In The News

The Food and Drug Administration doesn't want to take away your Fitbit.

Should "general wellness" products like weight management tools, fitness trackers or relaxation helpers be regulated as de facto medical devices? The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't think so, much to the relief of manufacturers of general wellness products.
Background

In recent years, FDA has struggled to regulate new types of products which straddle the line between healthcare product (i.e. a medical device) and general consumer wellness (not regulated by FDA).

NEWS ANALYSIS: All sides claim victory in Title II net neutrality fight as the U.S. Circuit Court rejects to block the rules. However, the FCC's victory could be only temporary.

Big Dallas-Fort Worth technology employers including AT&T, Verizon and 

The FCC's net neutrality rules will go into effect today. The rules ban blocking, throttling and prevent companies from paying to get access to fast lanes to deliver content.

AT&T, CenturyLink and other telecom groups requested a stay of the FCC's new net neutrality rules but those requests were not granted by a D.C. Federal Circuit Court.

Although the new rules are not unanimously supported by all of the FCC commissioners, the regulator said the rules will give service providers "certainty and economic incentive" to build fast and competitive broadband networks.

The DC Circuit has denied the request of broadband providers to stay the FCC’s Open Internet, or net neutrality, rules.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the ruling a huge victory for internet consumers and innovators. The rules will take effect on 12 June, prohibiting blocking, throttling, and pay-for-priority fast lanes. The FCC said the rules will give broadband providers the “certainty and economic incentive” to build fast and competitive broadband networks.

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and IFAST, has announced plans to investigate development of a oneM2M Application ID registry based on oneM2M’s recently released specification TS.0001. This specification defines the operation of an application identifying registry to support the development of applications being built for the expanding M2M industry.

During the TIA 2015 Network of the Future Conference in Dallas, TIA and IFAST members and staff met and agreed to further explore the opportunity under development in oneM2M.

They keep coming closer, but will just fail to make it again this year. The International Telecommunication Union estimated last week that there will be 7.1 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide by the end of this year. Global population, meanwhile, is just about 7.25 billion.

In a world of ever-expanding wireless communications, one of the biggest issues facing the industry is the spectrum crunch.

“Spectrum is the new oil, the new water,” said Telecommunications Industry Association CEO Scott Belcher, referring to the limited supply of radio frequencies useful for wireless traffic.

“As we move to the Internet of things and machine-to-machine communication, we’re going to need more spectrum,” he said. “So, finding that spectrum is a real challenge.”

Industry players, public interest groups and prominent Hill members were all weighing in Thursday on the President's intention to renominate FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to a second term, echoing a theme of public service and passion for her positions.