Hasta La Gadget!

The FCC claims that the phenomenon known as “bill shock” would be a thing of the past, where mobile carriers charge users exorbitant rates because of flawed billing policies. Hopefully, especially when it was less than a week ago when we reported that a lady in France was billed a whopping 11,721 trillion Euros. Yes sir, that’s right, but thankfully things were sorted out shortly after that. According to the FCC, carriers should be adopting a new set of policies that ought to minimize the occurrences of “bill shock”, where these policies will kick in to warn users whenever they approach their minute or text limits.

Today, there was a deadline in the rules where carriers had to have put in place warnings for customers on at least a couple of a quartet of components – namely, voice minutes, texts, data usage, and international roaming. The last deadline would be April 17, 2013, where carriers will need to deliver alerts for all four items. What do you think of the FCC’s efforts, and this most probably mean that there will be no more bill shock stories to report on in the future.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: 30 million Americans experience bill shock, Casio C811 G’zOne spotted at the FCC,

The last Casio G’zOne handheld to come our way was the Commando, a military-grade device that marked the company’s first foray into Android smartphones. Now it seems there’s another one in the works, at least if a recent FCC filing is any indication. The Casio C811 looks to be a successor to the aforementioned Commando, with its G’zOne branding and features like WiFi and GSM world phone capabilities. Notably, the FCC document reveals the phone has Verizon-flavored LTE plus NFC support, both of which lead us to believe it’ll likely be a mid- to high-end handset. Not much else is divulged from perusing the filing, but we’re sure that whatever the C811 turns out to be, it’ll be just as tough and durable as the rest of Casio’s G’zOne offerings.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Verizon

Next-gen Casio G’zOne makes it to the FCC, reveals LTE and NFC support originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Oct 2012 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission that allows the carrier to use a section of unused airwaves for its expanding 4G LTE network. A section of the 2.3GHz spectrum band known as Wireless Communications Services (WCS) will be handed over to AT&T, while also cutting down on interference for Sirius satellite radio subscribers.

The decision was approved today by the Federal Communications Commission on a 5-0 vote, but the decision didn’t come lightly. The main reason why the airwaves remained unused by mobile carriers was the fact that it would cause interference problems with Sirius XM’s satellite radio signals if a carrier ended up using the airwaves.

However, AT&T and Sirius have come up with an agreement that would turn 10MHz of the Wireless Communications Services airwaves into “guard bands” on either side of Sirius’s spectrum. This will leave AT&T with 20MHz of spectrum that is free and clear, and Sirius satellite radio broadcasts won’t be interrupted.

It turns out the FCC auctioned off the spectrum back in 1997, but it’s never been claimed by a wireless carrier due to the risk of interferences with other services. However, in order to effectively work properly, AT&T must own the entire spectrum band, so the carrier will still be struggling to consolidate the remaining airwaves that are still owned by other services.

[via Washington Post]

We do know that AT&T will be offering the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820 to the masses in due time, in conjunction with the release of the Windows Phone 8 platform, but before that is to happen, both handsets will still need to gain a collective nod of approval from the folks over at the FCC. It is nice to see that both brothers in arms have picked up approvals for the GSM versions, which means those rocking to AT&T as well as Canadian carriers will soon be able to hold one of these puppies in their hands.

It is rather interesting to note that the RM-820 model number is listed on the Lumia 920, as the distinctive curved form factor gives the game away, carrying with it 700MHz LTE in AT&T’s range as well as AWS-based LTE for both AT&T as well as its Canadian counterpart. As for the Lumia 820, it is identified as the RM-824. Now to just wait for Microsoft’s event that is happening later this October 29th where more, if not all, will be revealed.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nokia Lumia LTE phones headed to AT&T?, Nokia Lumia 800 LTE version coming to the US?,

Boxee is declaring victory in recent FCC decisions on cable encryption, though the loophole for third-party devices wanting to tune into free channels could involve some messy cabling. The set-top box company had joined with Comcast to protest against cable encryption proposals that could have blocked devices like the Boxee Box from getting a signal without owners paying a subscription, and while the FCC isn’t entirely convinced by their collective arguments, it has thrown a temporary solution their way.

Boxee itself plays coy with the details, but the FCC’s own summary spills some technical details. Cable companies will be obliged to notify users that their basic tier service will be encrypted and offer them a free adapter box: those with only basic service will get up to two of the boxes for two years (five years if they’re on Medicaid), while those with an existing cable company supplied STB or DVR will get one of the boxes for a spare TV.

Those adapters will decrypt the basic service and allow the Boxee Box and other third-party systems to chew through the channels as they do now. However, it’s not all gone Boxee’s way. Subscribers will have to pay a monthly service fee outside of that two year period for the use of the adapters.

Meanwhile, there were calls to mandate the sort of FRAND-style (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations that 3G patent holders must follow to cable companies, but the FCC decided only to insist on “good faith” licensing and the requirement for clear DLNA (or other standard) labeling so that users and third-party manufacturers know what will work with which box.

Meanwhile, there’s no end in sight for CableCARD either, with the FCC opting to stick with the technology despite some requests to replace it. The Commission points out that no company should have been branding its devices as “digital cable ready” unless they had CableCARD support, and argues that the proviso means there should be no confusion.

FCC cuts Boxee a little encryption slack (but not forever) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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