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The Telecom Digest for Wed, 16 Oct 2019
Volume 38 : Issue 289 : "text" format

Table of contents
FCC Internet Deregulation Survives Court ChallengeBill Horne
Cell Service Returns to Kashmir, Allowing First Calls in MonthsMonty Solomon
Inexpensive, unpatched phones put billions of users' privacy at riskMonty Solomon
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20191015001427.GA26254@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 00:14:27 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: FCC Internet Deregulation Survives Court Challenge By Scott Feira, John P. Elwood and Peter J. Schildkraut On October 1, 2019, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit largely upheld the 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order, in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) classifies internet access as an Information Service under Title I of the Communications Act and adopts a market-based "light touch" policy for governing the internet. The FCC's 2018 Order was a departure from the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order, which had classified internet access as a Telecommunications Service under Title II of the Communications Act to protect "net neutrality" and thus potentially opened the way for utility-style regulation of internet service providers. The case - Mozilla Corp. v. FCC, No. 18-1051 - was decided in an unsigned per curiam opinion, probably because multiple judges on the panel wrote parts of the 186-page opinion. The court did vacate part of the 2018 Order that would have barred states from imposing any rule or requirement that the FCC repealed (or decided to refrain from imposing) in the 2018 Order or that is more stringent than the 2018 Order. Taking a broad reading of this result, Judge Stephen F. Williams noted the incongruity in ruling that the FCC "acted lawfully in rejecting the heavy hand of Title II for the Internet, but that each of the 50 states is free to impose just that." http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=852416&email_access=on -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <010B264E-315F-40C5-8AE8-09FBA18A4BAC@roscom.com> Date: 14 Oct 2019 12:18:00 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Cell Service Returns to Kashmir, Allowing First Calls in Months After imposing a complete communications blackout two months ago, the Indian government on Monday partially restored cellphone service in the Kashmir Valley. By Samee Yasir SRINAGAR, Kashmir When the cellphone started to ring, after 71 days of silence, the crowd erupted into a loud cheer. The region's cell service had been shut off in the hours before the Hindu nationalist government of India's prime minister, Narendra Modi announced on Aug. 5 the revocation of a constitutional provision that gave partial autonomy to Kashmir. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/kashmir-cellphone-service-restored.html ------------------------------ Message-ID: <93C253A6-A9FE-4783-9899-059BB7670550@roscom.com> Date: 13 Oct 2019 21:04:54 -0400 From: "Monty Solomon" <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Inexpensive, unpatched phones put billions of users' privacy at risk Billions who only connect with cheap Android phones pay with their personal info. By Kate Cox Privacy, it seems, is increasingly a luxury reserved for those who can afford it. "Free" services are rarely free, and in the 21st century, the adage seems to be that if you aren't paying with your money, you're paying with your personal data. But while a user at the higher ends of the income scale can afford to be choosy with both their cash and their privacy, users of the cheap, mostly Android-based smart- phones that dominate the market worldwide are bearing the burden. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/inexpensive-unpatched-phones-put-billions-of-users-privacy-at-risk/^
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