Five telecom trade groups and two broadband providers have asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to put a hold on net neutrality rules it recently approved.Seeking a partial stay of the FCC’s rules are trade groups USTelecom, CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the American Cable Association and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association as well as ISPs AT&T and CenturyLink. The groups asked the FCC Friday to put a hold on its decision to reclassify broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service, but the requests do not affect the commission’s rules that prohibit blocking, throttling and paid prioritization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Interop 2015: The quizIt’s time again for Interop, where the greatest networking minds in the world gather to find answers to their knottiest problems – security, storage, cloud services, mobility, virtualization, the Internet of Things – the list goes on and on. It’s also time for the Internet quiz, where the greatest minds in networking try to answer a few questions about the trade show in an effort to demonstrate their tech acumen and preparedness. Keep track of your answers as you go and see at the end how well you did.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A U.S. Congress committee has overwhelmingly approved legislation designed to stop the bulk collection of U.S. phone records by the National Security Agency.The 25-2 vote in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee sends the USA Freedom Act to the House floor for a vote. The two votes against the bill came from lawmakers who had argued for stronger protections for civil liberties.The legislation is a stronger version of a similar bill that passed the House last May but stalled in the Senate, sponsors said. However, several efforts to further strengthen privacy protections by amending the bill failed in committee. Opponents said changes would upend a carefully crafted compromise with House Republican leaders who have threatened to kill an amended bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Access, a global human rights group, has appealed to the United Nations and the African Union to intervene in the Burundian government’s decision to block mobile social media amid protests aimed at stopping President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third-term bid.The government of Burundi on Monday ordered the shutdown of social media applications including Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Viber on the mobile Web, according to various media reports. The country’s telecom sector regulator ordered telecom operators to block the apps, according to reports.“Although fixed-line internet does not appear to be impacted, the majority of internet users in Burundi rely upon mobile internet for connectivity,” Access noted in a letter to the UN and the African Union.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Virginia woman writes to Christopher Elliott, an author, journalist and consumer advocate who gets results:
Help! Verizon lost the cable boxes and remotes I returned to it via UPS after I moved out of my apartment. Now it’s trying to stick me with a $2,000 bill, even though UPS tracking showed it had been delivered, and even though the Verizon representative I spoke to agreed and updated my account to show that they had received the equipment.Here’s the problem: I discarded the UPS tracking information after speaking with the Verizon rep in early December, never dreaming that it would come back to haunt me on my January bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, has introduced legislation that would overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s recent net neutrality rules.Paul on Wednesday introduced a resolution of disapproval, a move that allows Congress to review new federal regulations from government agencies, using an expedited legislative process.Paul, of Kentucky, joins House of Representatives Republicans, who introduced their own resolution of disapproval earlier in April. Both bills are largely symbolic. While resolutions of disapproval cannot be filibustered, or blocked, by minority Democrats in the Senate, President Barack Obama would almost certainly veto the efforts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Obscured by Juniper’s solid first quarter results were underwhelming results in its enterprise and switching businesses. Switching was off 13% from the first quarter of 2014, while the company’s enterprise business slumped about 10%.Sequentially, switching was off close to 5% and enterprise was down 2% from the fourth quarter of 2014.Still, Juniper posted a quarter that beat estimates and its own revenue and earnings guidance. The results were due to slightly better demand from cloud, cable and European service providers, and demand for routers among large enterprises, particularly those in the government vertical.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
LAS VEGAS -- Extreme Networks this week said it will support a community-developed policy framework in its SDN controller as well as tighter integration with Microsoft’s unified communications platform.Extreme is adopting the OpenDaylight Project’s group-based policy model in its OneController SDN software. Cisco contributed the group-based policy framework to OpenDaylight open source effort when it rolled it out as part of its Application Centric Infrastructure programmable fabric in November, 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amateur radio has stepped in to fill communication gaps in Nepal, which is struggling with power outages and a flaky Internet after a devastating earthquake on Saturday killed over 5,000 people.The hobbyist radio operators, also known as ham radio operators or hams, are working round-the-clock to help people get in touch with relatives, pass on information and alert about developing crises ever since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit about 80 kilometers from Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu.Ham radio sends voice or morse code messages across radio frequencies and has often helped in emergencies. It can work off solar power or low-voltage batteries, which means that the radios can continue to work even after smartphones and laptops are discharged, said Jayu Bhide, National Coordinator for Disaster Communication at the Amateur Radio Society of India, on Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has reintroduced legislation aimed at ending the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephone records across the country.Four senior members of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee planned to reintroduce the USA Freedom Act late Tuesday. The House passed a watered-down version of similar legislation in last May, but the Senate failed to act on it before November’s elections.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon has opened a marketplace for businesses where they can purchase items ranging from basic office supplies like paper clips to sophisticated products such as lab supplies and tractor parts.Companies that use Amazon Business will receive free two-day shipping on orders costing more than US$49. Only U.S. businesses can shop at the marketplace, but it’s open to both domestic and international sellers.Amazon built the site in response to strong demand from businesses for an online shopping service similar to the company’s core marketplace for consumers, the company said Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google will give €150 million (US$163 million) to European publishers and digital journalism startups in the next three years as part of a wider package that aims to support the news sector.The Internet giant has had a difficult relationship with publishers in many countries in Europe over using snippets for its news indexing, but having eight top publishers joining its initiative may soften up other publishers to also do a deal.The move also comes just weeks after the European Commission charged Google with abusing its dominant position in Internet search services in Europe and started an antitrust probe into Android over app bundling practices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Best Buy said its customers could start using Apple Pay from Monday to make purchases on its app through the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, thus appearing to break ranks with a group of leading U.S. merchants who are backing an alternative payment system.“The acceptance of Apple Pay in the Best Buy app is the latest enhancement for our mobile platform,” the giant retailer said in a statement on Monday. Best Buy stores in the U.S. will start accepting Apple Pay later this year, it added.Apple CEO Tim Cook also announced during an earnings conference call Monday that Apple Pay would be supported on the Best Buy app and in stores later this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aerohive Networks announced Monday that Dell will begin reselling its wireless LAN and related management products -- not a shocker in light of longtime Dell OEM partner Aruba Networks being snapped up by HP in a multi-billion deal last month.Aerohive says Dell is a good fit in that the 802.11ac access points and HiveManager NG cloud-based management platform help to fill out Dell's line-up of products spanning from the data center to endpoints. "We believe there is a large demand from customers that like doing business with 'pure play' access layer solution providers vs. large networking companies like Cisco and HP," says Bill Hoppin, Aerohive VP of Business Development.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Although the cost of 3D printers continues to drop so that more people have them in their homes, it’s not like most homes have one. But innovative minds keep turning out new and improved 3D printers, such as the following three new types: one can print soft and cuddly objects from fabric; another includes actuators that allow an object to morph after being exposed to external stimuli; the last has a retrofit kit to change 3D printers into 3D food printers.Disney 3D-prints soft objects from fabric You know how little kids can be super attached to one particular item like a toy or a blanket? And if that item gets lost or destroyed, it’s a red alert unless you can find another exactly like the first. If that beloved object is a soft cuddly toy, wouldn’t be great if you could 3-D print another? Disney Research has come up with a 3D printer that can create soft interactive objects like a printed fabric bunny.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP this week strengthened its campus networking portfolio with modules for a switch chassis it announced almost a year ago, and an SDN-based management application.The additions are intended to improve an enterprise’s ability to support mobility, security, application performance and network monitoring in the campus. They are consistent with the industry trend in campus networking to better integrate wired and wireless infrastructure and applications.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Aruba Networks is different from HP’s failed wireless acquisitions +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If your place is larger than an apartment, there's a good chance that you spend a bit of time, periodically, going around changing lightbulbs.It's one of those things. Like cutting the grass and placing the garbage cans at the curb, it's the price you pay.Replacing incandescent light bulbs with LEDs can go some of the way towards solving this onerous time-absorber. GE claims its screw-in LED light bulb replacements last 25 years, for example.They cost a bit more, but they do save on work. You shouldn't have to change them as often—if at all.Multifunction light bulbs
Well, one Chinese LED light bulb manufacturer reckons it has solved this, and a couple of other home issues too. It has a solution to the problem of expiring bulbs, Wi-Fi dead spots in the home, and also the issue of trailing wires for audio speakers—all within the light bulb.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After the earthquake: Tech is a fragile lifeline in NepalIn the first day after a devastating earthquake in Nepal on Saturday, Internet connectivity looked to be an important conduit for bypassing an overloaded telephone network. But by Monday it was clear that large-scale power outages and last-mile Internet connectivity problems were making communications very difficult. The death toll from the quake and numerous aftershocks stands at more than 3,400 people with thousands more injured. Among those killed was a high-ranking Google engineer who was one of a number of expeditioners on Mount Everest who lost their lives in an avalanche triggered by the earthquake.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Phone and Internet communications have been hit in Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu after a devastating earthquake, forcing aid workers at times to ask people to go across with messages.The International Red Cross and tech companies like Facebook and Google introduced tools to help users check online on people affected, but their effectiveness could be impacted by large-scale power outages and last-mile Internet connectivity problems.MORE: Google exec dies on Mt. Everest as result of Nepal quakeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet is playing an important role in communications in Nepal after a devastating earthquake, as phone links were choked by the large number of people trying to connect.Internet service was disrupted after the earthquake hit near the capital city of Kathmandu on Saturday and cloud services provider Akamai said its traffic to the country saw a steep decline just after 6:00 UTC.Nepal Telecom survived the earthquake while smaller Internet service providers experienced outages, Internet performance monitoring company Dyn said. It had earlier reported that the earthquake had rattled the Internet in the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here