"Light fidelity” (Li-Fi) technology could help power the Internet of Things and boost communications security, its developers said in recent interviews. Li-Fi refers to signals sent via light rather than radio waves. Companies such as General Electric and Philips are incorporating the technology into their products, but it hasn’t been commercialized for consumers, said Swati Nigam, senior research associate for market research consultancy MarketsandMarkets. She predicted that would happen in two to three years. But Ovum analyst Dimitris Mavrakis disagreed, saying he sees no immediate commercial opportunities for Li-Fi.
Dugie Standeford
Dugie Standeford, European Correspondent, Communications Daily and Privacy Daily, is a former lawyer. She joined Warren Communications News in 2000 to report on internet policy and regulation. In 2003 she moved to the U.K. and since then has covered European telecommunications issues. She previously covered the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and intellectual property law matters. She has a degree in psychology from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law.
Talks on updating broadcasting protections stalled Saturday when the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights meeting ended without any recommendations. Despite the failure to agree on conclusions -- they'll now be drafted by SCCR Chairman Martin Moscoso -- there seems to be a pretty strong inclination by delegates toward a general agreement that pure webcasting is out of the treaty, WIPO sources said.
Conclusions on talks on an updated treaty to protect broadcasting signals won’t be firmed up until Friday or later, though discussions this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) have led to a decision that pure webcasting signals won’t be part of the treaty’s scope, broadcast officials said in an interview Wednesday. That, and the move toward creating a single, broad right protecting simultaneous and near simultaneous transmissions, could relieve some concerns of nongovernmental organizations and pave the way for a diplomatic conference, they said. Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), however, said they still believe those seeking the broadcasting treaty haven’t proved they need it.
With European Parliament elections May 22-25, and European Commission members changing in the fall, some telecom and civil society organizations are working to ensure that their issues remain high on the agenda of the bodies, they said. They may not be backing specific EC or parliamentary candidates, but they have made clear what they want from the winners.
High-altitude drones for broadband connectivity are a “major area” of focus for Facebook and its partners in Internet.org, which says it wants to make “affordable basic Internet services available to everyone in the world.” The plan is to operate drones at 65,000 feet to transmit a signal that covers a city-sized area with a medium population density, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a March 28 paper (bit.ly/1gucfL7). It leaves unanswered the origin of the spectrum for Internet connectivity and how the drones will avoid interfering with other spectrum users. Internet.org declined to comment. Other founding partners are Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.
Talks on an updated treaty to protect broadcast signals appear to have moved beyond consideration of strictly traditional broadcast and cablecast services to those available now and in the future via different technologies, broadcast officials said during last week’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) committee meeting in Geneva. Discussions on the treaty text (http://bit.ly/1nPuvGl) so far have been based on old technologies, but broadcasters want to focus on what they do today and will be doing in the near future, a broadcast official said in an interview. Broadcasters want to make clear that today’s technology and the Internet-connected TV of tomorrow -- including simulcast transmissions and catch-up services -- should be included in the treaty, the source said. Civil society groups said covering Internet-related activities would only add more complexity and harm users.
A global initiative is “urgently needed” to boost user protection and security online, said a report for the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) approved Wednesday in Strasbourg. CoE members must enact and enforce “powerful laws” that ensure data is moved, stored and intercepted only in ways that are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and all new devices and services should automatically include encryption, filtering, virus protection and authentication tools, said the report by Axel Fischer, of the European People’s Party (EPP) and Germany. Providers of cloud services or Wi-Fi hotspots “should face special oversight,” and ISPs must be more up-front about their policies, it said. It urged the ITU to set technical standards. The assembly also green-lighted a report by Jaana Pelkonen, of the EPP and Finland, urging governments to make Internet access a universal service requirement and adopt strict net neutrality rules.
Europe’s phone and Internet data traffic storage law is invalid, the European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday. To the joy of digital rights and privacy activists, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and others, the court said the data retention directive (CD Dec 13 p25) “entails a wide-ranging and particularly serious interference” with fundamental rights, without the interference being “precisely circumscribed” to ensure that it’s limited to what’s strictly necessary. The judgment “finds that untargeted monitoring of the entire population is unacceptable in a democratic society,” said Digital Rights Ireland (DRI), one of the law’s challengers. The big question now is what happens to national laws based on the directive, some said in interviews.
EU lawmakers approved net neutrality protections and an end to mobile roaming fees Thursday, as expected (CD April 3 p13). By a 534-25 vote on the European Commission-proposed “connected continent” package, members of the European Parliament barred Internet access providers from blocking or slowing selected services for economic or other reasons. They also approved language banning mobile data, voice and text roaming charges as of Dec. 15, 2015. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) wanted clear rules to stop Internet access providers from promoting some services at the expense of others, Parliament said. Under the language approved, providers would still be able to offer specialized services of higher quality, such as VOD, as long as that doesn’t affect the availability or quality of access services offered to other companies or service suppliers, it said. Amendments also shortened the EC’s list of cases in which access providers could still be entitled to block or slow the Internet. MEPs want those practices to be permitted only to enforce a court order, safeguard network security or prevent temporary network congestion, Parliament said. All Internet traffic must be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, regardless of the sender, recipient, type, content, device, service or application, it said. The Netherlands enshrined net neutrality into law in 2012, noted MEP Marietje Schaake, of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the amendments of which she said helped close loopholes in the text. “The public value of an open internet can not be underestimated,” she said in a news release. Digital rights activists were overjoyed, telcos dismayed. The net neutrality vote “established the EU as the major global force to protect the freedom of the open internet,” said European Digital Rights Executive Director Joe McNamee in a news release. By amending the text with cross-party amendments, MEPs “took a historic step” to protect net neutrality and the Internet commons in the EU, said French citizens’ advocacy group La Quadrature du Net. BEUC-The European Consumer Organisation said MEPs heard consumers “loud and clear” in tackling roaming fees, the “hydra of EU regulation,” and building a net neutrality buffer against granting control over Internet traffic speeds and access to “Europe’s handful of network operators.” The telecom and digital technology sectors said the net neutrality provisions could reduce consumer choice and hurt competitiveness. Amendments mandating the complete separation of specialized services and requiring that they not have any influence on capacity available for other Internet services are concerning, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association. The text approved would place far-reaching restrictions on traffic management, making efficient network management nearly impossible, it said. The European Parliament’s stance on net neutrality is too specific about how networks should function, and it will quickly become obsolete as innovation drives the technology forward, said DigitalEurope. The question now is whether operators feel they can work within the scope of the regulation to offer the services they plan to, but a last-minute lobbying effort to remove some of the wording of what constitutes such services suggest not, said Ovum analyst Matthew Howett. “The fear exists around whether even basic (and generally accepted) forms of traffic management will be permissible” under the EC’s vision for an open Internet, he said. The telecom package now needs approval from EU members. The EC expects final agreement by year’s end, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes.
Lobbying on a European Commission telecom reform package ratcheted up a day before Thursday’s European Parliament vote. Although the “connected continent” measure (CD Dec 2 p8) addresses a range of issues such as mobile roaming charges and spectrum allocation, most of the attention has focused on its net neutrality provisions, which have attracted intense lobbying from major telcos, digital rights and consumer activists and EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Everyone seems to want an open Internet, but few agree on what that means, said consultant Innocenzo Genna, who represents non-incumbent telecom and Internet players. The fate of the package was unclear at deadline, but some observers predicted the more net neutrality-friendly provisions might pass.