What's New

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its most recent report on access in the United States to high-speed Internet connections, documenting for the first time the gap between current service levels and the benchmark Internet connection speeds recommended under the Commission’s National Broadband Plan.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also released a report on local telephone competition, reflecting data submitted by incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers through June 30, 2009.

The Commission of the European Union (EU) has initiated an investigation into charges that manufacturers in the People’s Republic of China are shipping government subsidized wireless wide area networking (WWAN) modems into the EU, in violation of the EU’s anti-dumping laws.

A worldwide epidemic of counterfeit electronic components is flooding the market and affects the supply chains of all industries. It is estimated that the financial loss due to counterfeit components is over $10 billion per year. Counterfeiting itself becomes profitable when scrapped components, components from recycled products or inexpensive components can be “remarked” and sold as a new, more expensive, higher reliability version. Much of the effort today has not been placed on preventing counterfeiting but rather screening components to identify and remove counterfeits before they are used in a finished product.

Product liability has created problems for manufacturers and product sellers for many decades. These problems have been exacerbated by the expansion of product liability laws throughout the world. In addition, there has been a proliferation of safety regulatory requirements, starting in the United States and then moving to the European Union. In addition, countries such as Japan, China, Australia, Canada, Brazil and South Africa have all recently established or strengthened their product safety regulatory regimes and requirements.