News of Note — Ubiquiti’s Upcoming IPO

Ubiquiti is one of 15 tech companies that have filed for an IPO recently. Ubiquiti’s IPO is making some commentators bullish on the fixed wireless industry and others are saying that it’s a good sign for equipment makers. On Ubiquiti’s lists, Matt noted that SEC rules forbid him from talking about it. The company plans to take the NASDAQ ticker symbol UBNT. The nine executive officers and directors currently own 95.96 percent of the company. The IPO is expected to raise about $200 millon.

WISPA

On the WISPA lists, Steve Coran provided an update on efforts to educate Congress about spectrum policy. At Public Knowledge, Harold Feld is upset that spectrum policy is being seen as a tool for raising money (from AT&T and Verizon) instead of a tool for building America’s broadband future. WISPA strongly opposes this shortsighted policy.

In a blog post earlier this month, Coran provided a detailed update on the FCC’s net neutrality stance.

On Friday, Jack Unger will represent WISPA at the ISART conference in Boulder, Colorado. He will be on the panel “Sharing Radar Bands with Commercial Systems” which will be webcast and which starts at 8 AM local time. The panel is moderated by the FCC’s Julius Knapp.

Drones for Oklahoma

If you’re in Oklahoma, take note. The state applied to open the first ever drone zone in U.S. airspace in a bid to become an aerospace design powerhouse for unmanned flight.

Business

Business services now account for 75 percent of Earthlink’s revenues.

Internap is shaking up its channel by cutting 30 of its 40 master agents.

Level 3 increased revenues but its acquisition of Global Crossing for $1.9 billion in stock also drove up losses.

Two data center providers, Hostway and Telecity, reported outages this week in Austin and London, respectively.

CERN published the Open Hardware License 1.1 (OHL 1.1) in an attempt to aid or standardize the open source hardware movement (some WISPA vendor members are part of this movement).

NTT Docomo, Japan’s mobile incumbent, announced a 10 year plan to reduce carbon emissions by building green towers and green power generation facilities. The company also wants to recycle more and to use less paper.

EConsultancy reports that several media outlets in Slovakia have managed to get customers to pay for access to news stories.

Karl Bode reports that Verizon turned off a DSL customer who complained that the company violated its own “price for life” offer.

Security

The head of US-CERT resigned after the revelation of high profile attacks on critical government systems.

The pwnies award nominees have been revealed. The five nominees for “Pwnie for Most Epic FAIL” are Sony, Sony, Sony, Sony, and Sony (h/t Mikko Hypponen).

Politics, government, and the law

The FCC wants more ISPs to file Form 477. Perhaps there should be an “EZ Form” for small businesses that are ISPs?

Lightsquared may still have to solve interference issues with GPS.

The U.S. government will be closing some data centers: “federal agencies are required to close 800 of the government’s 2,094 data centers by 2015, with the goal of saving $3 billion annually.”

The U.S. government wants to fundamentally change how passwords are used and identities verified on the internet.

Karl Bode notes that wireless fear has become legislation in San Francisco in the story: San Fran Passes Cell Radiation Warning Law — Despite Lack of Science Proving Cell Health Risk.

Even Kansas City, Google’s chosen fiber town, may not get many jobs from the new fiber network, but cities across the U.S. are planning big investments in fiber infrastructure (h/t Joly MacFie). Engineering work is starting on the Kansas City project.

Time Warner Telecom wants the FCC to regulate VoIP.

A group claiming to protect independent movie makers established the Center for Copyright Information. Its ISP members are AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon (h/t Ken Hohhof).

In a demonstration of the long reach of U.S. law, Microsoft admitted that the Patriot Act could force the company to deliver cloud data stored in the EU to the U.S. government, possibly in violation of EU privacy laws, but that if so, “customers would be informed wherever possible.”

The FCC will need more time to review AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile. As a prepaid cellphone user, I am concerned that this merger would harm me. Even high end consumers could be harmed. PC World’s Tom Henderson calls out the duopoly pricing power of a post-merger AT&T and Verizon when he writes, “Verizon Wireless, the carrier I use, has ended smartphone all-you-can-eat data plans, in favor of tiered data plans, much to the immense consternation of their clientele. Why make their clients unhappy, you might ask? Because they can.”

A massive 410 page report on media and personal freedom on the internet worldwide, Freedom on the Net 2011 is available for free on scribd. The report was published by UNDEF, the United Nations’ arm for encouraging democracy.

CITI, the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, part of Columbia University, published Broadband in America — 2nd Edition. CITI published a report for the FCC in 2009, which Bruce Kushnick and I critiqued for not going back far enough into the history of the internet.

A crackdown on news aggregators in the UK can make people guilty of a crime for clicking on a link. “The ruling effectively states that millions of internet users are breaking copyright law when they click on news articles. The fact the you are creating a temporary cache on your browser when reading articles makes you a copyright offender.”

Twenty-one children have died after being left alone in cars this year, and the Department of Transportation wants to know if technology can solve the problem.

An article on fiber broadband policy in Australia garnered 321 comments (h/t Joly MacFie).

The single mom who lost a court case over downloading 26 songs had her fine reduced from $1.5 million to $54,000 by a judge who said that the jury award was outrageous (h/t Robert Cannon).

A judge fined copyright troll Righthaven $5,000 for lying to the court. The punishment seems light.

Law trivia

Did you know that Satan was once sued in the state of Pennsylvania?

Summer vacation for Snow Tech magazine

The staff at Snow Tech magazine have been fishing, boating, and ATVing, but promise to get back to work soon.