NEWS BRIEFS
NTSB advises cell phone crackdown
The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that all states immediately pass laws prohibiting inexperienced drivers from using cell phones while behind the wheel.
New Jersey already bans holders of learners’ permits or intermediate licenses from using cell phones, pagers or other wireless devices while driving.
The board also recommended that the federal government expand driver education programs to include information on how much cell phones and other devices distract drivers.
“Learning how to drive and getting comfortable in traffic requires all the concentration a novice driver can muster,” NTSB Chairman Ellen Engleman said. “Adding a distracting element like a cell phone is placing too many demands on a young driver’s skills.”
The Board also urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop a media campaign stressing the dangers of distracted driving, and that it work with the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association to develop driver training curricula that emphasize the risks of distracted driving. The Board cited a study showing that drivers engaged in phone conversations were unaware of traffic movements around them.
Ericsson, HP ink five-year deal
LM Ericsson has announced that it has signed a five-year contract with Hewlett-Packard Co. to handle most of its information technology work.
The deal, announced in April, calls for HP to take over Ericsson IT infrastructure, including data center management and help desk support.
Nearly 1,000 Ericsson workers will be transferred to HP as part of the deal, which will cover the company’s worldwide operations.
Terms of the deal, which takes effect in July pending approval by regulatory agencies in Europe and the United States, weren’t released.
Alaska lawmakers keep commission
The Alaska Senate passed House Bill 111, which extends the life of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska until 2007.
The bill, sponsored by Gov. Frank Murkowski, earned Senate approval with a unanimous 20-to-0 vote.
The bill awaits the governor’s signature.
Cable and Wireless abandon States
British telecommunications group Cable and Wireless has announced plans to withdraw from the United States and slash another 1,500 jobs in Britain as a result of growing losses.
The company reported a pre-tax loss of 6.37 billion pounds (8.86 billion euros, 10.39 billion dollars) for the year to March, an increase of 40 percent from the previous year, largely owing to asset write-downs.
Worldcom nabs Iraq contract
Bankrupt telecom Worldcom — now dubbed MCI — has announced that it has earned a contract to build a wireless network in Iraq.
Details remained scarce, including specifics regarding the bidding process, the size or length of the contract or the financial worth of the deal. Media reports, however, hint that the contract is worth roughly $5 million.
Worth noting: WorldCom left the wireless re-sale business last year and, in fact, does not operate a wireless network in the United States.
Verizon acquires PCS licenses
Verizon Wireless announced it completed the acquisition of 50 PCS licenses and related network assets from Northcoast Communications LLC, for about $750 million in cash.
The licenses provide the company with additional growth capacity over large portions of the East Coast and Midwest, including New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Columbus, OH, Providence, RI, Rochester, NY and Hartford, CT. Total population covered by the 10 MHz licenses is about 47.4 million.
The proceeds, net of payments to the FCC, will be distributed to Northcoast’s partners, which are comprised of Northcoast PCS and a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp. Cablevision’s portion of the proceeds will be used to reduce the company’s debt.
Motorola demos ZigBee network
Motorola Inc. is delivering hardware and software samples to development partners in support of the draft Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.4 Standard being driven by the ZigBee Alliance — an association of companies working to enable low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard.
The hardware and software was to be demonstrated at the ZigBee Alliance European Open House on June 3 in Berlin, Germany. Engineering samples of the comprehensive, standard-compliant Motorola products are expected to be available in November.
Network routing schemes are designed to ensure power conservation, and low latency through guaranteed time slots.
Motorola’s comprehensive MAC/PHY 802.15.4 solution is designed to support the global 2.4 GHz band at data rates of up to 250 kbps over air. The PHY is enabled with a (radio frequency) RF transceiver data modem. An on-chip power management circuit can manage power sources from 2.0 to 3.6V. The transceiver integrates a power amplifier, a low noise amplifier (LNA) with filtering, and is engineered to support multiple power-down states.
The ZigBee Alliance is a nonprofit industry consortium. Part of the Alliance’s goal is to promote low-cost, low-power products enabling the broad-based deployment of wireless networks that are able to run for years on standard batteries for a typical monitoring application.
