if the secretary-general had reached a decision on the nominee. The nominee’s name is expected to be floated at a heads of delegation meeting Sunday and will be up for confirmation at the conference the following day. Officials said the secretary-general would have talked with each administration about the nominee. One concern with a nominee from the UAE is that the country will host two other conferences this year, namely the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly and the World Conference on International Telecommunications, officials said. UAE officials will chair those conferences. If there is obvious disagreement on the nominee, the secretary-general would have an alternative in mind, an official said, referring to the likelihood that administrations wouldn’t oppose a good candidate from an African country because no official from that continent has chaired a WRC.

LAS VEGAS -- Investment in infrastructure is critical to turning around a slumping U.S. economy, Rebecca Blank, acting deputy Commerce Secretary, told CES Thursday. Blank spoke during a discussion on how innovation can save the U.S., that took a sometimes pessimistic turn as panelists asked whether the nation is off its game. Panelists asked whether Angry Birds, a cellphone game which has gone viral, is now what passes for innovation in the U.S.