Technology & Telecom Blog

San Francisco, often the breeding ground for interesting public policy proposals, decided recently to back off its mandate that would have required retailers of cell phones to label them with radiation levels and pass out material explaining the level of SAR in each device (SAR= Specific Absorption Rate).

This has not been done anywhere else and faced stiff opposition from the wireless industry, which filed suit against the ordinance last year.

Level 3 Communications today announced it would purchase Global Crossing for about $1.9 billion. Both of these companies are long-haul Internet backbone providers, which do the majority of transiting of information between Internet Service Providers (in the form of last-mile access), content providers and customers.

Some surprising news over the weekend as AT&T announced that it will buy T-Mobile, which is a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche-Telekom AG. The deal will see roughly $39 billion change hands ($14 billion in stock, $25 billion in cash) and is expected to be finalized over the next year.

A new report out today in State Tax Notes ranks Washington state's citizens as having to pay the second most in the nation towards their wireless taxes and fees. The report says that Washingtonians pay 17.95% in state and local taxes and fees, and 5.05% in federal USF fees for a combined rate of 23%. This is far higher than a normal state + local sales tax (hovering around 10% throughout most of Washington). It is also higher than the U.S. average of 16.26%.