Wireless

A hacker who demanded $50,000 from Symantec to not release stolen computer code from the computer security firm says the company was tricked into offering the bribe and has since released some of the stolen code, The Washington Post reports.

The New York Times says one of the reasons why the two sides in the debate over online piracy legislation are having trouble finding a compromise is that they have yet to agree on the scope of the problem.

Sprint says it is close to shutting down parts of the Nextel network that have proved to be a costly distraction since the two companies merged seven years ago, CNET reports.

The wireless industry group CTIA in a blog post examines whether it's legal for political campaigns to call voters on their cell phones.

Fox News details why wireless carriers really don't like the iPhone.

In its first earnings report since going public, the online deal provider Groupon says it lost money in the last quarter of 2011, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee said Wednesday he is confident that House and Senate negotiators will include his version of spectrum legislation in a payroll tax package given that it would generate more cash to pay down the deficit than the Senate Commerce Committee's version.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., outlined an aggressive agenda for his panel for this year, including pushing for legislation to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband and to help build a national broadband public safety network.

Walden and Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., are among the House conferees picked to help negotiate the differences between the House and Senate versions of legislation that would extend a payroll tax holiday and other tax breaks. The House's payroll tax bill, passed last month, included the spectrum legislation authored by Walden that was approved by his subcommittee in November.

The Senate Commerce Committee approved its own version of spectrum legislation last summer. Both the Walden and Commerce bills would authorize auctions to entice broadcasters to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum for a share of the money generated. Among the notable differences between Walden's measure and the Senate Commerce bill is that his would generate about $10 billion more for deficit reduction, Walden said.

Another provision that has emerged as a point of contention in recent weeks is language in the House bill that would bar the FCC from limiting which companies could participate in incentive auctions. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski earlier this month urged lawmakers not to limit the commission's flexibility to structure the auctions as it sees fit.

Following his speech, AT&T voiced concern that the FCC may try to keep it and other large wireless operators from bidding for the spectrum that broadcasters give up at auction. Walden said the language included in his bill would ensure the FCC can't pick winners and losers. He added that the commission would still have authority to address concerns over market concentration even after an auction is conducted.

"The only reason the chairman is upset about the provision is that he wants to exclude one of two market participants," Walden said, referring to the nation's two biggest wireless firms: AT&T and Verizon Wireless. "I don't think it's good public policy."

Walden said he believes it's likely that some version of the spectrum legislation will be included in the payroll tax package the House and Senate negotiators are trying to hammer out. The conference committee met for the first time Tuesday. "I would think given the need to pay for the various components of the [payroll] legislation...it would cause a problem if it dropped out," he said. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Walden's spectrum legislation would generate $16.7 billion for deficit reduction compared with just $6.5 billion for the Senate bill, authored by Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

Walden also said the full Energy and Commerce committee plans to mark up FCC reform legislation on Feb. 7. While praising Genachowski for making some progress in overhauling how the FCC conducts its business, Walden said changes promoting transparency need to be codified into law.

Democrats, however, have been critical of a provision that would limit the FCC's ability to demand conditions from merging companies in the name of the public interest. "All we're saying is that you can't use leverage on mergers...to achieve effects in the marketplace that you don't statutorily have the right to do," Walden said.

Advances in wireless technology have created "cascades of innovation," and additional investment in new networks has the potential to help get the broader American economy back on track, according to a study released on Thursday by the progressive think-tank NDN and the National Policy Institute.

Researchers Robert Shapiro and Kevin Hassett concluded that transitions from early wireless networks to more advanced 3G and Internet technology led to some 1,585,000 new jobs from April 2007 to June 2011.

"Based on previous advances, the current transition to 4G technologies is likely to spur significant new job creation and growth which could help the American economy restore gains in incomes and business investment," the study predicted.

For every 10 percent increase in the adoption of 3G and 4G technologies, the study estimated that the U.S. economy could gain 231,000 jobs in "less than a year."

"The rapid deployment of 4G technologies and the innovations that will accompany them should generate significant and widespread societal gains, including a stronger economic recovery and expansion from the recent recession," the researchers wrote. "Policies to promote the full deployment of 4G, therefore, should be part of any national job creation and economic strategy."

Hassett is director of economic policy studies and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Shapiro, a former adviser to the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, is chairman of Sonecon, a private economic consulting firm.

Google has rolled out a new search service that combines information from its Google + social networking service to provide personalized search results, the Associated Press reports.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that Google has profited from automated ads touting illegal products such as unofficial ticket resellers to the 2012 Olympics in London.

Hedge fund billionaire and LightSquared investor Philip Falcone is urging the FCC to help resolve the interference issues that have delayed approval of LightSquared's wireless broadband service, Bloomberg reports.

Microsoft is suing two Chinese retail chains for allowing computers with pirated versions of Windows and Microsoft Office software to be sold at the electronic retailers' stores, IDG News reports.

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AT&T says its ahead of schedule in expanding its next-generation wireless network known as LTE, Bloomberg reports.

The New York Times examines whether changes in the leadership of Research in Motion will fix the ailing maker of the BlackBerry.

Apple is trying to put the kibosh on a new action figure that strongly resembles the company's late founder Steve Jobs, CNet reports.

The Associated Press reports that a Swedish file-sharing group has been recognized as a spiritual community by the Swedish government.

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Two more wireless companies are defending their use of diagnostic software provided by Carrier IQ, saying they do not use it to collect personal information about mobile users.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., released responses on Wednesday from Motorola and T-Mobile to his letter expressing concerns about whether Carrier IQ software is used to collect personal information about smart phone users. Motorola noted that it installs the controversial software on certain smart phones at the request of wireless carriers and doesn't receive any data from Carrier IQ.

T-Mobile said it does not collect any personal information about its subscribers through Carrier IQ's software and only uses the software to help improve the performance of its service. This echoed responses Franken got last week from other wireless companies including AT&T and Sprint as well as Carrier IQ itself.

"The diagnostic software from Carrier IQ assists T-Mobile in improving our customers' wireless experience by capturing and analyzing a narrow set of data related to some of the most common issues our customers' experience: device/battery performance, application failures and signal strength," T-Mobile Senior Vice President Thomas Sugrue wrote in a letter to Franken. "Through Carrier IQ, T-Mobile collects this type of technical data solely to understand what is happening on the device and the network so that we can more effectively and directly troubleshoot" service issues.

Franken has voiced concern about reports that a bug in the Carrier IQ software resulted in some text messages being captured. "I appreciate the responses I received, but I'm still very troubled by what's going on," Franken said last week after receiving responses from other wireless firms. "People have a fundamental right to control their private information. After reading the companies' responses, I'm still concerned that this right is not being respected."

A Franken spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on whether her boss plans to seek more information through a hearing or offer legislation. Franken introduced legislation earlier this year that would require companies to obtain explicit permission from users before tracking their location information or sharing it with third parties.

Carrier IQ has denied reports that federal authorities are investigating the company over concerns raised about its software.

The embattled wireless startup LightSquared formally asked the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to rule that global positioning system manufacturers should be responsible for making sure their devices don't experience interference.

Repeated tests have shown that LightSquared's planned nationwide wholesale wireless network would interfere with GPS devices. The FCC has blocked the company from moving forward with its plans until the interference issues are resolved.

But LightSquared argues that GPS devices are not entitled to use LightSquared's spectrum because they don't own the licenses. On Tuesday it filed a petition asking the FCC for a declaratory ruling to confirm the company's spectrum rights.

"Commercial GPS receivers are not licensed, do not operate under any service rules, and thus are not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever,'' the petition said.

The Coalition to Save our GPS, a group of GPS manufacturers and users that oppose planned network, says LightSquared should be responsible for preventing potentially dangerous interference.

"...it is clear that LightSquared simply refuses to accept the overwhelming technical evidence on the interference issue and continues to try to 'define away' devastating test results," the coalition said in a statement when additional test results were released on Thursday.

The LightSquared controversy may delaytwo new nominations to the Federal Communications Commission, at least for now.

On Thursday Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, officially notified the Senate that he plans to place a hold on the confirmations of Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai to be FCC commissioners.

"I will object to proceeding to the nomination because the FCC continues to stonewall a document request I submitted to the FCC over six months ago on April 27, 2011, regarding their actions related to LightSquared and Harbinger Capital," Grassley said in a statement inserted into the Senate record.

Grassley has requested information from the FCC, as well as LightSquared and its chief financier, Harbinger Capital, about how the agency handled LightSquared's quest to build a wholesale nationwide wireless network. Tests have shown that the company's original plan interfered with global positioning systems.

The FCC and LightSquared have denied the requests for documents. In a letter to Grassley on Oct. 19, lawyers for LightSquared and Harbinger said the companies have been "fully transparent." But because Grassley did not also request documents from the GPS industry, LightSquared argued that any further disclosure would present an incomplete picture.

That answer, as well as the FCC's denial, did not play well with Grassley.

"It not only sets a dangerous precedent for a federal agency to unilaterally set the rules on how it engages with Congress -- it also prevents any meaningful ability for the vast majority of Congress to inform themselves of how an agency works," he said.

The hold will go into effect when and if the confirmations reach the Senate floor after being considered by the Commerce Committee.

FCC nominees often face little opposition, but can be used as bargaining chips.

For example, former FCC member Jonathan Adelstein's nomination was blocked for months from 2001 to 2002 by then-Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down Lott's choice for a judicial nomination.

Grassley's move to block the nomination was first reported by The Hill.

The House passed legislation late Tuesday that would temporarily bar states and localities from imposing some new taxes on wireless services like smart phones.

The legislation, authored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Trent Franks, R-Ariz., would impose a five-year moratorium on new state or local taxes on wireless services, unless they are already imposed on other goods and services.

The bill's supporters say states and localities are taxing wireless services, which includes service for mobile phones, iPads and other wireless devices, at rates as high as three times the average state sales tax of 7 percent.

"This bill would not affect any existing revenues. In fact, it wouldn't affect the ability [of states] to raise taxes on all goods," Lofgren said Tuesday during the House debate on the bill. "What it would do is keep [states and localities] from singling out wireless services for disproportionate taxation."

State and local officials worry the bill would limit their ability to raise revenues, so in July the House Judiciary Committee amended the bill to allow a state or city to impose a new wireless tax if it is approved by the affected voters.

Despite this, many groups remain opposed, including the National League of Cities and the National Governors Association, according to Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., who spoke out against the bill during the House debate.

"States need all the tools at their disposal to balance their budgets and preserve and create jobs and provide essential services," Chu said. "Yet this bill takes away one of those tools to protect the wireless industry at the expense of other" industries.

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, have introduced a Senate version of the legislation, but the chamber has yet to act on the measure. The wireless tax legislation is similar to a law Wyden helped author more than a decade ago that would bar states and localities from imposing multiple taxes on Internet access.

"In light of the challenging economy, we hope the U.S. Senate moves swiftly to pass the companion bill," Steve Largent, president and CEO of the wireless industry group CTIA, said in a statement.

The leading wireless industry association wants to defend federal Internet competition rules from consumer groups that say the regulations are too loose.

CTIA-The Wireless Association filed a motion to intervene with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Wednesday. The filing adds another angle to the legal battle over the so-called net neutrality rules, which govern how Internet companies provide service.

Verizon has sued the FCC over the rules, arguing that the agency does not have the authority to regulate the Internet.

At least four other groups have also challenged the rules, but from the other side of the argument. They say the FCC's rules are too weak and arbitrarily exclude wireless networks from many of the regulations.

"CTIA wishes to defend the FCC against that challenge and any related arguments that the FCC erred in imposing too few regulatory burdens," the court filing states.

The advocacy group Public Knowledge has also asked to be allowed to defend the rules against Verizon's arguments.