EU findings that ISPs there aren’t violating net neutrality rules despite “fear mongering on behalf of net neutrality proponents” also have implications in the U.S., said Roslyn Layton, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy, in a blog post Tuesday. Layton cited a news release last week from the EU (http://bit.ly/1xlOBdc). EU investigators did a thorough search, raiding the offices of Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefonica in July “during an unannounced investigation of the Internet and mobile service providers’ traffic management practices,” she said. “The EU Commission should be recognized for conducting a proper investigation of traffic management practices as part of its net neutrality rulemaking,” she wrote (http://bit.ly/1nYwfyZ). “When the evidence does not exist to support the proposed regulation, then the regulation should not be implemented. It’s a lesson just as important for the EU as it is for the US."

Parties to the Information Technology Agreement should come together in the coming weeks to broker an expansion deal before the November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing, said associations in a Sunday statement (http://bit.ly/1pCRhwU). Groups including CEA, the CompTIA, Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition, DigitalEurope and Entertainment Software Association said the expansion deal would eliminate tariffs on more IT products, and “help restore confidence” in the World Trade Organization, following the recent collapse of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. The U.S. and China are two of the 70 nations involved in the expansion talks, but each side blames the other for not putting appropriate concessions on the table. “For the past several years, APEC leaders have repeatedly called for swift conclusion of a balanced and commercially significant outcome to these negotiations,” said the statement. “Product expansion of the ITA, as well as expansion of geographic scope of the agreement would yield immediate and substantial benefits, removing tariffs on a vast array of tech products.” Despite many IT industry developments in recent years, the ITA hasn’t broadened its list of duty-exempt products since its launch in 1996. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has called for the expansion talks to wrap up by November. The location of the APEC meeting may help break the U.S.-China deadlock, said John Neuffer, senior vice president-global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, in a blog post Sunday (http://bit.ly/10fsbiV). “As host to APEC this year, China will likely want to trumpet noteworthy trade deliverables when the leaders meet in Beijing this November,” said Neuffer. “And China should want to reaffirm its support for the WTO. ITA expansion stands out as the most likely -- and most significant -- among the potential trade deliverables.” CEA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement Monday that 82 signatories globally, representing tens of thousands of businesses, “are rallying together to support trade negotiators from all member economies in the ITA.” It marks an “opportunity now to come together, bridge gaps and finalize this negotiation so that a huge win may be announced in Beijing at the November APEC ... meeting,” Shapiro said. The ITA hasn’t been updated since its creation 16 years ago, CEA said. An expanded ITA “could remove tariffs on an estimated additional $800 billion in information and communication technology trade globally,” it said.

The U.S. National Public Safety Telecommunications Council and the Canadian Interoperability Technology Interest Group scheduled a workshop in Windsor, Ontario, Oct. 20-22 on “gaps” in voice and data interoperability facing first responders (http://bit.ly/1t2MPtp). “Ensuring security and safety along the Canada-U.S border is a shared challenge for both Canada and the United States that requires collaboration and coordination between the two nations,” the groups said. “To be successful, personnel from both countries require the ability to exchange voice and data communications in real-time and across disciplines and jurisdictions in an effective and timely manner."

Intel will invest up to $1.5 billion for 20 percent ownership of the Chinese holding company Tsinghua Unigroup to expand the adoption of Intel-based mobile devices in China, Intel said Thursday (http://intel.ly/1okrHNU). Tsinghua Unigroup owns Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics, Chinese fabless semiconductor makers that produce mobile chipsets for smartphones and other CE products, Intel said. “China is now the largest consumption market for smartphones and has the largest number of Internet users in the world,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in a news release. The partnership with Tsinghua Unigroup will “enhance our ability to support a wider range of mobile customers in China and the rest of the world by more quickly delivering a broader portfolio of Intel architecture and communications technology solutions,” he said. To begin, Intel and Spreadtrum will jointly create a line of Intel-based system-on-chips for smartphones that both companies will sell starting in 2015’s second half, Intel said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative seeks comment by Oct. 24 on Internet forums and physical markets outside the U.S. that should be included in USTR’s notorious markets list, which includes markets that are involved in copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting. Comment via www.regulations.gov using docket USTR-2014-0017, said USTR in a notice set to appear in Friday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1suBatg).

Google will face charges if it doesn’t improve on its proposed settlement in an ongoing antitrust case with EU regulators, said EU Antitrust Commissioner Joaquin Almunia in a speech, the prepared text of which published Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1qr3xRj). The case centers on how Google presents search results related to its competitors. “Fresh evidence” from complaints filed in response Google’s proposed antitrust settlement factored heavily into Almunia’s decision to reject the proposal, he said. “I have communicated this to the company asking them to improve its proposals,” Almunia said. “We now need to see if Google can address these issues and allay our concerns.” Google competitors and consumer advocates lambasted the proposal when it was unveiled.

"Europe needs to reform and forge a true digital single market,” said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in an essay published on the European Commission’s (EC) website (http://bit.ly/1ylRKhy). If Europe establishes a digital single market, “the macroeconomic benefits would be enormous,” he said. Citing European Policy Centre research (http://www.epc.eu/dsm/1/), Schmidt said a single digital market in Europe could raise EU GDP by at least 4 percent by 2020, generating 250 billion euros of “additional growth.” But European companies have lagged in technology adoption, partially due to hesitancy about obtaining individual licenses to operate in each of the 28 EU countries, he said. “If regulatory barriers are removed, startups could directly access half a billion European consumers, a market that’s larger than the US, where technology companies have the ability to achieve scale before they expand internationally.” The essay was posted on the site for Neelie Kroes, a European commissioner and head of the EC’s digital agenda. Kroes has made a single digital market a top priority of her tenure, but Google has faced ongoing pushback from EU antitrust officials (CD Sept 22 p10).

Governments must be wary of the growing capacity for unlawful and arbitrary surveillance as technology quickly advances, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday before the U.N. Human Rights Council (http://bit.ly/1qKL72P). The commissioner’s office said it submitted a report (http://bit.ly/1yqH5yH) that concluded “the technological platforms upon which global political, economic and social life are increasingly reliant are not only vulnerable to mass surveillance, they may actually facilitate it.” The U.N. General Assembly requested the report and will hear its findings during the General Assembly’s 69th session, beginning Tuesday.

Smartphones will account for two of three mobile connections globally by 2020, said the GSM Association of mobile operators in a study released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1nOleL5). The study said smartphones account for one of every three mobile connections today, or more than 2 billion mobile connections. It forecast smartphone connections will grow threefold over the next six years, reaching 6 billion by 2020, to two-thirds of the 9 billion mobile connections by that time. Basic phones, feature phones and data terminals such as tablets, dongles and routers will be the remainder, it said. “The smartphone has sparked a wave of global innovation that has brought new services to millions and efficiencies to businesses of every type,” it said. “Smartphones will be the driving force of mobile industry growth over the next six years, with 1 billion new smartphone connections expected over the next 18 months.” Emerging markets overtook the “developed world” in terms of smartphone connections three years ago and today account for two of every three smartphones on the planet, the new study said. It predicted that by 2020, four of five smartphone connections worldwide will come from the developing world. China led the world with 629.2 million smartphone connections at the end of Q2, followed by the U.S. (196.8 million connections), Brazil (141.8 million), India (111 million) and Indonesia (95 million). In many developed markets, smartphone penetration is approaching the 80 percent “ceiling” at which growth tends to slow, the study said. Smartphone adoption is forecast to reach 75 percent in Europe and North America by 2020, though smartphone growth in these two regions has slowed in recent years, it said. Smartphone connections grew 35 percent in North America and 39 percent in Europe between 2010 and 2013, compared with growth rates higher than 80 percent during that same period in Asia Pacific and Latin America, it said.

Comcast teamed with Liberty Global in a partnership that would give many Comcast Xfinity and Liberty Global Internet customers access to millions of new Wi-Fi access points in various countries by next year. Comcast has more than 3 million Xfinity Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S., and Liberty Global has more than 2.5 million Wi-Fi home spots in Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, and other European countries, Comcast said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1wjrrq4). The agreement gives many of the 11 million Americans visiting Europe each year, and the 12 million Europeans visiting the U.S. each year, a free alternative to cellular data roaming, it said.